Hello, my name is Angela and I hoard black bananas.
(Eric made me tell you this today.)
Every time I go to the grocery store, I head straight for the ‘Reduced’ produce section just so I can see if there are any bananas that I can save. I see people passing by perfectly good bananas and I want to leave a sticky note on the bananas saying ‘I’m great for BANANA BREAD!’ or ‘try me in a GREEN MONSTER!’ and then hide behind the bins to see their reactions. I’m afraid they would ban me from my beloved grocery store and that would never be a good thing for a food blogger.
When I finally admitted to Eric that I had a problem, I agreed that the bananas were beginning to pose a health risk to all parties involved. I had several spotted bananas on the counter and a stash of black bananas in a paper bag in the fridge.
Over 10 of them…solid black and starting to leak juices.
When Eric exposed my stash of bananas in the paper bag I knew it would all be over soon if I didn’t take action.
But health risk or not, these babies are at the PEAK of their lives! Yesterday morning, I celebrated by making a chocolate chip banana cake. It would taste so delicious our heads would spin.
Because you really can’t screw up a banana cake when using bananas that look like this…
It’s just not possible.
Rustic Chocolate Chip Banana Oat Cake with Peanut Butter Banana Glaze
Yield
8-10 servings
Prep time
Rest time
15 minutes
Cook time
Total time
This rustic looking banana cake blew our socks off with an intense banana flavour and sweet bites of chocolate. It has a wonderful chewy texture from the oats and a little bit of crunch from the nuts. You’d never guess it has just two tablespoons of oil and it can easily be made gluten-free by using GF oats!
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2 cups regular oats, processed into a flour
- 1/2 cup regular oats (not processed)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed firmly
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/8th tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/16th tsp ground cloves (optional)
- 2 tbsp cane sugar (or regular white)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted (or other light tasting oil)
- 2 medium very ripe bananas, peeled
- 1/3 cup applesauce
- 1/4 cup almond milk
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- Fold in: 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips; 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped; 1 ripe banana, cut into chunks
For the PB Banana Glaze (makes 2/3-3/4 cup)
- 1 ripe banana (but not too ripe, you still want it solid!)
- 2 tbsp peanut butter (I used White Chocolate Wonderful flavour)
- 1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
- Pinch of kosher salt, to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and lightly grease a 8 inch (4 cup) casserole dish or 8” cake pan. Take 2 cups of regular oats and process them in a food processor until flour like in consistency.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (processed oats, regular oats, sugars, spices, baking powder, and salt).
- In another bowl, mix together the oil, applesauce, almond milk, and vanilla. Add in the two peeled bananas and smash into the wet ingredients until smooth.
- Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until just combined. Now fold in the chips, optional walnuts, and the chopped banana.
- Spread into prepared pan and bake for 36 minutes at 350°F (175°C) or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake must be cooled for at least 15-20 minutes before attempting to remove.
- Once fully cooled, slice and top with PB Banana Glaze (see below). Store in the fridge for up to 3 days (without Glaze).
- PB Banana Glaze: Mash banana in a bowl until smooth. Add in peanut butter and mash until combined.
- Sift in the salt and icing sugar and stir until fully combined. Makes about 2/3 cup glaze. Store in fridge in a sealed contained for 1-2 days.
Tip:
The great thing about this recipe is that I used regular oats and processed them into a flour, so this recipe can be easily made gluten-free if you use GF oats.
It also contains just 2 tbsp of oil, but it is a very moist and flavourful cake. The unsweetened applesauce and ripe bananas replace most of the oil in this recipe. This is not your average banana cake by any means.
it takes just 10-15 minutes to throw it together and pop it in the oven.
Add wet to dry:
Fold in chopped banana, chocolate chips, and nuts:
Scoop into baking dish or cake pan.
My sister Kerrie gave me this baking dish on the weekend! Does she know me or what? I’m in love. :)
Bake for 36 minutes at 350F or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes so it can firm up and set otherwise it will fall apart when you try to get it out.
While you are waiting you can make the delicious glaze.
After cooling, slice and serve!
This rustic cake turned out so much better than I thought it would, especially because I just winged the recipe by the seat of my pants. The result is a dense, moist, and extremely flavourful cake with a lovely chewiness from the oats and nuts.
Oh, and the bites of banana are out of this world!
If you want to make this into a dessert, serve it with the PB Banana Glaze.
If you want to make it into a breakfast cake, you can leave out the chocolate and use more nuts. Or just leave in all the chocolate! ;)
Eric said this one is ‘in the vault’…
Oh and I still have about 7 black bananas to use up….what to make….
Are you a banana fan? What are your favourite meals or recipes that include bananas?
Hi Angela!!!! OMG you are amazing!!! I made this today and we had it tonight for dessert and it is HEAVENLY!!! LOVED IT!!! I look forward to making many more of your recipes, you have so many great ones!! Love your blog and I enjoy seeing whats new from you daily :) Keep up the great work!
Thanks Lori!
Hi! I don’t think I have ever commented before, but I just wanted to let you know that I just made this cake with the ingredients I have, and it was AMAZING! I left out all the brown and white sugar (simply because I didn’t have any) and I also left out the coconut oil because I can’t find that here in Western Australia (I used a bit more applesauce). The bananas kept it sweet enough and the oil wasn’t missed. For the “frosting”, I only used peanut flour and a defrosted frozen banana because I don’t have icing sugar. Your version looks a lot gooey-er, (which I would have preferred and would have followed to the letter if I had had the correct ingredients), but working with what I had on hand, it was still moist, delicious and I honestly can’t stop eating it!! Thank you :)
Great modifications! I am happy to hear how adaptable it is :)
I made these into cupcakes! They make over 20 and only cook for 25-30 minutes. I wouldn’t fold in the banana next time for cupcakes and I’d definitely add more chocolate chips only because I’m a chocoholic! They’re perfect for sharing and my non-vegan roomies loved them!!
I LOVE THIS BLOG!
thanks Dori! Love your take on them too :)
I made this the other night when I had some friends over. And because I love peanut butter so much, I added some into the cake mix before baking it. It was soooo delicious! Everyone raved about it. We even ate the leftovers the next morning with our coffee and it tasted even better. Yum, I wish I had a piece now…
I just made this cake…it is cooling right now, with the glaze ready to go. I have yet to take a bite, but I can tell it is going to taste good! It smells better than almost anything I’ve baked before. I just love how it looks with all the oat and serious texture going on in there.
OMG, it looks SOOOO DIVINE :)
I can’t wait for my just-bought ‘nanners to become overripe, ha ha.
I just made this with craisins, raisins and walnuts.It’s so moist!!! And that glaze?!
Thank you so much for the recipe!!!
Hi Angela! I’m a banana hoarder too….it has been 1 week since my last banana hoarding episode. Not really, but I do believe these little gold bundles should be treasured and not thrown. Last year when cyclone Yazi hit the Queensland (Australia) North coast and wiped out most of our banana growing region bananas sky rocketed from anout AU$2.50 per kilo to nearly AU$12.00 per kilo overnight. I siezed my window of opportunity and bought a whole box on special for AU$1.99/kilo and after the children had had their fill popped them straight into the freezer (in their skins). We had wonderful baked banana goodies all winter (everyone thought we must have been extremely wealthy to use for bananas for cooking at that price…ha ha). Anytime my bananas go black I just pop them straight in the freezer and I always have lovely supply for baking (obviously you don’t do this to eat them uncooked/baked). Cheers!
Great recipe! As my husband is diabetic I used Splenda with a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar and I used olive oil as I never eat solid fats but it was still wonderful, even without the topping which again had too much sugar for us. Thanks!
Glad to hear that!
I have oat flour already — is the 2 cups oats measurement of oat flour or the oats before they are processed into a flour? If it’s the latter, how much does that come out to be? I’m guessing less than 2 cups right?
Sorry for the late reply! Did you make it yet? I used two cups of rolled oats (before grinding) which should make about 2 & 1/8 or 1/4 cups oat flour or a bit less I think.
Sorry, did you mean 1 and 1/4?
if i wanted to make this recipe with regular flour would it be 1 and 1/4 cups of flour?
The oats make just over 2 cups of flour, so I would guess that you’d need between 1.75-2 cups of regular flour, although I’m really not sure how the texture will be impacted. Maybe read through some of the comments to see if others have tried it out? Good luck!
So Amazing!! I wanted it for breakfast, so I halved the brown sugar (1/4 cup), halved the choc chips and doubled the walnuts. I also made the glaze without any powdered sugar but added about a tablespoon of maple syrup instead–it was so perfectly moist, decadent & delicious!! No guilt included! I used some of those tiny bananas- ya know the ones about the size of your middle finger that come in a bunch of like 20!? Well they were as black as they could be and I think they made the cake!! Thanks! And this is most definitely going in my “vault”!! (BTW, found your blog courtesy of Laurn @ healthyfoodforliving.com :)
I made this cake today for my friend’s baby who just turned two. He is allergic to milk and eggs and his mom doesn’t like him to have too much sugar. I wanted to bake him a cake and I knew this would be the perfect recipe. I’ve had it bookmarked for many months but I’d never gotten around to making it! It was incredibly delicious! The baby is also allergic to peanuts (poor thing!) so I made the glaze with tahini–it was great! Thanks for a fabulous recipe!
Can i use old fashioned oats for this? :) Thanks!
yes for sure!
Thanks!
Just had this as my 20th birthday cake and it was out of this world, my family and I ate 2 cakes in one sitting, no one would ever guess it was healthy, let alone vegan. Will be keeping this one in regular rotation because it is absolutely perfect for any meal. Thanks! :)
Aw that makes me so happy! Happy Birthday Ashley!
Oh, hallelujah! A gluten-free recipe that doesn’t call for this and that white gluten-free flour mix. Thank you. I am going to print this off and go make it right now. In the oven is a spelt banana-chocolate-chip cake for my daughter’s birthday – and I knew I wouldn’t be able to have any of it. This is going to be MINE! :D (Well, I suppose I COULD share it with hubby who is also wheat intolerant.)
Amazing!!! New staple for me :D
You can always hurry the ripening process along by puttting your bananas in a brown paper bag with some apples for 24 hours, or so.