This banana oat flour cake is a fun crossover between a traditional healthy banana cake and a banana oat cake. It has the look and feel of a traditional moist banana cake with cream cheese frosting, but it's made using only whole grain oat flour!
A funny thing happened when I posted my oat flour banana bread recipe earlier this year. Not only did that recipe become wildly popular (I don't blame y'all I love it too), but also, I started to see an interesting trend. On the backend of my site through a few tools (I won't bore you with the technical piece of it, I can barely stop myself from being bored to tears by it), I can kind of tell what people are searching for when they come to HH for a recipe.
Over and over and over again, I started to see searches for oat flour banana cake or banana oat flour cake or banana cake made with oat flour. I had never had banana cake before, so I started to do a little research to see if making a healthy banana cake out of oat flour was even possible. After researching about banana cake and trying some at a local bakery, I knew I had to give it a go.
I wanted this recipe not to taste like healthy banana cake or banana oat cake, I wanted it to taste like a banana cake that you could barely tell was made with one of the world's healthiest flours, oat flour, and I'm not going to lie y'all I NAILED IT.
This banana oat flour cake is now officially my favorite cake (even surpassing my beloved carrot cake), and if potlucks are ever a thing again, it's what I'm bringing. It's what I'm dropping off on doorsteps for new babies, it's everything, it's perfect.
This banana oat flour cake is moist, airy in texture, and filled with sweet banana and cinnamon in every bite. And don't forget lathered in the perfect amount of delicious creamy frosting (I used cream cheese) to seal the deal. Banana flavored dessert lovers unite because your appreciation for all things banana is about to go up a notch or two or three. I can not wait for you to try this! And, if you're looking for more oat flour inspiration, try out these amazing dessert recipes!
And if baking intimidates you, I get it and don't worry I've got you covered with a step by step guide including photos below.
How to Make Banana Oat Flour Cake
Alright, y'all here we go, I promise, for my friends who don't love to bake, you can do this. You can bake a cake from scratch, you can do it with oat flour, and they won't even know.
The first step is to make sour milk by combining lemon juice with milk. I used unsweetened original almond milk, but any milk will work. The second step is to blend your oats to make oat flour, then combine the oat flour with the remaining dry ingredients (except sugar.)
The next step is where we step up our baking game. You'll need to cream your softened butter with your coconut sugar, meaning mix with an electric mixer. Note, I'm too lazy to plan to make softened butter. I keep my butter in the freezer and soften it by microwaving it for 30 seconds on each side. Is some of it melted? Ya, but most of it is softened, and that works! Then you'll add in your eggs and mix until it's combined, then mix in your eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
In another bowl, mash up bananas and set them aside. My trick is to mash them in the peel first then finish the job once the peel is removed with a fork. PS Overripe (very yellow with at least a few black spots) bananas work the best. If you only have green bananas, you can quickly ripen them in the oven! Preheat your oven to 300F and bake them for 15-20 minutes, then use them!
Now you'll pour about ¼ of your mixed oat flour into the wet ingredients, mix with an electric mixer, then pour ¼ of your sour milk, mix with an electric mixer and repeat until everything is mixed together. Then, fold in your mashed bananas (that just means gently mix them in with a spatula.) Pour the batter into a parchment-lined 9 x 13 glass baking dish and bake! See, I told you, you can totally do this!
It's done when you poke a toothpick in it, and it comes out clean. You'll then need to let it cool for at least one hour on a cooling rack before slicing into it. If you want to frost it, you'll need to let it cool overnight in the fridge.
I won't lie.
I'm too damn lazy to make my own frosting nowadays.
With healthy brands out there like Simple Mills and Miss Jones, I'm just not super interested in beating 4 cups of powdered sugar together.
So for this one, I used Miss Jones Cream Cheese Frosting, which everyone I've ever served it too loves. (I frequently use it for my Starbucks copy cat cranberry bliss bars during the holidays and people almost comment on how much they love the frosting.)
All that being said, if you want to make your own frosting, I suggest trying my Greek Yogurt Cream Cheese Frosting, the greek yogurt lowers the calories, but it still has a rich cream cheese taste too it.
Enjoy and let me know if you try this! Tag me on Facebook (@hungryhobby) or Instagram (@hungryhobbyRD).
Banana Oat Flour Cake
Ingredients
- ¾ cups unsweetened milk
- 2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 3 bananas 1 cup mashed
- ⅓ cup maple syrup
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup coconut sugar** or brown sugar
- ½ cup softened salted butter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 12 ounces creamy cheese frosting optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Whisk milk with lemon juice and set aside.
- Blend rolled oats into fine oat flour, and then mix the flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- Mash bananas in a separate bowl and set aside.
- Cream together softened butter and coconut sugar with an electric mixer. Mix in eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
- Fold in ¼ of the dry ingredients, mix them until combined, and then add ¼ of sour milk then mix again. Repeat alternating dry ingredients mix and sour milk until everything is incorporated.
- Fold in (use a spatula, not the mixer) to mix in the mashed banana. Bake in a parchment paper-lined 9 x 13 glass dish for 45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes back clean.
- Let cool for one hour on a cooling rack before serving. If you want to add frosting, let cool overnight in the fridge, so the frosting doesn't melt when you try to add it. Once you add the frosting, it's ready to serve, best served cold, or at room temperature.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
More Oat Flour Dessert Recipes:
- Oat Flour Carrot Cake
- Healthy Pineapple Upside Down Cake
- 27+ Oat Flour Dessert Recipes
- Oat Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oat Flour Brownies
Jennifer Rysso Parisi says
Your directions say to add eggs, but the recipe does not have eggs listed.
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
Fixing it right now! It's 3 eggs!
jacqui says
wow!!! thanku soooo much for this recipe, i have spent so much $ on testing GF cake recipes and all failed and turned to glue except your recipe, its perfect, so moist and tasty, i appreciate you sharing it,
i would like to ask can i substitute the coconut sugar for stevia or honey? if so what would the measurements be, Thankyou again and merry xmas x
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
OMG I'm so happy to hear that you loved it! We adore this recipe! I don't think stevia or honey would work because they aren't dry ingredients. Well, powdered stevia MIGHT work, but brown sugar or maple sugar would be the best alternative.
Elizabeth Likes says
This cake turned out moist and delicious! Its my new favorite. I never have luck with GF AP flour blends for cakes and I've tried them all. I love oats, oatmeal, oat flour, anything oats. Thank you so much for this recipe.
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
I don't love GF AP blends either! So glad you loved this cake it's one of my favorites!
Jennifer Amendola says
Followed the directions exactly - just pulled it out of the oven 10 minutes early and it looks like a burnt pancake 😢
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
Oh no! I've made this recipe so many times and that's never happened. I'm not sure what could have happened. I'm sorry it didn't turn out for you.
Megan says
Hi! Going to make this for my daughter’s birthday but was wondering if I could make this into a 2 layer cake? If so how long and what temp do you think I should do it?
Thanks so much!!
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
I think so! I would start by cutting the time in half! Sorry this response is delayed we were on a family vacation!
J bug says
I made a peanut butter frosting for it too! I added more cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Then substituted coconut oil and a squirt of stevia instead of maple syrup.
Kelli Shallal MPH RD says
Yum! Thanks for sharing!