GF Chocolate Banana Cake

Gluten Free Chocolate Banana Cake

This is a lovely, moist cake, which is sometimes hard to achieve with gluten free flour!  My friend Sarah made this recipe up when she was looking for a gluten free, dairy free, egg free cake. I've tweaked it a bit to make it healthier and Thermomix friendly. It's also very easy to make nut free as well - just use rice milk instead of rice-almond (or your preferred milk), and grapeseed or light light olive oil instead of the macadamia oil. For a nut free icing, just use coconut cream instead of the almond milk, mixed with the chocolate and dates.

You can make this cake with or without eggs - the eggs make a lighter cake, but without eggs the texture is lovely and moist and fudgey. (The photos are of the cake made without eggs.)  It's a very versatile recipe (see the variations at the end), and very quick and easy - just throw in ALL the ingredients and whiz it up. Perfect for birthday cakes and cupcakes!

1. Weigh into Thermomix bowl and mix on speed 5-6 for 20 seconds, using spatula to assist if needed:

- 300g plain gluten free flour (I use Orgran flour)

- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt

- 1 tsp baking powder (or 2 tspns if leaving out eggs)

- 2 tsp bicarb soda

- 30g raw cacao powder or organic cocoa

- 120g Rapadura

- 140g macadamia oil (or other light oil for nut free)

- 240g rice-almond milk or preferred milk for nut free (may need a little more if bananas are not very ripe)

- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

- 2 eggs (optional)

- 350g ripe bananas (approx. 3 large bananas - use 350-400g bananas if not using eggs)

2.  Pour into two round cake tins, or 1 large springform tin, well greased or lined with baking paper. Bake at 180C for about 30 mins (or longer if in one large pan), until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.  Or you can bake in muffin tins for about 15 to 20 minutes.

The icing in the photos is made from raw dates, dairy free dark chocolate and almond milk. I don't really measure it - I just chop up a couple of big handfuls of dark chocolate and drop into Thermomix bowl, add about 6 pitted raw dates and about half a cup of raw almond milk (made in Thermomix). I whiz it up on speed 9, scraping down a couple of times, then melt at 50C for 3 minutes, speed 2, or until smooth. Add some vanilla bean paste too if you like. If it's too thick, add a little more almond milk. (Almond milk is just 100g blanched almonds ground up on speed 9, with 500g water and a dash of vanilla extract, blended for 1 minute speed 9.) If you need a nut free icing, you can use coconut cream instead of almond milk.

Variations:

- Butter cake: leave out bananas, add 1 tsp vanilla extract, use 2 tsp baking powder instead of baking powder and soda, add a little more milk, and use 150g butter instead of oil.  (This version needs the eggs.)

- Chocolate-coffee cake: leave out bananas, add 220g strong coffee and 1 tsp vanilla extract.