Banana Pound Cake

Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting is perfect. It is delicious and it is eggless too! Getting the right eggless recipes is a challenge and I cracked it.

This is my first sweet punch bake. I’m not sure where to start and what to write. I guess I’ll start from scratch! A Sweet Punch is started by Divya of Easycooking, Ria of Ria’s Collection & Maria of Maria’s Menu. I’ve been following Easycooking since December last year and I’m grateful to Divya for starting me on the journey of baking. I had a microwave/ convection oven and not an OTG, so for years I believed I can’t bake in it (I did try a couple of times, but they were such a disaster, let’s not talk about them here!). One fine day, while surfing for some recipes on Chef in You, I came across a post by Divya on Baking in Microwave/ Convection mode. I couldn’t believe it!! There was actually someone out there who does her baking in Convection mode. You gotta be kidding!! Slowly when it all sunk in, I searched for eggless recipes on Divya’s blog and started on my baking life :)

A Sweet Punch is for bakers like me – Home Baking Made Simple. I guess we would like it simple. :) Thank you Divya, Ria & Maria for making it simple.

This month’s Sweet Punch was a Perfect Pound Cake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Apart from choosing her recipe, they also chose to follow the method of mixing the batter differently, which would ensure a tight crumb just like Sara Lee Pound Cake.

When I first read the recipe on reveal date, I was in a fix as I don’t eat or use eggs. For me it became more than Perfect Pound Cake, it became my first cake wherein I have substituted egg on my own account. I googled for eggless pound cake recipes, there are many but none that follows this proportion or method and I didn’t want to deviate from both. By following available recipes on google I felt I was missing the whole fun of being a Sweet Punch Member.

So I decided to simply substitute the eggs in the given recipe with best possible subs. In this endeavor, I ended up making 2 cakes – Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting & Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake. I substituted egg with banana & ricotta cheese respectively. In the process I learned to make cream cheese, coconut cream cheese frosting at home and that Paneer is a closest alternative to Ricotta Cheese. :) Enough of jibber-jabber, here to recipe –

I replaced egg with ripe Banana & Baking Powder in this recipe – (1/4 cup ripe Banana + 1/2 tsp Baking Powder replaces 1 egg) Also my fluted tube pan is smaller than 6 cup, so I reduced the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.

For making Cake flour at home – Take one cup of APF and remove 2 Tbsp from it. Replace the 2 Tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use.

When the cake was ready, I felt it was incomplete without a frosting, so I promptly toped it with cream cheese frosting.

I especially timed the cake to celebrate Father’s Day. And I had to give in to lot of demands from him – being V is not patient, I can’t wait to eat, who cares for frosting or photos is his motto!! He didn’t let me chill the frosting and didn’t even let me sprinkle the whole cake with coconut. So I had to make do with half sprinkled cake. For every resistance I would get – It is my day and it is baked for me, so what I say will prevail. MEN!!! May be it’s another excuse for a bad photo job :( I’m learning you see…. my learning curve is slow. I learnt not to bake when V is around. Next attempt will definitely be on a weekday. :)

The cake came out good with a distinct taste of both banana & coconut. Though as I mentioned, it tasted very good after chilling and eating. I felt the cake was slightly on the denser side – which I attribute to lack of eggs, no hand mixer & addition of baking soda.

In short I made Perfect Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake for second attempt. :) :) :) Since this post is already too long, I have decided to put together my workings for next attempt as a separate post. I hate long posts! So see you around in a couple of days.

Print Recipe

Banana Pound Cake

Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting is perfect. It is delicious and it is eggless too! Getting the right eggless recipes is a challenge and I cracked it.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time45 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Baking, Dessert, Filling & Frosting

Cuisine: Vegetarian

Keyword: Bakery, chocolate, Coffee, cupcake, eggless

Servings: 1 bundt cake

Ingredients

for the cake

• 2 tbsp milk
• ½ cup ripe banana
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup cake flour sifted
• ½ cup sugar granulated
• 1¼ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• a pinch salt
• 123 gram unsalted butter softened

for the coconut cream cheese frosting

• 1 cup greek yogurt homemade curd; hang 2 cup of curd = 1 cup of hung curd
• 1 cup full cream
• 1 cup cream cheese
• 50 gram unsalted butter softened
• ¼ cup fresh coconut grated
• ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
• ¼ cup fresh coconut grated for sprinkling on top

Instructions

for the cake

• Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Grease fluted tube pan. Sift dry ingredients together 2-3 times.
• Puree the banana in a processor.
• Lightly whisk together milk, banana puree and vanilla in a medium bowl.
• Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low speed for 30 secs, until blended.
• Add butter & half of the banana mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed beat for 1 minute. This will aerate and develop cake’s texture. Scrape down sides.
• Add the remaining banana mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs between each addition. Scrape down sides.
• Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with spatula. I baked for 25 – 30 mins.
• Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 mins before inverting onto a greased wire rack.

for the coconut cream cheese frosting

• Mix hung curd & cream together to get 2 cups of cream cheese. Remember this method gives slightly curd smelling cream cheese.
• Cream the butter and cheese together for about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides.
• Slowly add the sugar. Fold in the coconut. Chill for assembling.

assembling the cake

• Spread onto the cooled cake. Sprinkle grated coconut on top of frosting.
• Chill and serve. My cake tasted much better once we chilled and cut.

Notes

1. I replaced egg with ripe Banana & Baking Powder in this recipe – (1/4 cup ripe Banana + 1/2 tsp Baking Powder replaces 1 egg).
2. Also my fluted tube pan is smaller than 6 cup, so I reduced the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.