The Best Way To Incorporate Cream Cheese Into Your Banana Bread

Home cooks are always on the lookout for ways to improve the quality of their cakes and bakes, especially when it comes to classics like banana bread. Some say the trick to perfect banana bread is decoding your bananas. For others, better banana bread means including some choice add-ins. Among those add-ins, one of the most impactful may be cream cheese. People who have incorporated cream cheese into their banana bread batter reported that it makes the baked loaf richer, moister, and more tender. However, randomly adding ingredients into any batter is a recipe for disaster. With this in mind, we spoke to Sofia Schlieben, corporate pastry chef at JF Restaurants.

When asked how to best add cream cheese into banana bread, Schlieben pointed out that unless the recipe calls for cream cheese, adding it will likely upset the batter's balance of fat and moisture. This means the best way to incorporate cream cheese into banana bread is to substitute something out. She said, "You can substitute some of the butter and some of the banana with cream cheese or crème fraîche. Consider the fat-to-water ratio of what you're subbing. Cream cheese is higher in fat than yogurt, so you'd want to sub [out] more of the butter and less of the banana ... It's a complex science."

If working out fat and moisture ratios sounds like a little too much work for a simple banana bread, Sofia Schlieben has good news: You can just add a cream cheese frosting instead. She told The Takeout, "The tang of cream cheese complements banana well. But I'd recommend finding a base banana bread recipe you like, then frosting it with a cream cheese frosting." While this topping won't make a banana bread as rich or moist as one that contains cream cheese right in the batter, it will provide a similar flavor with much less hassle.

Making a cream cheese frosting is simple: All you need is cream cheese, softened butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract, and a little salt. To make it, simply beat the cream cheese and butter together before adding the rest of the ingredients and beating the mixture for a short while longer. Make sure the banana bread has cooled before you spread on the frosting, otherwise you run the risk of it melting. An even simpler alternative is to use canned cream cheese frosting. Just be sure to whip the canned frosting before you spread it on the cake — that one little trick makes canned frosting taste homemade.