Zero Sugar Banana Cake

Let me put this disclaimer first ! This is not a diabetic friendly cake or a sugar free cake. The only thing is I haven’t added any extra sugar. The sweetness is from the dates, honey, bananas and choco chips. If you like mildly sweet cake, you can reduce the number of dates. I found it to be on the sweeter side. You can find many more versions of banana cake in the blog by clicking here. The cake was unbelievably moist and soft. The nuts were

evenly distributed and the best part was, the cake could be sliced neatly too. For a better flavour, you can toast the nuts before slicing them.

As always, I have used a 240 ml cup. You may skip the milk powder if you wish to. But I find that the milk powder reduces the wheaty taste of whole wheat cakes. As per my friend Akila’s suggestion, I religiously follow her mom’s advice of sieving the flour with the rising agents many many times. This helps to make your wheat cakes soft and fluffy. Generally, wheat banana cakes are a bit dense, but this wasn’t 🙂 so, what are you waiting for? Do you find any sad faced over ripe bananas in your fruit basket? Grab your apron, preheat your oven and start baking. There is still some time for your sunday evening tea 🙂 Btw, before I forget, happy friendship day to all my friends and followers and well wishers.

Ingredients:

• Wheat flour 125-130 gm (1 cup)
• Salt a pinch
• Milk powder 1 tbsp
• Baking powder 1/2 tsp
• Baking soda 1/2 tsp
• Honey 1 tbsp
• Oil 2 tbsp
• Curd 1 tbsp
• Milk 1/4 cup
• Ripe bananas 2 (100-110 gm)
• Vanilla extract 1/2 tsp
• Dates 10
• Chopped almonds 2 tbsp
• Chopped walnuts 2 tbsp
• Choco chips 1/4 cup

Method:

• Preheat the oven at around 150-160 degree Celsius for atleast ten minutes.
• Grease a six inch round cake tin with butter and dust it with flour. Tap out the excess flour.

• Sieve together the flour, milk powder, salt and the rising agents for atleast 12-15 times. This helps in aeration.
• Mash the bananas with a fork and add chopped dates or puree the dates and add it. I have simply chopped them as mine were too soft. If your dates are hard, soak them in some hot water and puree them into a thick paste.

• Mix till the mixture looks a bit uniform.
• Now add curd and oil and mix well.
• Furthermore, add honey and vanilla extract and stir.

• Now add the sieved dry ingredients slowly into the liquid mixture by alternating with the milk. You might need a tablespoon more or less of the milk according to the nature of your flour. Do not overmix.

• Add the chopped almonds and walnuts and fold it. The batter will be a bit thick as compared to other cake batter.
• Fold in the choco chips gently.

• Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and smoothen the top. Sprinkle some more choco chips if desired.

• Bake the cake in their preheated oven for around 45-50 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Please check after 35-40 minutes.
• Take the tin out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack.

• Allow the cake to cool in the tin for atleast 4-5 minutes.
• Transfer the cake onto the wire rack and cool it completely.

• Slice and serve it with love.

Notes:

• Sieving the flour with the rising agents helps in getting a fluffy cake, so please do not skip this step.
• The liquid measurement might change a bit according to the liquid absorption capacity of your flour. So please adjust accordingly.
• Each oven behaves differently, so please adjust the time and temperature accordingly.
• Bake cakes with the lower rod on settings. Again, adjust this settings as per your oven.
• Do not mix the wet and dry ingredients vigorously. Fold it gently.
• Use over ripe bananas.
• I am not claiming this to be a diabetic friendly or sugar free cake. Dates, choco chips are sweet. Its just that I have not added white sugar or brown sugar or cane sugar or so on into it. Still I found this cake to be quite sweet for my liking.
• Slice the cake only after its cooled completely.
• In hot humid weather, shelf life of cake reduces. So finish it off quickly or refrigerate it after a day.