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spiced banana cake with raspberries
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Spiced Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The most delicious, moist and naturally sweetened cake with cream cheese frosting. The cake is sweetened with bananas and dates, while the frosting is sweetened with dates only. It's also made with oats, rice flour and millet flour, which makes it gluten-free. It's the perfect cake for any occasion!
Course Dessert
Cuisine vegetarian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings 8

Ingredients

Wet Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Medjool dates, pitted
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 3 large overripe bananas
  • 1/4 cup avocado oil (or other light tasting oil)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup brown rice flour
  • 1/2 cup rolled or quick oats
  • 1/3 cup millet flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon, ground
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
  • Pinch clove
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

For the Frosting

  • 1 (250g) package light cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup soft margarine or unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup Medjool dates, pitted
  • 1-3 tablepsoons milk of choice (as needed)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

For the Cake

  • Preheat oven to 350F. Line the bottoms of 2 6-inch cake pans with parchment paper and oil the bottom and sides of the pans lightly. 
  • In a large food processor or high-speed blender, add your dates, water, bananas, oil and vanilla extract. Blend until smooth.
  • Add all of your dry ingredients to the food processor or blender and blend everything together for about 30 seconds. Add the eggs and pulse a few times. The batter should be smooth. 
  • Transfer the batter equally to the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted to the middle comes out dry.
  • When the cake is done, let it cool in the pan a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For the Frosting

  • Meanwhile, prepare the frosting: In the same blender or food processor (that's been well cleaned), add all of the frosting ingredients. (See note). Blend until smooth. Patience, it may take a few minutes. You may need to stop and scrape the sides a few times. Let the frosting chill in the fridge until the cake has cooled.
  • When the cake is completely cooled, you can add the frosting. I decided to go for a naked cake look, but feel free to decorate yours differently. For the naked cake, add about a 1/2 cup of frosting between the two layers and on top. Use the remaining frosting to cover the sides. Scrape most of it using an offset spatula (or the back of a butter knife if you're like me and don't have an offset spatula). Top with sliced bananas and berries if desired.

Notes

For the frosting, a small blender or food processor may work best as the frosting quantity is small. If you have a smaller food processor bowl as an attachment to a bigger one, that would work great.
Store the extra frosting in the fridge and use on other cakes or cupcakes. Or you can just add it on top of your cake piece like I do for extra frosting. ;) 
If you don't have any millet flour, feel free to use an additional 1/4 cup of oats instead. The texture will be a bit gummier, but still moist and delicious!