For our little one’s first birthday, we wanted to make something that he can actually eat (as opposed to staring at us over a bowl of oatmeal cereal while we feast on his birthday cake). That’s how this quick and easy food processor cake came along, and with a few tweaks, you can make it yours for your little one!
You can substitute part of the liquid ingredients (mashed bananas, milk) with applesauce. You can use any nut milk, or cow’s milk (after it has been properly introduced per your pediatrician’s guidance), or even water. You could also use thinned out yogurt in place of the milk. Our munchkin loves cardamom, but you can swap it out for cinnamon (and a tiny pinch of nutmeg), or leave out the spices entirely. You can sweeten it with jaggery, which is my favorite refined sugar free sweetener for baby/toddler food, but you could use date sugar, coconut sugar, or any other sweetener you typically use.
The cake is really great also as a snacking option sans frosting. A great option for smash cakes and such to celebrate his first trip around the sun.
Note: please offer your baby this cake only after having successfully introduced each of the ingredients individually to your baby.
banana oatmeal cake with Greek yogurt frosting
Adapted from Creative Nourish and some kitchen tinkering
Makes 1 small frosted 6″ loaf or round cake (double the recipe for a 8″ round or 9*5″ loaf cake)
Cake
1 cup oats
1 tsp chia seeds
2 ripe bananas, fork mashed
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk (almond milk, coconut milk, or even water is fine)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
Ground cardamom and jaggery to taste (a few pinches)
Frosting
1 cup Greek yogurt (for creamier frosting, wrap in kitchen towel, squeeze the water out and set over a colander)
1/4 tsp jaggery
A pinch of cardamom
To decorate (optional)
Handful of berries, crushed baby crackers
Preheat the oven to 360 degrees C. Grease a small cake tin (6 inch round pan or 6 inch loaf) with butter or ghee or avocado oil.
Grind the oats and chia seeds together in the food processor until smooth. Add bananas, eggs, milk, baking soda, baking powder, cardamom and jaggery, and process the mixture until smooth batter forms. If the batter is too thick, you may need to add a splash more milk depending on the size and ripeness of the banana. Don’t over process the batter.
Pour batter into prepared cake tin and bake for 35-40 minutes, and do a doneness check. If the cake is not done, continue baking 4-5 minutes at a time until done. The exact baking time depends on the size/shape of the pan.
Once the cake tester comes out clean, cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip it onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Trim or smooth the edges to make it look nicer (being an oatmeal cake, it doesn’t have the smoothest finish).
While the cake cools, make the frosting by beating together the hung Greek yogurt, jaggery and cardamom with a whisk or electric beaters. Refrigerate until ready to use, as this will help the frosting thicken a bit.
Slather the frosting on the completely cooled cake and decorate as you’d like! You can make big swooshes, or even the frosting is thick enough, pipe dots or stars of it using a pastry bag and tips.
zezoo cooks 