Have you ever steam baked a cake? I hadn’t until this recipe. One of the features that has gone unused in the last few months of having my Ninja was the bake function – and especially the steam baking feature. Since it was a very new thing for me I went right to the Ninja recipe collection and found a recipe that I figured I could easily make gluten-free and vegan.
So I found this one for Banana Lime Coconut Bread and fixed it up to make it work for us.
Truth be told, I was totally nervous about making something using steam baking. Would it be soggy? Would it be gummy? So the answer is no. It’s different than normal baking but not in an unpleasant way. The cake was super moist and evenly cooked. The edges were just as moist as the center of the cake.
The cake pan provided with the Ninja is smaller than any size of baking pan I would use in a regular oven.
However, I tested out baking this recipe in my regular oven using mini loaf pans and the results were pretty fantastic too. Cute little rounded loaves. I’ve included traditional baking methods down below with the rest of the recipe. What I am not including is a photo of those lovely little rounded loaves because for some reason I have misplaced those photos. They’re lost somewhere in this house along with my brain, apparently.
The topping on this cake is probably my favorite part. I would eat that all day, every day. I am trying to think of how I could make it work into every other recipe.
Traditional Oven Method:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray mini-loaf pan with cooking spray.
- Mix batter as indicated below but omitting the use of the water.
- Divide evenly into six of the mini-loaf pans.
- Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until tested done.
- Remove from oven and let cool in loaf pan.
- Turn out mini-loaves and place on a wire cooling rack.
- Top with the topping as usual.
- Olive oil (or other) cooking spray
- 1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- Pinch salt
- ½ cup coconut sugar
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 lime, zested and juiced
- ⅔ cup coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 cups water
- Topping:
- 1 lime, zested and juiced
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- ⅓ cup sweetened coconut
- ⅓ cup chopped pecans
- ¼ cup coconut sugar
- Spray Ninja baking pan insert with cooking spray.
- Sift together gluten-free flour, baking soda, xanthan gum and salt in a bowl.
- In another bowl mix together coconut oil and coconut sugar. Add in mashed banana, zest and juice from the first lime, coconut milk and vanilla. Whisk together until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until smooth.
- Pour the water in the bottom of the Ninja cooking system insert. Add the roasting rack and place the baking pan on top. Set the Ninja to Oven and the temperature to 375°F. Cover and bake for 40 minutes, until an inserted tester comes out clean.
- Remove the baking pan from the Ninja and let the cake sit for 10 minutes before removing from the baking pan.
- Discard water.
- Topping Instructions:
- Set Ninja to Stovetop - High. Add in coconut oil, lime juice and zest, coconut sugar, shredded coconut and chopped pecans. Stir and let it cook for about a minute or two.
- Spread the topping on the cake and let sit for an hour to cool and harden up.
Win A Ninja 3-in-1 Cooking System!
Thanks to the kind folks at Ninja I’m excited to be able to offer one Ninja 3-in-1 Cooking System for free to one of my readers! I’ll be drawing one winner and making the announcement here on the blog in March, 2013.
You can have up to five (5) entries into this draw. Use the handy dandy Rafflecopter widget below to participate in this giveaway.
This draw is open to residents of the United States only. I am sorry fellow Canadians. I promise I’ll make it up to you.
Interesting! I have never really heard of steaming a cake – very cool indeed 🙂
I was highly skeptical that the cake would be a gummy mess but it wasn’t. Baking it traditionally yielded beautiful results too so I’d really recommend the recipe that way if you don’t have a Ninja. Seriously yummy.
This looks and sounds really good! I can’t wait to try the traditional method out. Any suggestions for adapting to a standard sized loaf pan (length of cooking)? This ninja looks like a “bad” machine! It’s good a crazy amount of functions..
The amount of batter won’t fill up a loaf pan very well. You’ll have to double the batter if you want to bake it as a regular loaf. I would take the time to mix each batch separately and pour it into the loaf pan rather than just doubling the ingredients in one bowl and mixing it up in one go. You might find the lift that you’d get with the baking soda and lime juice doesn’t happen as much in a bigger batch. As for baking time, I would start testing this at 30 minutes still. It may end up taking up to 45 minutes to bake – or depending on your oven even longer. Good luck!
Wish I had come by earlier. Steaming is wonderful. I have a very dry palate, so when I make pancakes, I always make extra, and then I warm them up the next time in a pot of boiling water, with a steamer basket set in. Once the steam is nice and thick, I can just turn off the heat, and everything just stays nice and warm until I am ready to eat. Thanks for a great recipe, and since I don’t have a Ninja, nor do I have multiple mini-bake tins, I might just make muffins.
Really love this cake I make it and smell delicious in the regular over 🙂
I have never heard of a Ninja cooker so I just made it in the over for a teacher who is Gluten/Vegan. It was a hit! My roommate who is gluten free loved it so much. Ours turned out more like Banana bread since I love bananas I threw it in. I caramelized the coconut and pecans with brown sugar for on top since I ran out of Coconut milk. Oh it was so good. Definitely going to make it again!