How about making a delicious almond cake with super-healthy and wholesome ingredients? Our easy recipe is gluten-free, sugar-free, and vegan, perfect for everyone to enjoy without worries. Let's jump right into it!
We made this soft cake with a homemade gluten-free flour blend, ripe bananas, and vegetable oil. We used almond milk, almond flour, and almond essence to give the cake a wonderful nutty taste. And for a crunchy finish, we topped it with flaked almonds — a real delight!
Our gluten-free mix consists of rice flour, almond meal, and starch. We chose rice flour to give bulk and then paired it with almond flour for extra flavour and richness. Finally, we used starch to bind the ingredients, provide structure, and make the cake spongier.
Besides starch, we also used flax seeds to help the gluten-free mix hold together even better. Thanks to their high fibre content, these tiny seeds can absorb the liquids and form a dense gel, similar to egg white. This "flax egg" works as such a wonderful egg replacement in eggless cakes that we use it all the time.
What makes this almond cake even healthier and wholesome is that we used vegetable oil instead of butter and swapped refined sugar with mashed bananas. If you use this fruit when it's very ripe, it will make the cake taste naturally sweet without adding extra sugars.
This wonderful cake is truly delicious when served slightly warm, perfect with a nice cup of tea. But you could make it even more flavourful by filling it with our vegan chocolate frosting — we'll show you how to do it at the end of the recipe!
Ingredients
| Ground Flaxseeds | 30 g |
| Almond Milk | 300 mL |
| Ripe Bananas (peeled) | 300 g |
| Rice Flour | 280 g |
| Almond Meal | 160 g |
| Starch (potato, corn, or arrowroot) | 50 g |
| Baking Powder | 16 g |
| Vegetable Oil (e.v. olive oil or canola) | 80 mL |
| Almond Extract | 3 tsp |
| Flaked Almonds | 35 g |
Step 1
Add the flaxseeds to a bowl and cover them with almond milk (1).
Let them soak for 5 minutes while you prepare the other cake ingredients.
Next, blend ripe bananas in a food processor or mash them with a fork until smooth and creamy (2).
Step 2
Combine rice flour, almond flour, sifted starch, baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl (1).
Then, add the oil, almond extract, mashed bananas, and the flaxseed mixture (2).
Step 3
Work the ingredients with a spoon or an electric mixer until they come together into a smooth and creamy cake batter.
Step 4
Now, take a 24 cm (9.5 inches) round baking tin and grease it with a bit of oil.
Then, pour in the cake batter and level it with a spatula.
Sprinkle the top with almond flakes, lightly pressing them in the batter.
Step 5
Bake the almond cake for 30 minutes at 170°C (340°F) in static mode.
The cake is ready when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the tin and let it cool down completely on a rack.
Step 6
Your gluten-free almond cake is ready.
You can optionally slice it in half with a cake cutting wire or long knife and fill it with our vegan chocolate frosting.
Alternatively, try it with our sugar-free blackberry jam, dairy-free almond cream, or vegan lemon curd.
Tips
You can use a ready-made gluten-free cake blend instead of our combo of rice flour and starch.
Add lemon or orange zest to the cake batter for extra flavour.