Okara Cakes: Black Okara Banana Cake

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Nutritious yet delicious and so easy to bake. Today, I would like to share on one of my first okara cake recipes – black okara banana cake. Okara is the strained pulp of the bean after making soy bean milk. This pulp is actually a super food and should definitely NOT go into the bin! It is high in protein, lecithin, fibre, iron, niacin, calcium, riboflavin, etc. Recently, I started making soy milk again so as to introduce more plant proteins into our diet, and also in my course of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) studies, I learned how black beans are nourishing for kidney and brightens our eyes, nourishes the blood and removes wind, removes water retention and detoxifies. Meanwhile, black sesame seeds nourishes the liver and kidneys and is beneficial for our blood and essence, eases our bowels and most importantly, they both help to slow down my hair from turning white!

Now, I know some people will brush this off as nonsense. I would too honestly. But some years back, my mum actually tried eating black beans daily and after a few weeks, the white patch of hair on the top of her head started to turn black slowly. I was amazed. So now that I am starting to age, I am trying this. Well, even if it does nothing to my hair, it is a tasty and nutritious milk to drink and delicious to have.

Some people claim that they cannot take beans. It will cause them to have flatulence or gout, etc. However, it is just a matter of soaking the beans right to get rid of the phytic acid that causes the side effects. It is important to soak the beans for at least 8 hours and change water at least once.  Adding some sea salt will also help. This long soaking time is akin to sprouting the beans which reduces the phytic acid in the beans.

Of course if you can just eat the beans after cooking, it is great. But I don’t like to chew on the beans after drinking the soup, so I have to think of more ways to eat it. So the  easiest way for me to take black beans regularly is by drinking bean milk (I use a soy milk machine for this so it is done in 10 minutes) and then use the pulp for all sorts of dishes.

One of the things that my mum used to make with okara was fried patties. These can be with minced meat, onion, potato, carrots, etc or vegetarian. These are really delicious but I can’t be eating fried patties every day. So I decided to explore more recipes. They include fish/ meat pastes (much like fish cakes), and some baked goods like making okara cakes, okara breads (I tried adding 1/3 cup to my soft wholemeal sourdough recipe and it works well but bearing in mind to adjust the milk accordingly!), okara muffins, okara pancakes, okara panna cotta, etc. The recipe today is okara banana cake. I am still exploring and trying different recipes, so if you have some good ones to share, please do drop me a line! I am going to try pancakes and cookies next.

The okara cake I am sharing today is firm, yet soft and moist without being too oily. The cake fills a 30cm long tin but I am sure is great also for 2 smaller tins with a slightly shorter baking time. When fresh out of oven, it is simply divine with a crusty top and moist inside. The blend of the black sesame and banana is a really fragrant combination. This cake is not too sweet so for those with a sweeter tooth, you can consider adding more sugar. I like to add some walnuts at times and the walnuts gives a nice crunch. Walnuts are also highly nutritious as it is rich in Vitamin E that is great for the heart, reducing cardio-vascular diseases.

Texture of the cake is a little dense like kueh lapis, but not as oily, yet moist, without being sticky. A healthy and tasty cake that is great both as snack, dessert or breakfast. I hope that you will enjoy this delicious okara cake recipe. I usually use black bean and black sesame okara but I sometimes use some red bean okara too. You may also use soy bean okara. I am sure they will taste great. But I love to have the black sesame okara as it gives the additional aroma of the black sesame seeds.