Banana and Walnut cakes

It’s Bake Off season, so what better time to try a new cake recipe? The office I work in regularly holds ‘bring and share’ lunches, and they always have a theme. On Tuesday we had a vegan lunch for one of our colleagues who was leaving, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to give vegan baking a go. My most successful cupcakes have always been banana cakes, which is quite funny as I cannot stand ripe bananas. The great thing about banana cake is that it is it doesn’t actually taste like banana, but it has banana in it…that makes it a healthy food, right?
It’s always a bit risky trying a new recipe, especially as there’s a major twist in this one. What’s the twist, I hear you cry? Mash potatoes. This isn’t the first time I’ve used potato in a sweet recipe; if you missed it, you can check out my lemon drizzle cake here.

Makes 24 mini muffins

260g Unbleached plain flour

130g sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

115g ‘Pure’ Soya butter (you can use other butter substitutes, but I’ve not heard great things about them)

3 ripe bananas

3 teaspoons mashed potato (just potato, mashed, with nothing extra in it)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Handful of walnuts

1. Set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a couple of pudding trays with paper cases.

Ensure your potatoes are cooking at this point – it really slowed down my whole cooking process!

2. Sieve together the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Once mixed, stir in the sugar and salt.

3. Melt the Soya butter in a microwave-safe container (I used a jug and it was perfect for this job!)

4. Using a fork, mash up your bananas until they resemble baby food or some other thing you’d be unlikely to want to eat.

5. Add the remaining items (melted butter substitute, bananas, mash, vanilla) to the mixture. Crush your walnuts into the cake mixture. It should now resemble real cake mixture.

6. Divide the mixture into the paper cases, making sure you don’t fill them too high (approximately 2/3 full).

7. Bake the cakes for 15mins (this will vary depending on your oven), and test with a skewer.

If you’ve tried veganism, or have any go-to recipes, I’d love to know!