Banana Crumble Cake

I’m doing an extra post today, because I’m going on vacation tomorrow so I won’t be posting for the rest of the week. Here is a banana cake you must try. It’s a moist and tasty snacking cake with crumble topping.

Banana Cake
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp flaxseed meal (optional)
1 tbsp chia seed (optional)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk (add 2 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar to regular milk)

Crumble topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp butter

In a bowl, cream butter; add sugar and beat well. Add eggs one at a time, beating well about each. Beat in vanilla and bananas.
Mix together flour, flax, chia, baking powder and baking soda. Beat into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk. Spray 9″ square pan with nonstick coating and spoon in batter.
For crumble topping, combine brown sugar, cinnamon and flour in a small bowl. Cut in butter until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Sprinkle on top of cake batter.
Bake at 350F for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on rack.

I decided to make this after I had been talking with one of the daycare workers who was telling me Cole hasn’t been eating his lunch lately, but he seemed to really enjoy banana crumb muffins that another mom had brought. So not wanting to be a totally lame mom, I made this cake for Cole, but I couldn’t help myself from adding in some flax and chia so it was a little more healthy. He loved it, and so did the rest of the family. It was a nice treat, but it does have a lot of sugar so I might cut down on that next time. You can also use this recipe for a loaf or muffins if you prefer. I’ve also made it with an orange icing and it’s delicious that way too. You just combine 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar with 2 tbsp low-fat orange yogurt and 1 tsp orange juice. You can add orange zest into the batter as well to go with the icing. It’s a very versatile recipe.

-Recipe adapted from Lighthearted Everyday Cooking