Moreish gluten-free banana cake

I made this cake a couple of weeks ago because I had three ripe bananas and didn’t know what to do with them.

I liked the look of Genius Kitchen’s Best Banana Bread recipe, but I didn’t have any flour, and anyway, I needed it to be gluten-free. I fancied adding coconut palm sugar, as it seems more virtuous and is tastier than regular sugar.

The experiment turned out so well, that I wanted to share it with you.

Enjoy – and please let me know if you make this recipe!

Moreish gluten-free banana cake

Nell Common

This is a useful dairy free, sugar free and gluten free banana cake recipe, as it can also be nut-free if you leave out the walnuts! Some gluten-free cakes are dry, but not this one. It keeps well for several days, but it’s moreish – I’ll be surprised if it lasts that long!

This recipe is adapted from Genuis Kitchen’s Best Banana Bread recipe.

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Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 45 mins

Total Time 1 hr 5 mins

Course Dessert, Snack

Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

  

• ½ cup coconut oil, plus more for brushing the loaf tin – melted
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 generous tsp vanilla paste
• 4 ripe bananas – mashed
• 3 eggs – medium
• 1½ cup dessicated coconut – whizzed up in a food processor
• 2½ cup oats or gluten-free oats – whizzed up in a food processor
• 1 heaped tsp gluten-free baking powder
• ½ cup walnuts – optional
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg or cinnamon – optional
• 1 pinch sea salt

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 180ºC.
• Grease and line your loaf tin if necessary – I use silicone which doesn't need either.
• Melt the coconut oil and, with an electric whisk, beat with the coconut sugar and vanilla paste.
• Add the eggs and mashed bananas and combine well.
• Tip in your coconut and oat ‘flours’, plus the gluten-free baking powder, and continue to beat.
• Add a tiny pinch of fine sea salt.
• If you want to add ground spices such as nutmeg (highly recommended!) at this point, you can.
• Fold in your walnuts, if using, and pour the batter into your cake tin.
• Bake for around 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Leave to cool for as long as you can resist it – and serve!

Notes

I use my ancient electric beater for all my cake mixes; I find that it helps get air into gluten-free recipes.

I use dessicated coconut that I’ve powdered in a food processor rather than coconut flour, because I find coconut flour difficult to bake with. It seems to suck the moisture out of my cake mixes and I find myself adding eggs or almond milk to try to loosen the batter.

Whizzed-up dessicated coconut is a great alternative for ground almonds if you need to make a recipe nut-free.

A word on ‘cup’ as a measurement: I use small-ish mug, and fill it up to the level I would use if I was drinking something out of it, i.e. about 1cm from the top.

Photo by Yulia Khlebnikova on Unsplash