Banana Bread, Gluten Free and Vegan

Banana bread is perhaps the world’s most universal love language. It is the thing I make for my friends for wine nights and the thing I make for my family on cold and rainy New England afternoons. It is the bread equivalent of a golden retriever, reliable and comforting. Where there are a million iterations of banana bread, no two overwhelmingly dissimilar, it can be hard to know which recipe to use or even harder to try a new recipe after generations of using the same one. After my sister decided to go vegan and in an attempt to have an excuse to eat banana bread more often, I came up with this recipe that was a bit healthier than its alternatives and that accessible for people with diet restrictions. This recipe is a combination of many different recipes that I have either used or considered using and after experimenting with substitutions and different types of flours I was thrilled with how it came out. I hope you can enjoy too!

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup almond milk

1 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 cup gf flour (I use half almond flour, half gf flour mix)

1/2 cup gf oats

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Optional: walnuts, dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a bread pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a bowl, lightly mash bananas so that there some large chunks remain. Add in maple syrup, coconut oil, almond milk and vanilla. Mix to combine and set aside.

3. In a small bowl, mix flours, oats, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

4. Add to wet ingredients and whisk until combined. Fold in nuts and chocolate in desired amount.

5. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until toothpick, when inserted, comes out clean.