The Secret To Better Boxed Coffee Cake Is Sitting In Your Fruit Bowl

Coffee cake is one of my favorite dessert-adjacent breakfasts. While there is something to be said about slicing into a semi-warm, homemade coffee cake recipe, it's also nice knowing that I can pick up a box of store-bought coffee cake mix and make a pan of it with little fanfare required. The recipe for these boxes tends to be simple — combine all the ingredients the box calls for with the mix, prepare and/or add the topping, and bake — though you can also use a boxed mix as the base for a simple customization. 

One upgrade that you may have never thought to try is to add mashed bananas to your mix. Bananas are full of sticky starch and will help bind your batter together, as well as add much-needed moisture to this cake. Some boxed mixes will list appropriate substitutions — often using applesauce or mashed bananas for some or all of the fat, but getting the right consistency for a banana-infused coffee cake is a little more difficult. Some recipes call for adding a few bananas in addition to your normal cake mix ingredients (like water, eggs, and oil), while others call for keeping the egg and using the banana in lieu of the oil and water.

Based on my years of baking experience, I would recommend adding the banana in addition to the oil, egg, water, and any other ingredients that your recipe calls for. Coffee cake is a very dense and heavy dessert, so a little extra moisture is not a bad thing. Plus, the egg and the oil are going to increase the fat, therefore the tenderness of the cake, and make it taste better. 

Whenever I add bananas to a baked good, whether that's banana bread or banana muffins, I always have a fork or a pastry cutter on hand to break down my fruit. I prefer the fruit to be mashed, though not pureed until it looks like applesauce. The secret is to use bananas that are overripe; the darker they are, the sweeter they are. They should never be mushy or smell fermented, but they should have more than a few spots on them. I've also had great results with caramelizing the bananas before adding them to banana desserts; this would really drive home the sweetness in the cake mix and the streusel topping.

I also like to pair banana coffee cake with warming spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg. These notes drive home the cozy, toasty flavors that banana-centric baked goods and coffee cake are equally known for.