Today I am so excited to show you a highlighted recipe from my newest cookbook I just finished!
Yes I wrote a cookbook!
It’s called Modern Vegan Baking~ The Ultimate Resource for Sweet & Savory Baked Goods!
I can’t wait for you all to see it, so I just had to give you a sneak peak of what’s inside!
One of those recipes in the book of 125 all new recipes is this Bananas Foster Cake!
Layers of moist banana cake filled with rum-caramel buttercream, caramelized bananas and of course caramel drizzle!
As with any epic cake creation, you will have to get a few recipes prepared ahead of time before the assembly of the final masterpiece
So with my building on recipes theory you can achieve this with ease.
The cake is a spinoff recipe from my famous Vegan Vanilla Cake
With sauteed bananas packed between each layer and of course caramel buttercream to tie it all together!
The caramel sauce for the drip is a true caramel so be very careful when cooking that sugar to 300°F !
Be sure to watch the video tutorial for how to do this and make a note that it is important to have an instant read thermometer for this as well.
Once you start to get close to caramel stage in cooking sugar there is no going back and in an instant you could have smoky sugar filling your entire kitchen!
I cannot express enough to proceed with caution!
For those who are intimidated by caramel (and rightly so!) you may want to try an easier, safer caramel recipe like the one I made here for my Caramel Apple Cake!
In the video tutorial below I show you step by step how to organize yourself and attack these recipes one by one and then get to the building of this amazing cake!
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL YOUTUBE VIDEO TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE THIS CAKE
You will notice in this recipe I am using Vegan Egg by Follow Your Heart for the egg replacer *not sponsored
When I developed this recipe I was using many of the egg replacers available on the market and realize that is not the best practice since not everyone can get the same things.
This recipe will still work great by replacing the Follow Your Heart Vegan Egg with an equal amount of flax meal and the same amount of water as listed below but the water must be hot to reconstitute the flax.
For more recipes with caramel click the links below!
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- Caramel Macchiato Cream Pie
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- Caramel Pecan Bars
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- Caramel Volcano Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350°F
I understand not everyone can get the same Egg Replacers, specifically the FYH Vegan Egg. In which case you can use 4 Tbs Flax Meal and same amount of water - but the water must be hot to reconstitute the flax
- For the Banana Cake Layers:
- Vegan Butter 12 Tablespoons (170g)
- Granulated Sugar 1¼ cup (250g)
- Follow Your Heart Vegan Egg 4 Tablespoons **SEE NOTES IN TEXT ABOVE THIS RECIPE
- Cold Water ¾ cup (177ml) **SEE NOTES ABOVE
- Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon (5ml)
- Banana Puree 1 cup (from approx 2 medium bananas)
- All Purpose Flour 2 cups (250g)
- Baking Powder 1½ teaspoons
- Salt ½ teaspoon
- Ground Cinnamon 1 teaspoon
- Ground Cardamon ½ teaspoon
- For Carmel Banana Dip and Caramel Drip Sauce:
- Granulated Sugar 1½ cup (300g)
- Water ⅓ cup (80ml)
- Vegan Butter 1 Tablespoon (14g)
- Soy Milk at room temperature ¼ cup (60ml)
- For the Caramelized Banana Filling:
- 2 Medium Bananas
- Vegan Butter 2 Tablespoons (28g)
- Light Brown Sugar 2 Tablespoons (28g)
- Rum *optional 2 Tablespoons (30ml)
- For the Rum - Caramel Buttercream:
- 1 Recipe Aquafaba Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- ½ Cup COLD Caramel Sauce reserved from above drip recipe
- Rum Extract 2 teaspoons (10ml)
- Banana Chips as needed for optional garnish
- For the Cake:
- Combine the FYH Vegan Egg with the cold water and whisk smooth, add the vanilla extract
- Cream the vegan butter with the sugar on medium to high speed until light & fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile sift the flour with the baking powder, spices and salt
- Add the vegan egg mixture to the creamed mixture and mix smooth
- Add the sifted flour mixture while mixing on low speed until combined then add the banana puree and mix smooth
- Divide the batter evenly in the pans and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 30-35 minutes or until they are springy to the touch when you gently press the centers.
- Cool completely while you prepare the caramel dip for the bananas and then the caramel drip sauce
- For the Caramel Dip & Drip Sauce:
- IN a medium heavy bottom sauce pot combine the sugar and water over medium to high heat and stir to dissolve the sugar, but do not stir once the mixture comes to a boil
- Boil until the temperature reaches just under 300°F on an instant read thermometer or once you see the color start to change to a light amber.
- Shock the pot in an ice water bath to stop the cooking then let it sit for about 5 minutes to cool down and thicken slightly
- Dip the banana chips in the caramel then lay out on a silicon mat to set
- At this point your caramel drip may start to harden, in which case return it to a low heat to melt the caramel then add 1 Tablespoon vegan butter and the room temperature soy milk, be careful as it may splatter, just whisk it out to a smooth sauce consistency
- Cool completely before using in the buttercream recipe as follows (and the remaining will be the drip for the cake)
- Next prepare the buttercream recipe (see video and recipe on Aquafaba Swiss Buttercream recipe post)
- Add the last stage of mixing add in ½ cup of the reserved cooled caramel drip sauce from above recipe and then the rum extract
- For the Caramelized Banana filling:
- Melt the vegan butter with 1 Tablespoon of the brown sugar in a heavy bottom saute pan
- Add the sliced bananas and fry until they are browned and then flip them over to cook the other side, sprinkle the other 1 Tbs brown sugar over top and cook until starting to caramelize.
- Deglaze the pan with 2 Tbs rum *optional
- Transfer to a tray to cool
- Now you can assemble the cake as shown in the video tutorial.
- Be sure to cake is chilled and the leftover caramel drip sauce is cooled before pouring over top.
The bananas inside will not turn brown since air is what causes oxidation, but once the cake is cut the exposed banana filling may turn slightly. Use a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper pressed directly against the cut side to prevent severe browning of the filling and drying of the cut cake.
Baked cake layers can be frozen for up to 1 month wrapped well
3.5.3226
Hi Gretchen,
How are you?
This cake looks mouth-watering ?
Loving the new web layout… and you wrote a cookbook!!! Congratulations!!! You bet I will be ordering from the Canadian amazon website! Do you have it available for sale at other places too? Just curious!
It will be amazing to sit down with a cup of tea and leaf through your recipes, knowing each will be perfect because of how much effort you must have put into them.
I am so happy for you. I know the cookbook will be a bestseller and wishing you all the best in everything 🙂 You are so deserving.
With all the best wishes for the nearing Christmas season too,
Irma.
Hi Irma! thankyou!! Just amazon for now, it releases January 23
thank you so much! Gretchen
OMFG!!!! this vegan whip is so amazing it literally made my cry!!! I own a (transitioning to) vegan bakery and I’ve been searching high and low for a vegan whip that meets my standards. This is BY FAR the best yet!!!!!!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! Now to try to figure out a perfect vegan sugar cream pie………..
YAY! Thank you & That is so awesome! Good luck – CLICK HERE for Cream PIES & a 5th to add to that list Caramel Macchiato Cream Pie
Dear Gretchen,
I am big fan of your recipes. Your blog is really inspiring.
Big thanks for sharing such wonderful recipes. Anytime I want to bake a cake i visit ur website…the vegan recipes r just ausumm.
I have already pre-ordered your cookbook. Just waiting for it to be released.
YAY! THANK YOU!!!!
Hey Gretchen!
Love your blog so much!!
I was curious for this recipe, what if i only have 9inch cake pans, should I double the recipe for get two cakes? Or is the above recipe appropriate? Thank you!
Hi Thanks! This would be fine to divide the batter into 2-9″ pans
Hi Gretchen,
Thank you for sharing these lovely recipes. Can’t wait to try them.
Quick qus: I find buttercream frosting to be very sweet therefore prefer whipped cream frosting. Can it be substituted for all cakes that call for buttercream? And would it work fine for flowers etc decorations for the cake?
yes sure you can use whatever icing you like! Yes many people will use whipped cream for decorations as well
I baked this cake and was a success!! Yes! everybody loved it. The only thing missing was the caramel, I made it but did not know how to finished it (just did the suger and the water turned out beautifully then got hard). If you can show us how to make it. Thank you, Thank you.
hello, I have a more indepth look at a vegan caramel sauce here CLICK HERE
Hey Gretchen, the cake looks absolutely mouth watering!
Can I use the Ener-G egg replacer instead of the follow your heart replacer ? Do you feel they are interchangeable?
Thanks a bunch for your wonderful recipes !
HI Thanks!= Those two egg replacers are not exactly interchangeable, I went into detail about all the egg replacers here in my affordable online course Vegan Baking Mastery in case you are interested to want to tweak recipes to YOUR specification rather than follow the recipes you find online or in books or while converting your own non vegan recipes to vegan.
But the FYH vegan egg is different than the EnerG. I typically use FYH when replacing YOLKS in a recipe and the EnerG has leaveners in it so you have to be careful how much you are adding along with the existing baking powder and soda in a recipe. So while I do not want to say NO you can’t replace it, those two replacers are very different, as I explain in the course (its hard to answer that in a few sentences here) but the short answer is “Do a small test if YOU MUST switch the replacers, but keep in mind the ingredients in both and how they will play into the rest of the ingredients in the recipe”
Hey Gretchen, can I use margarine instead of vegan butter? Thanks!
yes
Hi Gretchen, I really love your site, it’s always my go to when making vegan desserts! Had a quick question, could you please suggest an alternative to the Swiss meringue buttercream, would a normal vegan buttercream be stiff enough to ice this with, is there a reason for this buttercream (I’m goknff to be really pushed for time so hoping to go for quick options!)
Thanks so much!
HI Thanks! You can use any buttercream icing you prefer! CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE OPTIONS
Hi Gretchen,
Written recipe says 4 tbspn of flax meal plus same amnt of water as a replacement for 4 tbspn FYH so is it 3/4 cup water for 4 tbspn of flax meal or 4 tbspn water for 4 tbspn of flax meal? Quite confusing for me.
M gonna mk this cake base oni but without any filling as I hv no material available coz of lockdown 🙁 . Will Only whipped aquafaba ( with no cream of tartar again) stay in between the layers?
Thanks and Regards,
Mru/Yug
Yes it would be 4Tbs flax with 3/4 cup water
Yes! You have to make due with what you have! I am sure it will be GREAT!
Dear Gretchen,
I haven’t checked your site for a looong time. Last week I discovered your nonvegan recipes are all gone. Than I watched your youtube video. I am sad for myself and angry (again myself) also – why didn’t I checked you site more often and why didn’t I save your delicious recipes?!
I haven’t tried your recipes’ vegan versions. Some of the ingredients are not possible to find in my country. Is it possible to replace vegan ingredients with nonvegan ones?
HI Ayse, thank you for the support over the years, yes it’s true, since last December my non vegan blog has shut down.I couldn’t keep up the cost to host it on the internet and maintain it monthly anymore
The cost to host such a huge database online was close to $400 a month with tech support monthly to keep it clean & safe and smooth.
I certainly do not (did not) make that much in adsense revenue through Youtube & Google.
That became a pretty steep price to pay for a website that had been conflicting me financially & emotionally for so many years,
so after 5 years of keeping it free & open to the public I finally decided to shut it down.
I did not keep any of the recipes for myself when I shut down the database
(which was the only place the recipes were stored)
I just did (do) not feel comfortable anymore sharing recipes laden with animal ingredients promoting the very industry I loathe
so it really didn’t make sense for me to keep them nor keep open and available such an expensive website.
I do thank you so much for your support and encouragement through the ages,
I have stunned NON Vegans with my vegan recipes, but I do understand it is hard to find some of the ingredients – but for the most part my recipes take plant milk instead of cow milks, vegan butter (margarine) and mostly flax meal for an egg replacer would work.
If not, I am I know there are tons of great (if not better than mine) recipes out there for you to use!
Thanks again~ Best, Gretchen
Thank you for your kind reply! Before I watched your video, I didn’t know how much a website like yours costs.
I’m sure your new recipes are also delicious. I am sure there is no better recipes than yours! Thank you for sharing your experiences and recipes. I will continue to follow your channel and website.
Wish you good luck and all the best!