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Grain Free, Egg Free Chocolate Banana Cake
I had a funny thing happen the other day. I was asked to speak at the local CWA’s annual general meeting, and cook something for them. I decided to take a cake along and show them how to make my dairy free ‘ganache from scratch’, and decorate the cake with it. As usual I was thinking about a zillion other things while I baked (like my talk for The Wellness Summit – eek, two weeks to go!!), so I wasn’t really focusing on the recipe. To cut a long story short, I forgot to put the eggs in the cake. Yeah, not a good idea when it’s going to be eaten by the master bakers of the CWA. Ha ha! So I set the cake aside and started again, and made it with eggs!
Well, when I got home from the meeting I had some ganache left over in the bowl, so I poured it over my ‘failed’ cake and popped it into the fridge to set. Because, as I’m sure you know, if you ever have a baking fail you just pour chocolate over it and everyone will happily eat it. Right?
Then guess what?? Later (like just before dinner when I really should have known better), I really wanted some chocolate cake, so I got it out of the fridge, cut a bit off, and put a big blob of cashew butter on top for a quick snack. Uh oh, that turned into three pieces with cashew butter on top because it was AMAZING!! Like a dense, moist, chocolate mud cake with ganache and nut butter on top – so so good.
My lovely assistant, Apphia, came over the next day, and we ate cake and nut butter while we worked, because we needed to keep our energy up to get all our work done! (That’s our excuse anyway, and we’re sticking to it.) So now we’re just about ready for The Wellness Summit, my special exciting surprises are being finished up to give away to attendees, my blog and facebook comments and questions are being answered, and we are feeling much more organised! (Thanks to Apphia and chocolate cake. <3)
This cake is grain free, dairy free, and nut free (if you don’t put cashew butter on top!). It can also be vegan if you swap the honey for maple syrup or coconut nectar. The recipe is based on my old faithful Chocolate Banana Cake, which can be made so many different ways I’m losing track of them all. If you want a lighter cake and you can have eggs, add 2 eggs and blend it all up together. I find it works best as cupcakes, or as a small cake in a 20 cm round tin, or even baked like brownies in a square dish.
If you’d like to make nut butter to have on top, here’s the recipe – just use all roasted cashews for cashew butter, or macadamias, or almonds, or a mixture. 
Grain Free, Egg Free Chocolate Cake
2015-07-31 09:47:13
Cake
- 400g very ripe bananas, peeled and broken into quarters
- 80g coconut flour
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
- 60g cacao powder
- 100g honey (or maple syrup)
- 140g coconut oil (or unsalted butter)
- 280g coconut milk (or milk of choice)
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla powder or extract (optional)
Ganache
- 100g raw cacao butter, chopped into pieces
- 50g raw cacao powder
- 50g honey (or maple syrup)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder or extract
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 100g coconut cream
Cake
- Preheat oven to 180C. For cakes, line two 20 cm round cake tins with baking paper and set aside. For cupcakes, line two 12 hole muffin trays with 24 cupcake cases and set aside. (I use If You Care cupcake cases as they are non toxic, and don't stick!)
- Place all ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and mix 15 sec/speed 6, or until blended. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula and blend again if needed.
- Divide mixture between cake tins or cupcake cases.
- For cakes, bake approx 1 hour at 180C, or for cupcakes bake approx 30 mins, or until a skewer inserted into centre of cakes comes out clean. The cakes will be very moist and will fall apart easily at this stage. Set aside to cool, then place in fridge to become firm.
- Once chilled, cakes may be layered with ganache between them and on top, or served as two separate cakes.
Ganache
- Chop cacao butter in Thermomix bowl, 15 sec/speed 8, or until finely chopped.
- Melt 15 mins/37C/speed 3, or until cacao butter is completely melted.
- Add remaining ingredients and cook 3 mins/37C/speed 3. Scrape down sides of bowl and mix again 10 sec/speed 3.
- Drizzle over chilled cakes and place in fridge or freezer (or just in a cool place) to set.
Notes
- This cake is very rich and dense, like a mud cake.
- Recipe can be halved for one small, round cake, or baked in a square dish and served as brownies.
- Freezes well.
Quirky Cooking https://www.quirkycooking.com.au/
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Hi Jo,
I was wondering have you tweaked not using coconut flour? I’m struggling as I can’t have any grains and no coconut :/ Do you have any suggestions?
So you can have nut meal? Just swap the coconut flour for 320g almond meal; it may take a little longer to cook, and once it’s done you’ll need to cool it then pop it in the fridge to ‘set’, but hopefully that should work! 🙂
80g coconut flour swapped for 320g almond meal doesn’t seem like an even swap
Coconut flour is a fibre, so it soaks up liquid and you need LOTS more almond meal/flour compared to coconut flour. The original recipe is 320g flour, and you can swap that for almond meal. 🙂
Any substitute for bananas as both my daughter and I are allergic. Thanks
Someone suggested cooked sweet potato – sounds like a good idea – I haven’t tried it yet so let me know if you do!
Can you taste the banana in it at all? i hate Banana with a passion but if you can’t taste it over the other ingredients i will give it a try 🙂
Not overly – just add a bit more cacao powder if you’re worried!
Just made a batch mini muffins for my kids. Trying to bake treats without refined sugar.
Anyway, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to bake them as I liked the batter sooo much. Haha!
Glad we did though. Everyone LOVES them. The idea was to freeze some but not sure that will happen. Thanks!
Oh great!!! Glad you all loved them!! xx
Hi Jo, if you like to use eggs, how many would you add to this recipe & at what step? Thanks Laura.
You can add 4 eggs just with everything else – it’s all blended at once. I haven’t tried it as a cake this way, only as cupcakes.
Hi Jo, I just wanted to get clarification on how many eggs to add because further up before the recipe you mentioned 2 eggs but in this reply you mentioned 4. I’m going to try these for my daughter’s 3rd birthday party on Saturday. Thanks in advance!
Sorry, just add 2 if you want the eggs in it 🙂
Hi Jo, I have a very restrictive diet…essential whole foods, plant based…also GF, dairy free and sugar free and yeast free. Can’t have bananas or pineapple either.. Can it get any harder? Your recipes and my thermomix are a huge help. Any suggestions for banana or pineapple substitutes? Many thanks, Christine
Hi Christine, I’m glad my recipes have been helpful! Someone suggested trying cooked sweet potato! If you do try it, let me know how you go!
How was your talk received at the CWA? Tough gig.
btw just realised I’m only ‘up the road’ from you, at Grafton
It went well! Thank you 🙂 I’m actually up on the Atherton Tablelands west of Cairns, FNQ 🙂
In the oven – thanks! needed to use up 5 frozen bananas – came to an even 400g 🙂
Hi Jo
Will this cake taste like banana? Anything that tastes remotely like banana makes me gag. This cake sounds perfect if it doesn’t have a banana taste. Is it possible to replace the banana with something else? 🙂
Hi Jo,
I have this recipe in the oven cooking right now- I can wait to try it! I didn’t have coconut flour so used the substitution of almond meal you suggested. Hopefully it sets ok! I used a 20cm round tin and 8 cupcakes.
Hi Jo – I’m living in Cairns – just wondering best and cheap place to buy raw coconut oil, raw cacao powder, cacao butter, coconut sugar and goji berries – thanks
From the new Source Bulk Foods shop – 10/85 Lake Street! 😀
Jo, are you planning a new cookbook?
Hi Jo. 2 questions… how do I make cacao butter? And is there a recipe to make/mill my own plain and SR flour that is gluten free? I have so many different flours in my cupbpard – brown rice, coconut, buckwheat etc but dong know when to use which one when trying to substitute in a non-GF recipe. If there is a successful ratio to use to just make GF flour like you can buy at Woolies without the expensive price tag that would be great! ????
Any chance I can substitute cacao butter for normal butter in the ganache?
Hi Jo, I don’t have any raw cacao butter for the ganache, could I swap with ordinary butter? Thanks
Hi Jo. I’m a newbie & have no idea where I would find cacao butter. What would you substitute with? Any ideas where I would find (Caboolture)? Thanks
Can u use rice malt syrup instead of honey?
Do you think you could substitute sweet potato or pumpkin purée for the non-banana fans?
Hi – can you please tell me if you can use coconut butter instead of raw cacao butter in the ganache. Thanks
Hi Jo – what can I sub for the cacao butter in the ganache please?
Keen to make this for my work this week! They are loving your baking recipes.
Could you use frozen bananas and then freeze the cake?
yes that would be fine 🙂
I have just made this cake Jo and like all your recipes it’s delicious! I can’t eat dairy or gluten and choose not to eat refined sugar, thank you for a great recipe that my whole family can eat 🙂
I baked this cake (added 1 egg) this morning and served it for dessert – topped with a spoonful of banana ice cream (recipe from your cookbook). This combination was incredible! Everyone loved it! Thank you so much, Jo, for all your inspiration.
I don’t have a thermomix so do I just use a mixer?
Just put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend well 🙂
made this today in brownie form – it’s amazing – for topping I used 10g cacao 40g nibs as my cacao ran out and sprinkled with coconut ☺️ – also used half coconut oil half organic butter and my bananas weren’t over ripe which worried me but it all turned out perfect!! Thankyou x
Made this today and it totally sunk in the middle. Still tastes delicious but wondering what I did wrong? Would over-mixing cause this to happen?
It happened to both my cake and cupcakes
It’s because it’s a heavy, flourless cake – they always sink a bit! Don’t worry, it’s normal. 🙂
How healthy or unhealthy is this recipe? From a fat and sugar consideration for a 5 yo?
Thx
Very healthy – kids need good fats!! And it’s very low in sugar. 🙂
This cake recipe looks like a much healthier option than other cakes which is awesome but it’s still super high in sugars – almost 200g sugar and that’s just calculating the honey, banana, coconut milk and coconut flour so this recipe is definitely a treat!
Made these tonight for the first time, we are starting a wheat free lifestyle as hubby has a lot of gut problems. I was excitedly telling him all the “free” things they were, got to dairy free and realised I had forgotten to put the milk in! They still turned out! A bit more like a really moist biscuit rather than cake, but yummo! I will definitely try again and remember all the ingredients.
Hi
I tried to make these as cupcakes and they basically erupted… the sides overflowed and burnt and the middle sunk to the bottom and was super oily. I didn’t overfill the cases, they were only half full. Any tips? Do I need to lower the oven temperature? Help please!
Hmmm that’s odd!! Maybe the oven temp was too high?
This happened to me to with a cake 🙁
Hi, can the bicarb be substituted with anything or left out?
Thanks.
You could use baking powder, just double the amount. 🙂
I baked this cake (added 1 egg) this morning and served it for dessert – topped with a spoonful of banana ice cream (recipe from your cookbook). This combination was incredible! Everyone loved it! Thank you so much, Jo, for all your inspiration.
Easy To Make Paleo Nut Bars (with Recipe Video)…
Hi! I was just wondering how you could make a dairy free ganache if you didn’t have cacao butter. Your recipes have been such a help for my little man who is dairy, gluten & egg intolerant!
Thank you for making the banana ingredient a weight! I get so frustrated with recipes that say 3 bananas or a bunch of rhubarb! Very difficult to judge if you have the correct amount for a recipe without a weight!
Hi Jo, Pretty new to all this and keen to make this recipe. Where would I buy cacao butter and powder, as well as the vanilla powder? Thanks, Christine
Just made these and Yum! Thanks for a great recipe jo x
What a fantastic grain free, nut free, dairy free and egg free cake! Caters for so many dietary requirements. Will definetly be making this for my daughters birthday at childcare.
I may reduce the honey a little next time as I did find it a tad bit too sweet.
Thanks Jo for another wonderful recipe!
I halved the recipe and made muffins. The taste and flavour was spot on, I coulcn’t taste the banana at all. The muffins were a little oily…but delicious still the same. I have made them for a child who is egg/ gluten/dairy free- I hope he likes them, and if not more for me!
Could you please tell me is this cake gluten free too?
Thankyou 😊
Same as above, I think I had the oven too hot, the cake burnt on the edges, sunk in the middle and was still a bit undercooked in the middle. Nice flavours though for someone who has been starved of treats for a while!
Hi my body doesn’t seem to like sugar or sugar substitutes. Can I reduce the amount of honey in this recipe without destroying the whole thing?
I made this today but left out the cocao powder and added unflavored protein powder and cinnamon so it would be banana cake. I also used a cream cheese passion fruit icing. So yummy and a cake I can send to school.
Wow Sara, so creative!! 🙂 Sounds delicious! xx
Can i bake this as one cake? For examples, in a long square tin. ive made this 100 times both cupcakes and two 20cm cake tins but i want to make ‘one’ for daycare (My boy turning 3). I figure, if the tin in long it should* turn out the same and require the same cooking time, @1hr??
Thanks so much
Hi Rebecca! 🙂 It should work out fine as long as the cake batter in the tin is around the same depth as in the two round tins. Otherwise, you might just need to check and add some more cooking time. xx
Hi Jo, I made the ganache as per the directions but it isn’t very sweet. In fact, it’s rather bitter. I like the consistency of it and that it softens when out of the fridge but i’m wondering if I should reduce the cacao and up the honey?
Hi Jo! You made these last night at the seminar in Cairns! All I can say is YUM – they are divine. Thank you for such an informative night. Xx
You’re so welcome!! Thanks for coming along!
Thank you so much for this delicious recipe! I made it today for the very first time to celebrate the birth of my fourth grandchild Josiah. The batter tasted amazing! It is just cooling now. I was just wondering would it be possible to replace the banana with black sapote? thank you!
Hi Nancy. Yum, so glad it turned out beautiful. I have never tried black sapote in his recipe but I think you should give it a go and let us all know how it turns out:-).