Banana and Passionfruit Birthday Cake

It was my lovely Mum’s birthday yesterday and I thought I’d make her a cake. I’m not sure she really wanted a cake, but I think anything handmade is lovely to receive and it gave me an opportunity to blog about it too! She doesn’t eat chocolate so I thought I’d come up with a summery, fruity flavour instead. Two bananas were slowly gathering a mass following of fruit flies in the fruit bowl, so they had to feature, and I’ve been wanting to use some passionfruit for a while… so we ended up with a banana and passionfruit combo! It turned out to be a delicious combination, and one that I am going to be repeating. Nice when experiments work out.

Banana and Passionfruit Birthday Cake (dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, sesame-free, vegetarian and vegan)

makes 1 cake (mine is a rather tall 8 inch cake, but would make a rather more conventional 9 inch layer cake)

• 400g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 over-ripe bananas
• 175g caster sugar
• 175ml sunflower oil
• 250ml soya milk (I used Alpro banana flavour)
• 1 tsp vinegar

– Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade/Gas Mark 4

– Grease and line the cake tins

– Add the vinegar to the soya milk and set aside to curdle

– Sift together the flour, bicarb, baking powder and salt. Stir in the sugar.

– In a blender, whizz up the bananas, sunflower oil and soya milk mixture.

– Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently mix until no raw flour remains

– Pour into the tins and bake for 30-35 minutes for normal height cake tins, 45-50 minutes for one deep tin, or until a knife comes out clean.

– Cool completely in the tin, then transfer to a wire rack.

– Meanwhile, make the buttercream…

Velvety White Buttercream (dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, sesame-free, gluten-free, soya-free, vegetarian and vegan)

enough to ice middle and top of the cake

• 1/4 cup vegetable fat (such as Trex)
• 3/4 cup dairy-free spread (such as Pure)
• 3 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 1/4 cup oat milk
• plus, one passionfruit

– Whisk together the spread and vegetable fat.

– Add the icing sugar, 1/2 cup at a time with a splash of the oat milk, until fully combined and nice and fluffy.

– Sandwich the cakes together with the buttercream and the seeds and pulp of 1/2 a passionfruit.

– Spread the remaining buttercream on top and scatter over the seeds and pulp of the remaining 1/2 passionfruit.