Oatmeal Banana Bread

Recently I found myself wondering why banana bread is made with added sugar when ripe bananas are so sweet. I decided to try making it without sugar and guess what? It turned out great! It didn’t need the refined sugar at all, just more bananas! I also was trying to find a way to add oatmeal to this bread when I came across a new discovery...oat flour!

Whether you choose to make a banana bread loaf, muffins, mini-muffins or some other crazy shape it doesn’t matter, this recipe works for all of the above.

Note about oat flour In the instructions I tell you how to make the oat flour using a blender and rolled oats. It is very easy to do and the best option if you are making this recipe gluten-free. Alternatively you can buy oat flour as is, but it is difficult to find gluten-free oat flour. Oats and oat flour is naturally gluten-free but it is usually processed on the same machines as grains that contain gluten so there can be cross contamination unless you buy oats that are sold as “gluten-free”. Bob’s Red Mill is one company that offers gluten-free oats. Also, this recipe measures the oats by weight, but if you don't have a kitchen scale you can use volume, but it won't be as accurate. 12 ounces of oat flour is about 3 cups.

Makes: 1 loaf, 20 muffins, 48 mini-muffins

Preparation time: 20m
Cooking time: 20m
Total time: 1h10m

Ingredients:

  • 6 ripe bananas (medium - large)
  • 2 organic eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • 12 ounces rolled oats (or oat flour - if making this recipe gluten-free make sure to get gluten-free rolled oats)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1/2 cup plain applesauce (or softened butter if you’re feeling naughty - just know that this swap adds 800 calories and 90 grams of fat)
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts/almonds/raisins (optional)

Equipment: large bowl, medium bowl, blender, scale, baking vessel of your choice

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF/177ºC and prepare your baking vessel (e.g. loaf pan, muffin cups)
  2. In a large bowl mash the bananas with a fork until all the chunks are gone. You can either use a fork or a potato masher. Then mix in the applesauce, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. Set aside.
  3. If using rolled oats, place them into a blender and puree until all of the oats are completely chopped up and resemble flour. Now you have oat flour. Depending on your blender you may want to only blend 4 ounces at a time.
  4. Place the oat flour into a medium-sized bowl. Then add the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and sift these dry ingredients together.
  5. Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture about 1/2 cup at a time until it is all incorporated.
  6. Fold in the chopped nuts and/or raisins if using.
  7. Pour the batter into prepared loaf pan, muffin cups or mini-muffin cups.
  8. Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted in comes out clean. This should be about 45-50 minutes for a loaf, 27-32 minutes as muffins, or 18-20 minutes as mini muffins.
  9. Eat as is, or top with INLINE-LINK-START title="Anne's Apple Butter" href="../../../recipes/anne-s-apple-butter" target="blank">Anne’s Apple Butter INLINE-LINK-END or INLINE-LINK-START title="Strawberry Jam" href="../../../recipes/strawberry-jam%20" target="blank">Strawberry Jam INLINE-LINK-END.