You might also like vegan peach upside-down cake, vegan cranberry upside-down cake and vegan rhubarb ginger upside-down cake. I’ve long been waiting to make and share with you this recipe for my vegan and gluten-free Banana Upside-Down Cake. This is a dense, tender cake with a pudding-like texture that dissolves in your mouth in an explosion of banana-flavored deliciousness. And it couldn’t be more gorgeous to look at, ensuring that your eaters are as impressed when they eat with their eyes as they are when they actually taste it. The cake is naturally sweetened with maple syrup, and you need very little of it. There are 5 tablespoon in the recipe, but you could even cut that down to 4 tablespoon or a quarter cup. The crumb is made of bananas and almond flour scented with vanilla and cardamom. The cake cooks on top of a layer of bananas laced with maple syrup, creating that beautiful, caramelized, glazed top when you turn it over after baking. This is a small cake–I make it in an 8-inch skillet–and it yields 8 slices. You can easily double the recipe for a larger cake. Needless to say, it is an extremely kid-friendly recipe as well. My boy loved it, and it will be one of my go-tos for an after-school snack from now on. I hope you will make it soon for an afternoon treat or dessert–or even breakfast. Do be sure to let me know if you do by leaving a comment below, or by taking a photo and tagging me @HolyCowVegan on Instagram.
What we love about this banana upside-down cake
It has no gluten No grains No oil No artificial sweetener. Delicious, packed with banana flavor. Moist, melt-in-the-mouth texture. It takes under 10 minutes to put together. The batter comes together entirely in the food processor. Gorgeous.
Ingredients
3 bananas 2 cups of superfine almond flour. Superfine is important for the right texture to your cake. ½ cup nondairy milk (I used almond milk) 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 4-5 tablespoon maple syrup (taste the batter. If the bananas are very sweet you can use less). 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ¼ cup tapioca starch (corn starch would work too) ½ teaspoon cinnamon (you can use cardamom for a really lovely flavor)
How to make vegan banana upside-down cake
Start out by placing two bananas, roughly chopped, in the food processor bowl and pureeing them. The more ripe the bananas are the sweeter your cake will be, and the less maple syrup you will need. Once the bananas are pureed all you need to do is dump in the remaining ingredients and blitz them. Save one banana and 1 to 2 tablespoon of maple syrup for the top of the upside-down cake. To make the top, spray the bottom of an 9-inch cast iron skillet or cake pan with cooking spray (you can skip the cooking spray if you want to avoid it, but it really helps with unmolding the cake). Pour one to two tablespoon of maple syrup into the skillet or pan. Tilt the pan to make sure it spreads evenly across the bottom. Cut the remaining banana into thin slices. I made small horizontal slices but you could slice vertically as well. Arrange the sliced bananas on top of the syrup in a nice pattern. Dump the blitzed cake batter on top of the banana slices. Smooth the top. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool on a rack for about 30 minutes before unmolding. Do this by running a knife around the edges, then place a dish over the mouth of the pan or skillet and flip it over quickly. Continue cooling the cake for another 30 minutes before you eat.
More vegan banana dessert recipes
Recipe card
Check to get new recipe updates by email.
