Sugar-Free Banana Cake for a 1st Birthday

I know it's a popular thing to do.  Give a whole fluffy, sugary, gooey smash cake to baby to smoosh and fling to his or her heart's content for the big One.  It makes for a good photo op, I suppose, but it's always sort of rubbed me the wrong way.  Indulgence as a rite of passage?  It's hard for me to get behind that. As we approached the first birthday of my little guy, I knew I wanted to serve a cake I could feel really good about him enjoying. We always have an arsenal of ripe bananas biding their time in the freezer, so I started searching for recipes for a sugar-free banana cake.  What I ended up with was closely akin to banana bread, a yummy base for strawberries, fresh whipped cream, and natural vanilla ice cream.  Made with whole wheat flour, applesauce, and of course, bananas, it's (in my opinion) the perfect 1st birthday cake.

Sugar-Free Banana Cake adapted from this recipe 

• 1 cup banana, mashed  (about 3-4 bananas)
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup AP flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice

Preheat oven to 350 F or 180 C.

Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan or a bundt pan. Beat together mashed banana and soft butter until creamy.

Beat in water and applesauce.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs until very foamy. Mix eggs into banana mixture.

In a separate bowl, blend flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon; add to banana mixture and beat until very smooth.

Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. Cool and eat. Serves 8 - 10

Obviously, if you top your cake with sweetened berries and cream, it is no longer sugar-free.  Strawberries are also considered a no-no for children under a year old (high allergy food), so our birthday boy reveled in his cake with just a little bit of natural vanilla ice cream. :)