Vegan Buttermilk Banana Cake

For those of you lucky assistants and friends that were at Adam's going away cookout, you probably got to try my non-vegan buttermilk cake. Well this is not the recipe for that and here is why - that milk and butter gives me a tummy ache! Plus I really want to learn to bake vegan - so I took the recipe I used for the non-vegan cake and made it vegan. Voila, the results!

My biggest concern in making this cake vegan was replacing the egg. Lets face it - those little guys do the job right. But! I read that you can use a banana and it will do mostly the same thing (comes out a bit denser but you will never hear me complain about a dense cake), but of course it will add the taste of banana. Well lucky me, I love bananas. I make banana bread like...like I love bananas.

Vegan Buttermilk Banana Cake

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (its almost healthy this way!)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp unsalted vegan butter spread, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 small banana, mashed well
1/2 cup vanilla soy buttermilk (almost a half cup of vanilla soy milk plus the juice of half a lemon - let sit for a minute)
1 cup vegan chocolate chips or carob chips
raw sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Butter and flour a 9 inch round cake pan, or a loaf pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and the salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl beat the butter and sugar together (cream it - in baking terms) with an electric mixer until it's fluffy. Add the banana, mix. With the mixer on low, beat in 1/3 of the flour. Add half the buttermilk. Beat in another 1/4 of the flour. Add the rest of the milk, then the rest of the flour. Mix until just combine. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spoon.
3. Scrape it into your prepared dish of choice and smooth the top. Scatter a small handful of raw sugar on top (or some fresh strawberries! I didn't have any).
4. Bake until the cake is golden and a toothpick comes out clean (25 to 30 minutes). Cool in the pan 10 minutes then put it on a wire rack.