This old school Banana Upside Down Cake is beautifully spiced, moist and delicious. The caramel topping will always be a crowd pleaser!

So much love for old school cooking!

Geez, I shouldn’t admit I love old school cooking because you’re probably going to think I’m as old as a dinosaur. I was born in the early eighties, so I’m not that old (unless you’re reading this 20 years later).

I just had a funny thought popped into my head! When I was 17, this 25-year-old dude asked me out. Luckily for him, I declined because he avoided the crazy that was attached to me. 17-year-old me was thinking ‘OMG dude, 25! You’re so old!’ Gosh, now that I’m way past that age, 25-year-olds are more like ‘spring chickens’ to me!

Old school recipes and cooking will always have a spot in my heart because it’s nostalgic. I love the wonderful memories attached to dishes. Sometimes I wish I could step into a time machine and go back to that carefree child with no responsibilities. A 5-year-old that was cutting recipes out from mummy’s magazines and dreamt of making every single dish!

As a child, I always wanted to bake ‘upside-down cakes’ because I just loved how they looked. The beautiful placement of the fruits in the rich dark caramel always caught my attention. Without even tasting it, I already knew it would be super delicious.

My mum never made upside-down cakes because she wasn’t familiar with making caramel. The possibility of the caramel burning me whilst attempting to make the cake terrified her.

That’s okay, mum because I’m all grown up and I can make many gorgeous upside-down cakes now! Pineapple, apple, peach, you name it, I’ve made it! But my favourite upside-down cake is banana.

This banana upside-down cake is just yummy! Moist, fluffy with a delightful topping of sliced bananas covered in caramel. It’s beautifully spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves.

Baking dramas

I’ve made this Banana Upside Down Cake many times, and it’s turned out fabulous. So what happens when I’m making it for my blog? Many things go wrong, that’s what! 

This cake is huge, baked in a deep 24cm (9.5in) round tin. Because of the hiccups, I had to make this cake twice in the same week. I would’ve made it the 3rd time to get it perfect but decided against it. This is because our freezer is full of Banana upside-down cake!

We 3 adults and a toddler can’t eat 24 slices of this cake in a week and our kitties refused to help, so we are up to our eyeballs with this cake! Usually, I would gift some of my kitchen creations to my family and friends, but with lockdown in place, that option is not available.

Let me air my grievances here!

The first cake was pretty much perfect, it baked beautifully, BUT I made a devastating rookie error by forgetting to line and grease the base and side of my baking tin. The caramel and the sliced bananas got stuck to the base of the tin and ruined the look of my cake. I vented my frustration by using excessive, vulgar language! But don’t worry, Kai, my toddler was napping when this happened!

If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again!

The second attempt resulted in more dramas! When I was creaming the butter and sugar together, my stand mixer decided it didn’t want to live anymore. It was nice enough not to die completely on me, but it would automatically rapidly mix at the highest speed for a few seconds, then drop to the slowest speed and stayed like that.

I also used a new and expensive spring-form tin and greased and lined it correctly. There I was pretty proud of myself right until our entire house smelt like burnt toffee. I ran to the oven and flung it open. All this smoke oozed out, and it set off our smoke alarm. My bloody fancy new tin was leaking. The caramel dripped to the bottom of the oven and was completely burnt and black. I had no choice but to remove the cake and clean my oven before baking it again.

Luckily, the cake continued to bake successfully. However, the latch from the tin wouldn’t release the cake because the leaked caramel made it stuck. Once I could remove it, some bananas came off with the pan. The upside-down cake didn’t have a thick glossy layer on top because most of the caramel fell out of the tin.

URGH! the consolation was the cake was still incredibly delicious! This was the cake used for these photos. It obviously isn’t perfect, but after all the kitchen conundrums, it still doesn’t look too shabby! It’s actually good that I ran into these problems. I learn from them and now can give advice on how to avoid these unnecessary problems.

Ingredients for Banana Upside Down Cake

To get a workable batter that combines nicely, use very soft butter and room temperature buttermilk and eggs.

Plain flour (all-purpose flour) doesn’t contain any leavening agents.

Bananas – We need mashed overripe bananas to mix in the batter and sliced bananas to place on top of the caramel base.

Buttermilk makes the cake fluffy and light. To make a buttermilk substitute, pour in a bowl a cup of milk into a bowl with 2 tablespoons of vinegar or lemon. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes for the milk to thicken. This will make 1 cup of buttermilk substitute, please note you’ll need 1.5 cups for this recipe.

Caster sugar (superfine sugar) – Caster sugar has finer granules than regular white sugar. However, it’s not the same as confectionary, icing, or powdered sugar. Many baking or candy recipes call for caster sugar as it dissolves faster and better into mixtures. If you can’t find caster sugar, you can make your own by placing regular sugar in a food processor or blender. Pulse the sugar a few times until it looks finer, but take care not to over-blitz it so a powder consistency.

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How to make Banana Upside Down Cake

Step-by-step guide with photos

Preheat oven to 190°C (370°F) or 170°C (340°F) for fan-forced ovens. Grease and line the sides and base of a deep round 24cm (9.5in) spring-form cake tin. To avoid any caramel or batter from leaking out of the tin, you may wish to secure the external base of the tin by wrapping it in foil.

Slice the bananas in half lengthwise, then organise them in the tin’s base with the cut side facing down. Take the bananas out of the tin and lay them on a plate in the same arrangement. Doing this will help us quickly organise the bananas into the tin once the caramel is ready.

Place the sugar and water into a medium heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Gently swerve the pan to help the sugar dissolve. Once the sugar has dissolved, leave the sugar mixture to cook untouched until it turns into deep amber colour, but do not let it burn. This should take approximately 10 minutes. Quickly pour the caramel evenly into the base of the tin, working quickly, place banana on top, cut side down. Don’t worry too much if it doesn’t look perfect because it’ll still look pretty.

For the dry ingredients – Sift the flour, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove, baking powder, bi-carb soda and salt together in a large bowl. For the wet ingredients – In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk and vanilla until combined. Set both bowls aside.

Using a stand or hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together at high speed until fluffy and pale. Add in one egg at a time, beating in between to combine. Reduce the speed to medium and pour in the mashed bananas, mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low, add in half of the dry ingredients and half of the wet ingredients, mix until almost combined before adding the remaining dry and wet ingredients. Mix the batter just until it’s all combined, but don’t over mix it.

Bake the Banana Upside Down Cake

Pour the batter into the tin over the sliced bananas and caramel. Place the tin on the bottom shelf of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Cover the top of the tin loosely with foil to prevent the top of the cake from over-browning. Bake again for 45 minutes or until the cake comes away from the side of the pan and a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle. Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes before turning it over onto a large plate.

Leftovers – Allow the cake to cool completely at room temperature. Transfer the cake into a sealed container and refrigerate, it’ll be good for up to 5 days. However, the caramel will sink into the cake. If frozen, the cake will keep for up to a month.

Want to try some easy, delicious sweet slices? check out EASY PASSIONFRUIT SLICE or our favourite and easy SIMPLE SALTED CARAMEL SLICE

Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements.

A Third-Party Application calculated the calories and nutritional information. Please use this as an approximate guide only.

I would love to hear your thoughts or feedback on this post. If you have made this recipe, please show your support by commenting and rate this recipe. You can do this by scrolling down or by clicking the green circle on the left. To prevent spam on this site, your email address is required but it will not be published.

Cheers (I’ll drink to that) – Cat Tre