After Ryan declared his love of banana bread I decided I would start to experiment with a new homemade version. You guys know me, I love seeing how many healthy things I can squish into the things my kids will actually eat, like pancakes.
With a few overripe bananas in hand I went to work, never thinking I would actually succeed on the first try. When I tasted the final product I thought, hmmm, good... not great. I'll change a few things and try again.
Then I went upstairs to take a shower.
When I came back down this is what I found.
They were devouring it!
Ryan, the ever maturing 9-year-old, asked not to be photographed but he declared the cake his new favorite and kept sneaking pieces. His little brother is still at that oblivious stage so I can snap away...
Evan REALLY liked it, asking to eat it pretty much all day. I just put the last piece in his lunch box.
That's right, they ate the whole darn cake in 24 hours. I'm not sure that's a good thing but it does make me happy. They don't normally go nuts for my weird baking experiments and it kept them out of the pantry for the few packaged things I do keep in there.
I really am surprised they liked it as much as they did. It was a little dense. It had to be the sweetness as I didn't skimp on the maple syrup like I usually do.
I enjoyed it too, it was really filling and satisfying. Plus, super easy to make. I just need to wait for my next round of bananas to ripen.
Here's what I did...
Ingredients
- 2-3 ripe bananas, mashed (totalling about 225g)
- ½ cup maple syrup (160g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (180g) (regular whole wheat will probably be fine; the cake is not delicate at all)
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- ½ cup ground flaxseeds (52g) (I used golden)
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, whisk the banana, maple syrup, vanilla, and egg until well combined.
Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, flour, oats, and flaxseeds. Mix well.
Stir in the baking powder until just combined.
Pour in a greased 11 x 7 baking sheet.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the middle. Mine took exactly 26 minutes.
You probably should let it cool but I couldn't wait. We dug right in.
You can kind of see the denseness in the photo. Again, it's tasty but don't expect a cake-like texture. It's more like a cross between one of my Oatmeal Cups and banana bread.
Hey, if they kids like it I'm happy! I love baking things they enjoy. It makes me happy.
📖 Recipe
Banana-Flax Breakfast Cake
Ingredients
- 2-3 ripe bananas mashed (totalling about 225g)
- ½ cup maple syrup 160g
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour 180g (regular whole wheat will probably be fine; the cake is not delicate at all)
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- ½ cup ground flaxseeds 52g (I used golden)
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk the banana, maple syrup, vanilla, and egg until well combined.2-3 ripe bananas, ½ cup maple syrup, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 egg
- Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, flour, oats, and flaxseeds. Mix well.1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon kosher salt, 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour, 1 cup old-fashioned oats, ½ cup ground flaxseeds
- Stir in the baking powder until just combined.2 teaspoon baking powder
- Pour in a greased 11 x 7 baking sheet.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the middle. Mine took exactly 26 minutes.
- You probably should let it cool but I couldn't wait. We dug right in.
Chris
I'm still trying to figure out what went so very wrong when I tried this! It's like i was missing an ingredient - specifically, a liquid. I ended up with not so much a "batter", as a "paste" and what resulted was a not-at-all-sweet, extremely dense, sort of awful granola bar. It was not moist and didn't rise and was just dry. I'm stubborn, so I've been resolutely eating them for breakfast each day, and I can see what would have been great if it hadn't gone sideways the way it did, but it's just not a pleasant experience. I just WISH I knew went so tremendously BADLY in the preparation process! I have a couple pics; you'd never believe how different the results were from your pics above! 🙂
Still a fan, just completely baffled on this one! <3 chris/ CPAGrrrl
roni
So weird. I just made it again following this exact recipe yesterday and my kids are devouring. Do you use a scale to weight the ingredients or do you just use cups? I weigh everything and have found that when I use cups it's always way more than the gram amount for things like flour. So that may be the difference.
Tiffany Bradley
Could this be made gluten free by chance?
roni
I don't see why a gluten free mix wouldn't work but I haven't tried it.
Sharon
Oh, too funny - look what it did to the names on our comments! Must be a glitch in the computer program??
DeniseH
This would be great to bring as a healthy snack with a fruit. Can you freeze them? Just take one out of the freezer and put in a bag and out I go.
roni
I don't see why not! I freeze everything. 🙂
Sharon
This looks scrumptious. Is there an easy way to print just your recipe and the nutritional information without printing the whole post?
roni
I have it set up only to print the content (not the ads and such) unfortunately it's the best I can do with my current set up.
You could always copy and paste what you want to print as well.
Sharon
Thanks Roni. That's what I've been doing, so I'm glad to hear that I haven't just been missing out on an easier way to print what I want. I enjoy your blog and appreciate that you share your creative, sometimes crazy-sounding recipes. 🙂 I admire your adventurous spirit.