One Bowl Easy Vegan Banana Snack Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting (No Eggs! Gluten Free!)
This soft and fluffy banana cake is so moist and rich with flavor, and is made in just one bowl! No eggs, no dairy, and easily gluten free, this easy banana cake is topped with a creamy dairy free peanut butter cream cheese frosting.
If you’re a fan of all banana desserts (looking at you, BEST vegan gluten-free banana bread, fluffy vegan banana pancakes, and the ultimate vegan banana cream pie), then you’re going to love this gluten-free banana cake.
It’s like a snack cake with an unbelievable peanut butter frosting that will leave you speechless (and going for spoon after spoon). Very similar in flavor to my vegan banana bread cinnamon rolls too 🙂
NOTE: If you’re looking for more of a classic cake recipe, rather than a lightened up snack cake, try this vegan banana cake, that can be easily made as a gluten-free cake as well!
No eggs and no dairy is needed to make this fluffy banana cake.
You’re just going to absolutely adore this easy gluten-free banana cake!
And if you like cakes: Be sure to check out some other amazing gluten free vegan cakes!
What’s the difference between banana bread and banana cake?
Often, banana bread and even banana muffins, such as this fluffy vegan banana bread that’s easily gluten free, is much denser and definitely not as sweet. They’re very comparable, but banana cake I find tends to be lighter in texture, and of course, is topped with a delicious frosting.
Ultimately, I think it’s best you have both recipes in your life 😉
Ingredients:
What’s really cool about this banana cake is that you can use a gluten free flour blend OR even use all purpose flour if you’d really like! The cake will come out absolutely delicious.
For this banana cake, you’ll need:
- Flour: I personally recommend using King Arthur’s Measure for Measure or Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free baking flour blend. These two gluten free flour blends are my favorite: both contain xanthan gum, which is necessary for this cake recipe, and both are vegan-friendly (so no dairy). Please DO NOT use the Namaste flour blend. It will not work.
- Vegan buttermilk: This helps our cake to rise and become super fluffy. You only need your favorite dairy free milk and apple cider vinegar or lemon juice.
- Bananas: well, of course you need bananas! For this recipe, since there is no oil nor applesauce, the bananas basically replace both, yielding the most moist banana cake you’ll ever taste! Make sure your bananas are extra ripe for added sweetness- if you need to ripen yellow bananas, check out this trick here!
- Brown sugar & sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Dairy free yogurt: Just a touch to add moisture and richness to the batter.
- Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting: this is a lovely combination of peanut butter, vegan butter, vegan cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Absolutely delightful!
Overview: How to make a one bowl banana cake:
There’s a reason why this is called an easy gluten free banana cake recipe! It’s so simple and quick to make that you’ll be making it every week, guaranteed (because who doesn’t love eating a banana sheet cake whenever?!).
To start, make sure that your bananas are mashed and that you’ve mixed your dairy free milk with the apple cider vinegar to create the buttermilk reaction.
Now we get to make the cake!
- Preheat your oven to 350F and grease a 7×11″ or 8×13″ cake pan with some coconut oil or olive oil and line with parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vegan butter, mashed bananas, brown sugar, sugar, dairy free yogurt, vegan buttermilk, and vanilla. Then whisk in the dry ingredients.
- Pour the batter into the baking dish and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean.
Then let the cake cool before you begin to make your vegan peanut butter frosting!
Optional gluten-free banana cake add ins:
- Chopped walnuts
- Vegan chocolate chips
- Chopped pecans
- Extra cinnamon
- Vegan white chocolate chips
- Ground nutmeg
- Orange zest
Tips for making moist banana cake
Now, from time to time, you might have some issues with vegan baking. It happens! Like with my vegan vanilla cake, you’ll want a nice and light texture, but because this recipe is devoid of any eggs, you need to do some culinary magic (i.e. the tips I’m about to share 😉 ).
- What happens if your cake is gummy? This happens when your ingredients aren’t fully to room temperature. If your ingredients are still cold, it alters the gluten, yielding a gummy texture.
- Why is my cake too dense? Similar to gumminess, a dense banana cake is no good! To prevent this, make sure that you’ve sifted the flour. This helps to capture some air rather than having clumps of flour that you have to beat apart.
- Help! My cake didn’t rise! This may actually be the quality of your leavening agents. Baking powder stops working after a while. Make sure that your baking powder isn’t sitting out open and is fresh (within the past month!).
- What if I want to swap in other ingredients? Please only follow the swaps that I suggest down below in the recipe card. Otherwise, I really can’t guarantee the results, and I don’t want you to be unhappy with your baking experience. Ingredients I’ve personally tested and can say work: you can use any dairy free milk.
- Can I make this nut free? Absolutely! That’s my last swap: swap in sunflower seed butter for the peanut butter and you have a wonderful nut free gluten free vegan banana cake recipe!
I hope these tips help! These are some of the most common errors when experimenting with vegan baking, and I really would love your healthy banana cake to come out the best it can be 🙂 So make sure to check out these tips before you begin!
You’re just going to love this easy vegan gluten-free banana cake recipe! I seriously cannot get over how light it tastes, and that it’s oil free, yet is so sweet and moist! My fork kept finding its way to another bite…and another bite…and another!
I can’t wait to see your beautiful banana sheet cake creations on Instagram and Pinterest!
Happy baking and frosting!
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If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
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One Bowl Easy Vegan Banana Snack Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting (No Eggs! Gluten Free!)
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 35
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This soft and fluffy banana cake is so moist and rich with flavor, and is made in just one bowl! No eggs, no dairy, and easily gluten free, this easy banana cake is topped with a creamy dairy free peanut butter cream cheese frosting.
Ingredients
Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Cake:
- 3 cups (375) g all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour*
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted vegan butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150 g) brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp dairy free yogurt, room temperature
- 1 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 large bananas, mashed
- 1 cup (240 mL) vegan buttermilk, room temperature
- 1 batch of Vegan Peanut Butter Frosting
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 9×9″ or 8×13″ baking pan with parchment paper greased lightly with oil.
- Make the batter: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vegan butter, mashed banana, brown sugar, sugar, dairy free yogurt, and vanilla extract. Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, along with the vegan buttermilk, and whisk until just combined.
- Bake: Pour the banana cake batter into the prepared baking pan, and bake. For 9×9″, you’ll bake for 35-40 minutes, for 8×13″, you’ll bake the cake for 28-30 minutes.
- Cool: Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then transfer the cake to a cooling rack to cool completely before making the frosting.
- Make the peanut butter cream cheese frosting: In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream together the vegan cream cheese, vegan butter, and peanut butter. Add in the powdered sugar in 1 cup increments, using 1 tbsp of dairy free milk at a time to help achieve a super fluffy and creamy texture.
- Frost the cake: Spread the peanut butter cream cheese frosting onto the cooled gluten-free banana cake. Sprinkle with extra peanuts and banana coins. Slice and serve!
Notes
Gluten-free flour options: I love using King Arthur Measure for Measure flour, which is very similar in weight to all purpose flour. If you’re using Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 baking flour, you’ll need to use 490 g. If you’d like to use just oat flour, you can use 440 g or 4 1/2 cups gluten-free oat flour.
Not gluten-free? You can swap in all purpose flour easily.
Sugar: You can also use maple syrup instead of coconut sugar or granulated sugar. Use 1 cup (240 mL) maple syrup.
Oil-free peanut butter frosting: replace the vegan butter and vegan cream cheese with 1 cup vegan Greek-style yogurt. You can also swap in maple syrup here for the powdered sugar as well.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 square
- Calories: 282
- Sugar: 22.5 g
- Sodium: 259.5 mg
- Fat: 8.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 46.4 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 6 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Oh my goodness this cake is phenomenal!! Reminds me of the banana and peanut butter sandwiches I used to love as a kid. I think Elvis would approve 🙂
Aw thank you so much!! I’m so happy to hear it!
Good Morning,
I am SO excited to make this cake today, question do you think this would make into a bundt cake well? Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Aw I am so happy to hear it! I have not tried this as a bundt cake, but from my experience, it would need a bit longer to bake! My estimate would be about 45 minutes, but check the cake after 35 with a toothpick to determine how much longer! I hope you love it!
Thanks friend!
Perfect way to use up ripe bananas! I’m going on a road trip this weekend and thought this would be a great snack; boy was I right!! So simple to make and the frosting and cake are simply divine. Thank you for such nourishing, allergy-friendly recipes!! ☺️☺️ (P.S. your videography on Instagram is absolutely stunning!)
where can I get vegan buttermilk? or what’s the best way to make it? thanks
Hi Serena!! So sorry, it didn’t link properly!! It’s now reflecting in the ingredients section 🙂 Enjoy!
I’m not vegan but for a buttermilk substitute you can always add 1 TB of white vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of milk. it works great every time for me. I imagine it would also work if you added some to plant based milks, but I’ve never tried it.
Hi! I made this cake and it was really good, except that the dough wasn’t runny at all. I felt that I should put some milk but I didn’t because I wanted to follow the recipe. Turns out you did put buttermilk in the ingredients but not in the instructions so it was a bit confusing. It was still good though even though slightly dry, so maybe I will try it again with the buttermilk next time. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Hi Reb! I’m SO sorry about that, I just updated the instructions to reflect that!! So sorry!
Am I able to not use peanut butter at all and just have it be a banana cake?
Yes, absolutely! You can swap in my vegan cream cheese frosting as a topping 🙂
Hello!!!! Can I make this without the yoghurt?
Hi Kaleigh! I’d recommend keeping the yogurt in if you can- otherwise, you can swap in applesauce!
This cake is absolutely stunning. I’ve made it twice this month. So easy and incredibly good. I didn’t have dairy free yogurt so left it out and as far as I can tell no issue. For the icing I used cashew butter and the texture was excellent, very fluffy. Thank you!
That’s so wonderful!! I’m so happy to hear it 🙂 LOVE the idea of cashew butter frosting, that sounds DELICIOUS!! Enjoy, and thanks for the review! 🙂
I made this with the Namaste GF flour blend because it’s all I had and I didn’t read your note at the beginning until I was already home and ready to bake! I quickly read some reviews online saying it isn’t quite 1-1 and it’s better to use a little less. I probably ended up using closer to 2 & 1/2 to 2 & 3/4 flour until the consistency looked good.
My friends all said it was amazing so it ended up working just fine! The frosting ended up being a lot thicker than it looks in your recipe pictures and also a lot darker. Maybe it was the brand of peanut butter I used? Just a visual thing though because it was *delicious*
Hi Emily! Oh this is wonderful to hear, I’m so glad it worked for you!! I haven’t been able to find Namaste GF flour anywhere near me so that’s why I can’t really speak to it other than I’ve noticed other readers struggle with it, but I think it can also be very personal (like I know some people find King Arthur a bit harder to work with, but in my experience it’s been wonderful and my go-to!). For the peanut butter, that must have been the brand! I use a light roasted, yours is probably dark roasted! SO happy you over all loved it though, that’s awesome 🙂 Thank you so much for coming back to note all of this!
Hi!! So excited to make this tomorrow. Do you think I could make it in a round or springform pan and make two of them and put frosting in between for layers? Thank you! Making it into a birthday cake for my husband
Hi Tania! Absolutely!! That would totally work! It will probably need about 25-30 minutes to bake, so just check how it’s doing around the 25 minute mark with the oven light!
I’m planning to make this for a birthday party and it needs to feed around 30-35 people, and I only have a 7” and a 10” cake tin. Would it work in 10” and how would I adjust? Thanks x
Unbelievably delicious! The texture is INSANE, it was sooo soft, and moist but bouncy and light. Might have “accidentally” eaten 3 slices, going to be taking this for a family gathering!
This is so wonderful!! Thank you so much for the review 🙂 Haha I do the same thing all of the time 😂