Vegan Banana Pound Cake with Peanut Butter Streusel

I hesitated to put the word 'vegan' in the title because people get such a negative reaction to it. It's true that not all vegan baking substitutions result in a good tasting product and many times your palate has to make compromises between eating what is healthier (which isn't always the case) and taste. But this banana pound cake is not one of those cases. I made no concessions here.

A lot of the success to a vegan recipe has to do with the actual recipe itself. When you make substitutions for special eating regimens, think about what you're substituting and how that may affect the final product. In my case, I needed to substitute tofu for eggs, vegan spread for butter and coconut oil for shortening.

This all worked because pound cake isn't one of those recipes where I needed to beat air into the eggs or butter and having the pound cake be denser was actually a positive point. (In baking, it's harder to fix texture than it is taste.) The banana was strong enough to mask any "vegan" flavors folks might not be used to. And best of all, I topped it off with a somewhat savory peanut butter streusel, which added more indulgence, texture, and gave that sweet-salty dichotonomy that everyone likes.

The only thing with this recipe is that it does bake up a little flatter than most pound cakes. It wasn't really an issue considering everything tasted so good, but I did make substiutions like using cake flour instead of all-purpose to give it a better rise.

Directions

1. Start by combining all the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt - into a bowl. Set aside.

2. In a blender, blend together the bananas and tofu. Set aside.

3. In a mixer, mix coconut oil, butter substitute, sugar, almond extract and vanilla extract until smooth.

4. Add banana mixture to the coconut mixture and mix till combined.

5. Slowly add in dry ingredients. If using nuts, add it here.

5. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the streusel topping.

6. Pour batter into loaf pan and top with streusel. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees and 50 minutes at 325 degrees.

7. Cool slightly before serving.

Ingredients

(Makes 1 loaf)

• 2 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• pinch salt
• 3 medium bananas
• 8 oz silken tofu (1/2 package)
• 3/4 cup coconut oil, softened
• 1/3 cup butter substitute
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup walnuts, optional

For PB Streusel

• 1/3 cup golden brown sugar
• 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• dash of salt
• 1/3 cup butter substitute, melted
• 2 tablespoons peanut powder