We drove up from Ventura to the Bay Area last weekend to celebrate the wedding of Allan’s oldest pal. Both Allan and I were lucky enough to grow up in great neighborhoods with a set of built-in lifelong friends. Getting married and having to figure out your wedding party makes you grateful for those kinds of friendships. It also happened to be my birthday that weekend and we were able to squeeze in a small family gathering with Filipino food, mahjong and my favorite cake—VEGAN BANANA CRUMBLE CAKE.

This was the second most popular homemade dessert in my house growing up (behind our vegan chocolate cake). Back in the early-2000s, I had set out to find a banana bread recipe that I could make “jess-friendly” because I seemed to be the only kid in my classroom that had never eaten banana bread. This was back in the early-internet days when hopping online to find a vegan recipe was not really a thing. The only time I used the computer back then was to play Freddi Fish: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell. Did anyone else play that game? It was GOLD. Anyway, the only places I could find recipes were in my mom’s two bible-brick-like cook books: The Joy of Cooking and The New Housekeeping Cookbook—published in 1973 and 1986 respectively. I found a banana cake recipe in the latter and figured that I could just pass the cake off as extra delicious “bread”.

It tastes excellent whether you call it bread or cake, and can also easily be turned into cupcakes/muffins. The sugar-cookie crumbles on top are great because the cake isn’t too sweet to begin with (which also makes it easy to pass off as bread/muffins).

Recipe: Vegan Banana Crumble Cake

This recipe makes one regular size bundt pan cake or a dozen cupcake/muffins.

Ingredients

1 C. vegan butter/margarine (we like Earth Balance)
1 + 1/2 C. sugar
3 + 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
2 (large-ish) bananas
2/3 C. soymilk (vanilla flavor is okay)
1 T. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 vegan eggs (we typically use EnerG but ground flax seed + water works too)
powdered sugar (for dusting)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350* and grease bundt pan. I just put this as the first step since it’s customary, but I typically do this halfway through prep because I’m slow…if you’re slow too, feel free to do when you’re halfway through too :)
In a stand mixer (or large bowl with a hand mixer), beat margarine with 1 C. of sugar until light and fluffy.
Add 2 C. flour and beat until well mixed.
Spoon out 1/2 C. of the mixture and set aside (this will be for the crumble bottom).
Create vegan eggs in small bowl (follow instructions on EnerG box)
Mash bananas in small bowl then blend into the original mixture.
With mixer on low, add soymilk, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, vegan eggs, remaining 1+1/2 C. flour and 1/2 C. sugar, and mix until even consistency.
Pour batter into bundt pan and sprinkle the reserved mixture on top.
Bake until toothpick comes out clean (45-60 minutes).
Let it cool for 20 min and dust with powdered sugar if you’d like.