Tuesdays with Dorie DAC: Banana Cappuccino Cake

March 17, 2026 at 10:00 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, DAC, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | Leave a comment
Tags: baking, cake

My normal coffee shop order is a bit boring– a cortado with regular milk, or basically a baby cappuccino. My fantasy order, however, is a grande mocha topped with a mountain of whipped cream. Alas, I must pick and choose my daily sugar battles, and if there’s gonna be cake at home, I’ll just stick with the boring coffee order. But maybe with cake I can actually have it all, by turning a Banana Cappuccino Cake into a Mochaccino one.

Dorie takes an easy banana cake and adds espresso powder and coconut to play up the tropical feel. Almost a year ago(!), we baked A Big Banana Cake, and looking at the ingredient list, I thought it could use some baking powder. This cake recipe is very similar, and I wish I had thought to add baking powder here, too. My only quibble with the cake is that was a bit dense, and maybe a little extra leavening would have given it some more height and fluff. I’ll note it in my book in case future Steph makes it again.

I had some chocolate frosting in the freezer leftover from the Devil’s Food Party Cake we made back in the fall. It wasn’t much– really just enough to frost a single layer cake. Since Dorie employed the “what grows together goes together” flavor philosophy with her banana-coconut-cinnamon combo, I figured why not add chocolate to that list. I needed to rewhip the buttercream after it defrosted, so I took that opportunity to bring it more in line with the frosting in the recipe. I added in a shake of espresso powder, a dash of cinnamon and a little knob of cream cheese. Hard to go wrong with all these flavors together, I must say. The espresso taste didn’t come through much in the cake itself, but in the frosting it was definitely there, giving me my mocha vibes.

If you don’t have the book Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every third Tuesday of the month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Leave a Comment »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

a whisk and a spoon