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Banoffee Cheesecake is what happens when banoffee pie stops playing it safe, a buttery graham cracker base under a thick banana cheesecake with warm toffee sauce running down the sides, and I made the first one on a rainy Saturday when Maddie asked for banana bread and Lizzie voted for cheesecake instead. If you love our banana bundt cake, this is that same sweet banana flavor in a much bigger, creamier package.
It bakes low and slow, cools in a turned off oven so the top never cracks, and gets finished with the same kind of homemade toffee sauce we pour over our sticky toffee pudding.
Banoffee Cheesecake Quick Look
- 🕒 Prep Time: 20 minutes
- 🌡️ Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- ⏳ Total Time: 5 hours 30 minutes (includes cooling in the oven)
- 🍽️ Serving: 10 servings
- ⚡ Calories: 585kcal
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Sweet, rich and creamy, with real banana and deep brown sugar toffee
- ✋ Difficulty: Easy, about the same effort as our mini cheesecakes with a little more patience
Quick Answer
Bake a graham cracker crumb base for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F, then beat mashed ripe banana together with cream cheese, Greek yogurt, eggs and sugar and pour it over the base. Drop the oven to 300 degrees F and bake for 1 hour, then turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake inside to cool completely so the top does not crack. Whisk butter, brown sugar, heavy cream and salt into a toffee sauce and pour it over before serving.
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Why This Recipe Works
Click to see the technique science
- Real banana, not banana flavoring. Three mashed ripe bananas go straight into the batter, so the banana taste runs through the whole cheesecake instead of sitting on top as a garnish. That is the single biggest difference between this and a vanilla cheesecake with fruit on it.
- Greek yogurt keeps it from getting heavy. Swapping part of the cream cheese for full fat Greek yogurt cuts the density just enough that a slice does not feel like a brick, and the gentle tang keeps all that brown sugar in check.
- The base gets blind baked first. Ten minutes in a hot oven sets the butter in the crumbs before any wet filling touches them. That is the whole difference between a crisp base and a soggy one.
- Low heat means no cracks. Dropping the oven from 400 to 300 degrees F before the filling goes in lets the eggs set gently. Cheesecakes crack when they cook fast and cool fast, and this recipe does neither.
- The oven does the cooling for you. Turning the oven off and leaving the door shut brings the temperature down over a couple of hours instead of a couple of minutes. No water bath, no foil wrapping, no tray of hot water to carry.
- The toffee sauce is four ingredients. Butter, brown sugar, heavy cream and salt whisked over low heat for about ten minutes. It thickens as it cools and tastes nothing like the jarred stuff.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- You get true banoffee flavor in a dessert that slices clean and feeds ten people without collapsing on the plate.
- It is a make ahead dessert in the best way, since it needs oven time and fridge time anyway, so you can build it the day before like our strawberry cheesecake dip and forget about it.
- No water bath, no leaking pan and no cracked top, which is more than most baked cheesecakes can promise. If you want a simpler bar version, our cherry cheesecake bars use the same crumb base.
Key Ingredients
A short list of grocery store basics does all the work here. A few notes on the ones that matter most.
- Ripe bananas: Three medium bananas, and the browner the peel the better. Spotty bananas mash smoother and carry far more sweetness, which is exactly what makes this taste like banoffee instead of plain cheesecake.
- Cream cheese: Use the full fat block style and let it soften on the counter first. The low fat tubs carry extra water and leave you with a filling that never quite sets.
- Greek yogurt: Full fat and plain. It lightens the texture and adds a gentle tang, the same trick that keeps our no bake cheesecake with blueberries from tasting too heavy.
- Graham cracker crumbs: Eight ounces, which is roughly two cups. Buy them already crushed or run a sleeve of grahams through a food processor until they look like coarse sand.
- Brown sugar and heavy cream: The backbone of the toffee sauce. Packed brown sugar brings the deep caramel color and the molasses note, and the cream is what turns it glossy, much like the base of our no churn caramel ice cream.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Variations and Substitutions
This one takes to swaps well, so use whatever is already sitting in your kitchen.
- Swap the graham cracker base for crushed digestive biscuits, vanilla wafers or Biscoff cookies. Biscoff in particular pushes it toward the warm spiced note in our dulce de leche cheesecake bars.
- Use a jar of good dulce de leche in place of the homemade toffee sauce when you are short on time. Warm it slightly first so it spreads without tearing the surface.
- Lay sliced banana directly on the baked crust before the filling goes in for an even stronger banoffee pie profile.
- Fold two tablespoons of cocoa powder into the filling for a chocolate banana version, or go all the way and serve it next to our chocolate earthquake cake.
- Bake it as bars in a 9×13 pan the same way our sopapilla cheesecake bars are built, and cut the bake time back to about 40 minutes.
- Skip the toffee entirely and top it with espresso whipped cream for something closer to our tiramisu pie.
How to Make Banoffee Cheesecake
- Stir the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter together until the mixture looks like wet sand and holds its shape when you squeeze a handful.
- Press it into a greased and lined 8 inch loose bottomed pan in an even, compacted layer, then bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.
- Mash the ripe bananas with the lemon juice in a large bowl until smooth, with no big lumps left behind.
- Beat in the eggs, cream cheese, Greek yogurt and sugar until the filling is completely smooth and no streaks of cream cheese remain.
- Drop the oven to 300 degrees F, pour the filling over the baked base, and bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off and leave it inside, door shut, to cool completely.
- Whisk the butter, brown sugar, cream and salt over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, then pour the toffee sauce over the cooled cheesecake.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Soften the cream cheese properly. Cold cream cheese leaves lumps that no amount of beating will smooth out. Leave it on the counter for at least an hour before you start.
- Line the bottom of the pan. A parchment round is the difference between lifting a clean cheesecake off the base and chiseling one off, a lesson we learned the hard way on our pumpkin cheesecake.
- Do not overbeat the filling. Beat only until it is smooth. Whipping air into the batter makes it puff in the oven and sink as it cools, and that sinking is what pulls a crack open.
- Trust the wobble. A slight jiggle in the middle at the one hour mark means it is done. Baking until the center is firm gives you a dry slice, the same rule that governs our pineapple upside down cheesecake.
- Let the sauce cool a little. Piping hot toffee sauce melts into the surface and runs straight off the sides. Give it about fifteen minutes off the heat first.
- Warm the knife between slices. Run it under hot water and wipe it dry before every cut and each slice comes out clean, which works just as well on our no bake raspberry cheesecake bites.
- Make it a day ahead. The flavor deepens overnight in the fridge and the toffee sets into a proper layer instead of a drizzle.
Serving Ideas and Suggestions
Cut this into ten generous slices and serve it cold, with the extra toffee sauce warmed in a little jug on the side so everyone can pour their own. A spoonful of lightly whipped cream on each plate is traditional for banoffee and it cools down all that brown sugar sweetness. If you are building a dessert table, this one holds its shape for hours next to something lighter like our layered lemon blueberry trifle.
For a birthday or a holiday spread, put it out with a couple of smaller sweets so people can take a bit of everything. Our easy dirt cake cups are the effortless crowd pleaser beside it, and our key lime eclair cake brings a bright citrus contrast that keeps the whole table from going all caramel.
Leftovers are honestly better on day two. Keep it covered in the fridge for up to four days and store the extra toffee sauce in a jar so you can warm it gently before serving. A cold slice with morning coffee is the whole reason we make it in the first place, and any bananas left on the counter go straight into a batch of our banana nut muffins.
Banoffee Cheesecake FAQs
Banoffee pie is a no bake dessert built on a biscuit base with a layer of caramel, sliced banana and whipped cream piled on top. This Banoffee Cheesecake bakes the banana right into a cream cheese filling, so you get the same banana and toffee flavor in a sliceable, sturdier dessert that holds up far better on a plate and travels to a potluck without sliding apart.
Cracks come from heat, not from anything you did wrong with the batter. Baking too hot, opening the oven door partway through, or moving the cheesecake straight onto a cold counter all make the surface shrink faster than the center. Bake at 300 degrees F, keep the door shut the entire time, and let it cool inside the switched off oven and you should not see one at all.
Yes, and it is better if you do. Bake the cheesecake a full day ahead and keep it covered in the fridge overnight. Make the toffee sauce ahead as well and store it separately in a sealed jar, then warm it slightly and pour it over within an hour of serving. Add any fresh banana slices at the very last minute so they stay pale and pretty.
No. A water bath exists to protect a cheesecake from harsh oven heat, and this recipe solves the same problem by baking low at 300 degrees F and then cooling slowly in the turned off oven. That means no foil wrapping, no leaking pans and no carrying a tray of hot water across the kitchen while trying not to slosh it.
Cover it and keep it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Store any extra toffee sauce in a separate sealed jar and reheat it gently in a saucepan or the microwave before serving. You can freeze the plain cheesecake wrapped well for up to a month, but add the toffee sauce and the fresh banana after it thaws rather than before it goes in.
An 8 inch springform pan works in place of the loose bottomed pan. Grease it and line the base with a parchment round exactly the same way. Because there is no water bath anywhere in this recipe you do not need to wrap the outside in foil, so a springform with a slightly loose seal is not a problem here at all.
Looking for another chilled dessert to follow this one? Our homemade fried ice cream is the fun one to serve next.
Banoffee Cheesecake
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter melted, for the crust
- 8 ounces graham cracker crumbs about 2 cups, for the crust
- 3 medium ripe bananas the spottier the better
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice keeps the mashed banana from browning
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups cream cheese full fat, softened
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt full fat, plain
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar plus 2 tablespoons
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter for the toffee sauce
- 1 cup brown sugar packed, for the toffee sauce
- 3/4 cup heavy cream for the toffee sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt for the toffee sauce
- 1 medium banana sliced, to decorate, optional
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice to toss the sliced banana, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch loose bottomed cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- Add the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter to a mixing bowl. Stir until the mixture looks like wet sand and holds together when you squeeze it.
- Spoon the crumb mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Smooth it into an even, compacted layer, pressing down firmly with the back of a spoon. Bake for 10 minutes, then set aside.
- While the base bakes, mash the ripe bananas in a large mixing bowl together with the tablespoon of lemon juice. Mash them well so no large lumps are left.
- Add the eggs, cream cheese, Greek yogurt, and sugar to the mashed banana. Beat with an electric hand whisk until the filling is completely smooth and no streaks of cream cheese remain.
- Turn the oven temperature down to 300 degrees F. The low heat is what keeps the cheesecake creamy instead of rubbery.
- Pour the banana filling over the baked graham cracker base and smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour. The center should still have a slight wobble when you nudge the pan.
- Without opening the door, turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake inside to cool completely. Cooling it slowly this way is what prevents cracks across the top.
- Combine the unsalted butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, and salt in a saucepan over low heat. Whisk until smooth and thickened, about 8 to 10 minutes. Let it cool slightly before it goes on the cheesecake.
- Pour some of the toffee sauce over the cooled cheesecake and spread it to the edges. Keep the rest warm for serving alongside.
- If you want the classic banoffee look, toss a few banana slices in the teaspoon of lemon juice and arrange them on top just before serving. Slice with a warm, clean knife.
Notes
- Use the spottiest bananas you have. Underripe bananas taste starchy here and will not give you that sweet banoffee flavor.
- Do not open the oven door while the cheesecake bakes or while it cools. The temperature swing is the number one cause of a cracked top.
- The cheesecake is done when the outside is set and the center still wobbles slightly. It firms up as it cools.
- Make the toffee sauce while the cheesecake cools so it has time to thicken. If it gets too thick, whisk in a splash of cream over low heat.
- Add the fresh banana slices right before serving. They brown quickly, even tossed in lemon juice.
- Store leftovers covered in the fridge for up to 4 days. Keep the extra toffee sauce in a separate jar and warm it gently before serving.
Nutrition
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