Description

Calling all Banana Bread lovers! This homemade Vegan Banana Bread is super comforting, lightly sweet, and ultra-delicious. Sweet bananas, hearty oats, aromatic cinnamon, and rich walnuts are the star of the show. The amazing smells filling the air while this beauty is baking is guaranteed to bring the whole family running to the kitchen to stare at the oven door waiting for this yummy goodness to be done. Perfect for breakfast, snacks, or dessert, you can count on this bread to deliver a healthy, wholesome treat that your family will enjoy.

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Ingredients

Scale

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats, coarsely chopped *
½ cup rolled oats *
1 cup almond flour, lightly packed *
2 Tablespoons flaxmeal
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
Pinch dried ginger (optional)
1/3 cup maple sugar *
½ teaspoon sea salt *

Wet Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup unsweetened plain plant milk
1 1/3 cups very ripe mashed bananas (about 3 to 4 medium) *
¼ cup almond butter *
2 teaspoons vanilla
¼ cup organic maple syrup

Other Optional Ingredients:

½ cup to 1 cup chopped walnuts (+/-)

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place oven rack in the center position.
Line a bread loaf baking pan with parchment paper (length wise only is sufficient), set aside.
Place 1 Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into 1/3 cup plant milk, stir well, set aside.
Place 1 cup rolled oats (not instant oats) into a food processor and pulse for 20 seconds, just to break up the oats. Then add to a large mixing bowl.
Then add all the other dry ingredients into the same bowl as the coarsely chopped rolled oats, whisk to mix.
Add all the wet ingredients to the bowl (including the plant milk/apple cider vinegar mixture). Stir by hand to incorporate. Stir in the walnuts.
Spread the mixture evenly onto the parchment paper lined baking loaf pan. Optional: Sprinkle some extra chopped walnuts on top.
Place in a preheated 350 F oven and bake 60 minutes until firmly set. Note: Set the timer for 30 minutes, lay a sheet of foil across the top to prevent over-browning at the 30-minute mark. (The foil does not touch the banana bread). Then continue baking for another 30 minutes, 60 minutes in total or until a toothpick comes out cleanly or with minimal crumbs.
Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes, score the edges/corners not covered by parchment paper, then remove from the pan (by grabbing the parchment paper on both sides and lifting) and allow to completely cool or nearly completely cool before serving.

Notes

*Tips for Success:

Use parchment paper – place it length-wise into the loaf pan. In other words, cut a nice length of parchment paper, cut it to fit the bottom and over the sides so it can hang over the long sides of the loaf pan. This will make it easier to remove the bread later.
Cut a flat piece of foil, double it and lay it over top of the bread at the 30-minute mark in the oven to prevent the bread from over-browning as it is in the oven for 60 minutes total.
Really mash those ripe bananas into a pudding like texture, then measure.
Score the edges of the banana nut bread not covered by parchment paper (two shorter sides) so when you lift up the bread by the parchment paper, they are free to move and not stuck to the sides.

*Rolled Oats: Do not use instant oats for this recipe. Instant oats can result in a gummy texture. The total amount of rolled oats for this recipe is 1 ½ cups. One cup is coarsely chopped, the other half-cup is not chopped.

*Maple Sugar/Maple Syrup: We get tons of questions about sweetener substitutions. We totally get it. Some folks want to use all Medjool dates, while others want to use all maple syrup. We’ve tested this recipe using all Medjool dates and it comes out gummy. We also tried it with all maple syrup and it sunk in the middle. Additionally, date sugar just doesn’t work well with this recipe either. The best combination for this recipe is maple syrup and maple sugar. *** We also get a lot of questions about coconut sugar. If your diet permits, you can substitute coconut sugar for maple sugar. However, we have not tested with coconut sugar; many of our readers have let us know that coconut sugar works well as a substitute for maple sugar.

*Bananas: Use very ripe bananas. Mash them really well so the bananas have the texture of pudding, then measure out 1 1/3 cups of mashed bananas. Due to the wide varying sizes of bananas, we elected to go with an exact amount of mashed bananas measured in cups, rather than by the number of bananas used.

*Almond Butter: If your almond butter has been refrigerated, remove the amount needed for this recipe and allow it to come to room temperature. Or very lightly microwave it just to soften it up a little. You do not want melted almond butter, nor cold lumpy almond butter.

*Almond Flour: We often get questions about flour substitutions. We are a Celiac family. This recipe was specifically created to use almond flour. Unfortunately, we do not have any substitutions.

*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Serving: Makes one loaf

*Storage: Store at room temperature for up to 5 days, freezes well.