Vegan banana chocolate cake

I have really gotten into home growing this year, and even though my flat doesn’t have a garden I have still managed to plant a decent amount of vegetables and herbs across my window sills and on my tiny terrace just outside my bedroom.

I try to only to use organic and homemade fertilisers to feed my plants, and banana peel tea is one of the most effective fertilisers as it’s rich in potassium and phosphorus. It is excellent for plants like tomatoes, peppers, and flowers.

However, you need a lot of bananas to make this fertiliser. Luckily my house always has bananas – both King and I love them, but it was unavoidable that we would get bored of them after weeks of eating them. So instead I tried to create different recipes for our leftover bananas, and this vegan banana chocolate cake is of them.

First, preheat the oven to 180C degrees and grease a 20 x 20 cm square baking tin with vegetable oil and line with parchment paper.

Peel two bananas and mash them with a fork or a hand blender in a large mixing bowl.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt, cocoa powder and baking powder into the banana mixture. You can use a spoon to break up the larger pieces of flour if you need to.

Add the vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla extract; stir gently until everything is combined.

I used bourbon vanilla extract to give this cake an extra rich taste, but it is completely optional, normal vanilla extract works as well.

Pour the mixture into the baking tin, top with slices of 1 banana and sprinkle with vegan chocolate chips.

Bake for 30-35 minutes – test whether the cake is done by inserting a toothpick into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, then the cake is ready.

Cool for 10-15 minutes before serving.

For this recipe I used a 20 x 20 square tin, but the same amount of dough would also work well with a 2lb loaf tin or 20 cm round cake tin too. So feel free to create this cake in the shape you like.

This is the BEST banana chocolate cake I’ve ever had! The combination of the sweetness from the bananas, the strong cocoa powder, all infused with deep richness of the bourbon vanilla extract is perfect. It’s moist, soft, and delicious, it certainly won’t sit in the cake tin for long. We actually finished two slices each immediately after the photoshoot!

If you always find yourself with leftover overripe bananas at home, you may want to check out my other banana recipes or my super tasty chocolate brownies recipe.

Let me know if you try out this recipe. You can leave a comment below, or take a picture and tag it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!