A few years ago we owned a cinema with a café and this cake was one of our most popular sellers even alongside some of the fancy cakes we bought in. I still make it occasionally for one of our former customers.
This cake is my husband Klutch’s absolute favourite. He always requests it for his birthday but this year he said he wanted me to make it vegan so I could eat it with him (yes, he is extremely considerate). The original recipe is from well-known Australian cook and cookbook writer, Belinda Jeffery and it isn’t gluten-free and includes eggs, butter, buttermilk and cream cheese. It seemed like way too many ingredients to change and still have a great cake so I wasn’t feeling too confident.
I was so surprised when the cake came out of the oven looking perfect and then we tasted it and it was delicious!! I don’t think that anyone would be able to guess that this is a vegan cake. I can hardly believe it myself!
The cake in my photographs is two cakes because I wanted to get that impressive height and extra layers for the icing and more pecans. The ingredients I have listed are just for one cake so you will need to do everything twice if you want your cake to be that tall. For an everyday cake, I would stick to just one but for a special occasion, I think that the extra effort is absolutely worth it.
- 2 cups plain flour (280g)
- 3½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bi-carb
- 3 large ripe bananas
- 1⅔ cups castor sugar (370g)
- 125g vegan margarine
- 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax meal mixed with 6 tbsp water & sit for 5 minutes)
- 100ml vegan buttermilk (almond milk mixed with 1 tsp white vinegar)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ICING
- 150g vegan margarine
- 500g icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup coconut flakes
- ½ cup pecan pieces
- Pre-heat oven to 175°C (347°F)
- In a food processor, blitz banana until smooth
- Add sugar and flax eggs & blitz until combined
- Add margarine & blitz until combined
- Add milk & vanilla & blitz until combined
- Add flour & blitz until just combined – don’t over mix or your cake will be tough. Use pulse button if your processor has one & press 2 or 3 times
- Pour into a cake time lined with baking paper
- Bake 35 - 40 minutes - do not open the oven before this time or the cake might sink in the middle.
- Test cake and if not ready, leave in for another 5 minutes or so. Remember though that you do want this cake to be nice and moist so don’t overcook.
- Cool in pan.
- When cool, remove from pan and slice in half through the middle of the cake. Use a large knife that is longer than the cake is wide. Carefully remove the top of the cake and place top down on the cake stand or cake plate you will be serving from.
- Add some of the icing to the cake and smooth with a palette knife until it goes to the edges. Sprinkle pecan pieces onto the icing.
- Carefully place the other half of the cake on top with the cut side down. If you are baking 2 cakes then repeat the process until all layers are on the cake with icing and pecans in the layers. (You will need to make double the icing if using 2 cakes).
- Use the remaining icing to ice the top and sides of cake. Smooth the icing on the sides and on the top, create little peaks by flicking up the top of the palette knife.
- Sprinkle coconut flakes over the top of the cake and it is ready to serve.
- Refrigerate cake if it isn’t all being eaten that day.
- ICING
- Add margarine to a bowl and use a mix-master or hand mixer to beat the margarine until smooth.
- Add half icing sugar and beat until combined.
- Add rest of icing sugar and vanilla and beat until combined
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