Grant Crilly is the Executive Director and cofounder of ChefSteps. Grant is a classically trained chef and, prior to ChefSteps, he worked on the award-winning cookbook series Modernist Cuisine and cooked at various restaurants, including L’Astrance in Paris, Busaba in Mumbai, and Mistral Kitchen in Seattle.

Grant Crilly

One three-tier banana cake with tangy cream cheese frosting

Champagne and <a href="/activities/crabby-eggs-benedict">eggs Benedict</a>, meet your new brunch buddy. This crazy-moist banana cake is bright, fruity, and full of fresh flavor—the perfect offering for a lazy midmorning meal. Not a brunch person? Serve it with <a href="/activities/vanilla-bean-ice-cream-base">vanilla ice cream</a> at your next party, or partner it with a well-made <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/coffee">cup of coffee</a> and treat yo’ self to an afternoon snack for the ages. Now, we know how it goes. You google a recipe you want to cook—“banana cake,” say—and you’re barraged with a bunch of SEO-enhanced options, all muscling their way up the search chain to compete for your attention. Who is to be believed, then, when it comes to the best banana cake? Whom can you trust? Well, us. And here’s why: to paraphrase Gwen Stefani, a few times we’ve been around that track. Said another way, we’ve made a metric sh!t-ton of layer cakes and experimented with ingredients for hundreds of hours to create confections with a superior crumb structure and unparalleled moistness. We didn’t say, “Let’s make awesome banana cake,” and then just, like, slap together a recipe. We said, “Let’s make awesome banana cake,” and then hit the pastry-school textbooks and technical tomes. Armed with the science of sweets, we baked and baked and baked and baked some more, until we came to this one, the one we’re sharing with you. And we’re sharing it with you so that your guests know that you—dear banana cake fans—are as amazing as someone who used to front No Doubt and runs a multimillion-dollar fashion brand. And yes, maybe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sY-TsLXiDo">she once remixed The Sound of Music</a>. But whatever, right? She’s still amazing. And so are you. Let’s bake banana cake!

This Cake Is Bananas