This banana caramel pudding cake is about 10 times more delicious than it looks. I usually don’t make these for breakfast (why not?), so the lighting is generally bad, especially when I make it in my Le Creuset (it still gives me shivers to write that – I feel as though I’m now a grown-up cook because I have one).
What makes it so delicious is the layer of thick caramel at the bottom, which bubbles up into the bananas cake, making it gooey. My inspiration came from this recipe, but I love an extra layer of roasted bananas on top to create a crunchy, caramelized crust around their edges. And I’m currently not eating maple syrup, so I had to make a few changes. Oh right, and the whole dairy free, gluten free diet thing. In the end, the recipe changed a fair bit…
…which leads up to this:
Caramel Banana Pudding Cake (Vegan and Gluten Free)
Serve this with vanilla ice cream, or as I did with banana nice cream (freeze ripe bananas in chunks and then blend them to order and serve immediately). You can also make this with any high-sided baking dish, but come on, a thick casserole or 2-quart soufflé dish is pretty awesome if you want that caramelized-but-not-burned effect.
1/4 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
2 very ripe bananas
Egg replacer equivalent to 1 egg (or 1 flax egg)
1 cup almond milk
1 cup brown rice flour
1 tbsp gluten free baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup organic turbinado or demerara sugar (it just needs to be darker. You can also just add a 1/2 tsp of molasses to organic cane sugar, but it’s not exactly the same. Or use 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup sugar for a richer flavour)
2 tbsp dark rum
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Melt the Earth Balance in a medium bowl and whisk in the cane sugar. Mash one of the bananas and whisk it into the bowl followed by the egg replacer and almond milk.
In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk the dry ingredients into the banana batter. Transfer the batter to the baking dish.
Slice the remaining banana (lengthwise or widthwise, it doesn’t matter) and place over top of the batter
Bring the turbinado sugar and water to a boil in a pot and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the rum. Pour the mixture over the batter in the baking dish. Don’t stir it.
If you’re not using a thick casserole dish, place the baking dish on a cookie sheet to keep the bottom of the cake from burning.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden and bubbling around the sides.
Serve warm with vegan ice cream of choice.
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