Sticky Banana Ginger Cake
A quick and simple traybake, with a sweet banana flavour, treacly notes from the sugar and a hit from the fiery ginger. This whole food sticky banana ginger cake is ideal finger food with its sticky but springy texture.
When I heard about a recipe for banana ginger cake the other day, I knew there was nothing to be done but makeone as soon as I could. Banana and ginger is not an obvious pairing by any means, but the cake just sounded so good. And it is.
Sticky Banana Ginger Cake
The original recipe came from the prince of bakers Dan Lepard. I tweaked it quite a bit, of course, but the glory of this sticky banana ginger cake must go to Dan. It’s one of those quick and simple cakes to make which can be mixed by hand in under fifteen minutes. Just brilliant for when you’re in a rush.
I added quite a bit of ground ginger, which wasn’t in the original recipe as well as a little cinnamon. I also used wholemeal spelt flour and olive oil rather than sunflower oil. As I quite like my ginger cakes to taste a little treacly, I also mixed up the sugar to include some really dark and less refined molasses sugar. So in my inimitable style, this is a true whole food cake.
The finished ginger cake is astonishingly light and springy, given it’s made with bananas and wholemeal flour. It also has a lovely sticky texture and holds together well. There are few crumbs with this cake. CT reckoned the balance of banana and ginger was just right as he could detect both well, without one overwhelming the other. But it also had the desired gingery heat I was looking for.
Another brilliant whole food cake to add to the Tin and Thyme top of the pops recipe collection.
Other Banana Cake Recipes You Might Like
- £1 banana chocolate vegan honey cake
- Banana bread
- Caramelised banana, coconut, chocolate & peanut butter cake
- Chocolate banana cashew cake (vegan)
- Muscovado banana bread with chocolate or raisins
- Quick banana and rum soaked raisin bundt cake
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this sticky banana ginger cake recipe, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate it. Have you any top tips? Do share a photo on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot it.
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If you’d like more traybake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Sticky Banana Ginger Cake. PIN IT.
Sticky Banana Ginger Cake
Ingredients
- 100 g dark muscovado sugar
- 100 g molasses sugar (or use more dark muscovado sugar)
- 2 large over ripe bananas
- 125 ml olive oil or sunflower oil
- 4 eggs
- 200 g wholemeal spelt flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon (I used a drop of Holy Lama Cinnamon Spice Oil)
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 75 g crystallised ginger finely chopped
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mash the banana with the two sugars.100 g dark muscovado sugar, 100 g molasses sugar, 2 large over ripe bananas
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, followed by the olive oil.4 eggs, 125 ml olive oil
- Sieve in the dry ingredients and fold in carefully.200 g wholemeal spelt flour, 3 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp ground ginger
- Gently stir in the bits of ginger.75 g crystallised ginger
- Pour into a 23 cm / 9"sq silicone mould or lined tin and bake at 170℃ (150℃ fan, 338℉, Gas 3) for about 40 minutes or until the cake is risen, golden on top and firm to the touch.
- Leave to cool, then turn out and cut into 16 squares.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Linkies
The theme for Love Cake this month over at JibberJabberUK is Sport Relief. Whilst this sticky banana ginger cake wasn’t baked for this purpose, it would make an excellent cake for a bake sale.
I put in a few things I had spare such aa a date, walnuts squashed, some orange cut up small, fresh ginger grated..thanks for the good inspiration! really light and tasty..
Brilliant Ariel, using up bits and pieces that are hanging around is my kind of cooking. Thanks for letting us know.
I made this yesterday. The cake is very tasty and very sticky. The flavours compliment each other. Great way to use up bananas.
Good to hear you enjoyed it Ja. It’s not the most obvious way to use bananas, but it works.
I love love love ginger and wanted to use up my black bananas but was craving some ginger!!
So then I had some pears that were looking a bit sad so I chopped them up and added them too. I didn’t have molasses so used brown sugar and maple syrup.
Anyway it was amazing- vanilla yogurt and/or custard on the top!!!
Thanks new family fave. Ju
I made this cake a couple of days ago for friends. They guessed ginger, but not banana. However, on day two they said they could taste banana more than the ginger. In any case, they loved the cake. It’s a good one. Pear sounds like a nice addition, as does maple syrup. So pleased you liked it and thanks for your lovely feedback.
hello is molasses sugar, sugar grains or liquid?
Hi Melanie. Molasses sugar is a particularly unrefined type of sugar. You can swap it for more dark muscovado sugar if you can’t find it. It’s a really good cake this one, definitely worth trying.
Thank you…
There’s so many ingredients out there these days, it’s hard to keep up.
Made this cake today-absolutely delicious! Light and flavoursome
Aw thanks for letting me know Diana. Glad you liked it and a good reminder for me too.
I love ginger cake and this gives me happy memories of eating it when I was a kid 🙂
Yes good point Dannii. I now remember we always had ginger cake on Bonfire Night.
Oh Choclette – your cakes always look SO GOOD and I want them RIGHT NOW.
Delivery charges to Reading?
Haha, I’ll work out a price and get back to you 😉 Thank you so much, you’re comment has really cheered me up.
You’re welcome. I have had a little taste and can confirm that it is delicious! I might be tempted to drizzle with chocolate drizzle and Cornish seasalt flakes. Omnyomnom!
Drizzle away Zoe 🙂
Baked this yesterday, left to cool overnight as was going to finish with some drizzled chocolate. This morning half of it is missing! My guess is that the menfolk of this house are giving it a very good thumbs up!
Oh dear, you’ve sent me into a fit of the giggles. That sort of thing happens here too and it’s very frustrating. Thank you so much for letting me know you made it AND that it was appreciated 🙂
Fantastic! I’ll have to try out this recipe too. I love a good banana bread 🙂
Thanks Jo. I’m not used to banana bread being quite as light and springy as this one, but I think it might now be my favourite.
Gingerbread banana cake…that sounds just too good to miss in life!
It really is awfully good Angie and so light for 100% wholemeal flour.
Oh gosh, even just the name of this recipe makes me want to eat it. And at 100 calories a slice, you can’t go wrong!
Thanks Becca. I don’t count calories, so I’m not sure if this is good or bad. Someone asked me, so I thought I’d better find out.
Mmmm this recipe is gorgeous! I’m a big fan of ginger cake, and I am loving your tweaks!
Thanks Elizabeth, it’s one of those keeper recipes I reckon – so quick and easy.
What a delicious cake, it sounds so sticky and treacly. In fact I would love a slice now. Yum!
Gingerbread / cake is definitely better when sticky Lucy and this one is 🙂
I love banana bread AND ginger cake. This sounds like an amazing combination. Great recipe Colette 🙂
Thanks Emma, the flavours work surprisingly well I found.
Thank you Melanie, it’s a really good cake on many levels and it keeps well too 🙂
I have a lot of love for the banana at the moment. I’ve just baked them into hot cross buns and they’re phenomenal so I can imagine how well they work here. They do look so light and spongy. I think they sound like the ultimate combo. Gorgeous!
Dom, you’ve always been into bananas. Love the idea of baking them into hot cross buns. Will be heading over to look as soon as I’ve caught up a bit.
I saw the recipe over at CC’s too…… Yum! I can see why you have jumped to try the banana-ginger combo. It sounds amazing (if not obvious). Love the changes you’ve made to the original recipe too x
Thanks Kate. It’s a surprisingly good combination and a very nice cake. I’ve just had a piece after two days away (4 days after baking) and it tastes as good as ever.
Reads like a good recipe. And it sure looks good too ! I’ll put it on my ever growing list of things to try …. What is molasses sugar ? Never heard of it. Can it be replaced by something else ? I only know molasses in a jar, like a syrup.
If I’d make it, I probably would use less baking powder and replace the oil with butter. Somehow oil in cakes doesn’t work for me; it actually makes me feel a bit sick. Recently I have found (and adapted, of course) a delicous recipe for carrot cake with butter instead of the usual sunflower oil.
Ah you have a list like mine! Molasses sugar is the darkest unrefined sugar, so just use dark moscovado instead if you can’t find it. I’m generally not a great fan of oil in cakes, but I do like the texture of this one. Prefer olive oil or rapeseed oil to sunflower though.
Hi Choclette, yesterday was the day to make this cake ! No bread in the house, so I had a good excuse to have a slice (ok, it was 2 of them) for breakfast. It was delicious. The banana works so well with the ginger. As usual I altered quite a few things. The most important ones were to replace the oil with 75 g of melted butter and 50 g of Greek yoghurt and to reduce the baking powder to 1.5 tsps. The cake was still well risen, but probably somewhat denser dan yours. This afternoon I am getting friends over for tea, so I can use them as guinea-pigs to test this cake. Hopefully they like banana and ginger …..
Ooh, hope it goes down well Henk. Glad you like it. I was surprised at what a good combination of flavours it was. I’m a big fan of yoghurt in cake as I am butter too and I’m sure your version is delicious. I was, however, trying to keep this one dairy free and also a quick cake. It’s never super quick if you use butter. Today I am baking cakes with butter 🙂
Sounds yummy. I would love to know how many calories this has? So I know how much I can eat per day!
Hi Tessa. Glad you like the sound of it. Each slice is about 100 calories. Hope that helps.