Last Monday morning I was cleaning up the kitchen and discovered that we had somehow accumulated 10 very ripe bananas in the back of the freezer. John has been asking for a loaf of banana bread for several months and he’d obviously done a good job at stashing away the bananas that I would need for the bread. After the bananas had thawed on the counter for a bit (and after I had rearranged the kitchen) I settled in for a bit of baking.
Sidenote: If you’ve never used frozen bananas, you’ve got to try it. It really is fun (and a bit gross) to squeeze the thawed bananas out of the peels =)
I was feeling a little nostalgic so I decided to use a recipe from my high school’s cookbook. The recipe was contributed by a long time family friend, which seemed appropriate for a recipe that I can remember eating since I was a child. I did my best to stay true to the recipe, but I did reduce the sugar and make the recipe gluten free and casein free. I would have added 2 c. nuts, but we didn’t have any and I didn’t really miss them.
And it was so good! We ate banana bread at least twice a day for four days and the first words out of David’s mouth each morning was “anana bread”. John thought that the bread was a little mushy when we had our slices right out of the oven, but I liked it. The bread stayed moist the entire four days that it took us to eat it, and I was just keeping it inside of our bread container in the refrigerator. I microwaved our slices for a few seconds each morning, and they came out wonderfully moist. They did not need any butter, which I really appreciated since I am trying to feed us healthy foods.
P.S. That’s a picture of David and his gluten free banana bread breakfast. I was about to get a shot of the banana bread when the camera batteries died =(
Instructions
Yield: makes 2 loaves.
- 2 c. sugar
- 2 c. coconut oil
- 4 eggs
- 4 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp. xanthan gum
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp. baking powder
- 1/2 c. non-dairy milk
- 2 tsp. cider vinegar
- 3.5 c. mashed bananas
- 4 tsp. vanilla
Cooking Instructions
- Cream sugar and coconut oil until just combined. Mix in eggs.
- Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients together in separate bowls, and then add alternately into the sugar/oil/egg mixture starting and ending with the flour mixture.
- Divide the dough into two greased 10″ loaf pans and cook for 1 hour at 350 degrees F.
Notes
- In this instance 10 frozen bananas equaled 3.5 cups of bananas, but banana size varies.
- Now that I’ve made this recipe several times, I’d be comfortable increasing the amount of non-dairy milk and decreasing the oil by an equal amount. You need some oil, but next time I bake this I think I’ll decrease the coconut oil to 1 cup and increase the milk to 1.5 cups.
- If you don’t need to be casein free, feel free to use butter and cow milk instead of the non-dairy options.
This sounds great! I can’t wait to try it.
Any chance you could substitute the sugar with Agave sweetener? Also, have you ever tried using ener-G egg replacer or flax seed meal with warm water to replace the egg in a recipe such as this?
Banana bread is one thing I’ve been missing the most! My 3 year old and I have been gluten free for two years. He will love this! (and so will mom!!) 🙂
Oh he is just cute-as-can-be enjoying his banana bread.
@Jen: Thanks Jen! He’s definitely got some bed head going on.
@Renee: I haven’t ever tried the ener-G egg replacer buy I frequently use “flax eggs” when I’m out of the real thing. I would think the flax eggs would work well though. You may want to add the other liquids gradually just to make sure the dough doesn’t get too wet.
Wow, this looks delicious. I haven’t ever tried using frozen bananas for banana bread – great idea! This may be the only way I end up making this recipe because my little guy eats them up so fast.
I too would try using agave or maple syrup because I can’t eat sugar.
Thanks again!
sarah
I love squeezing the bananas out of the peels when they’re just a bit frozen still! Your recipe looks great – I’ll have to try it!
I’m new to your excellent web site and I’m looking at your banana bread recipe. In some parts of the recipe you denote “c” – (2 c. coconut oil) and then you say “4 cups of gluten free bread flour.” So my question is, does the “C” also stand for “cups?”
@Evonne: c. does stand for cups. thank for asking – I’m not always as good at editing as I should be =)
Hi I don’t know your name though your Son David made me smile this early morning in which i havn’t done in a while. My Son Jarett – 2 1/2 who is very cute just like David has a speech delay and now just recently broke his left leg. I wanted to make him his bannana bread(nanna)to make him feel better and Mommy too! As soon as i saw his picture it took all my worries away and made me feel good again in a normal way without any nervous feelings. Thank You David for being soooo cute and handsome and thanks Mom and Dad for putting your reciepe on line. I Just clicked in gluten free/casin free bananna bread and there he was. I f there are any other great recepies for us in the future that you guys and gal like please forward them to our Family and we’ll let ya know how they turned out. GF/CF thanks again Judith, Joe and Jarett and our Dog Jake loves it too!
Hi! I’m a newcomer to gluten-free, casein-free, soy-free eating. This recipe sounds delicious, can I substitute rice milk for soy milk?
Have you ever tried coconut milk for soy milk? Also, can I find coconut oil anywhere? I’ve never heard of this before.
Hi. I used canola oil instead of coconut oil and the bread was delicious but extremely oily. Has anyone tried using different types or quantities of oil? I am planning on substituting 1/3 the oil for ground flax seed (so 1 1/3 cups oil plus 1/3×3 = 1cup flaxseed).
Thank you for this site! I’m a newcomer too…and the coconut oil surprised me too. I imagine it’s a solid when cool, the way you describe using it. But I wondered if regular shortening could be used? We just have to stay GF, not CF or SF or…anything else free.
Also, is coconut oil good for you? I thought that was the thing we’re supposed to stay away from.
I clearly have a ton to learn.
Thank you so SO much,
Heather
What can be used to replace the xanthan gum? I hear some people can develop an allergic reaction to it.
guar gum maybe, but i haven’t tried it
Xantham gum can be replaced although you have to play around with amounts depending on what you use. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/xanthan-gum-substitute.html I have been playing around with Irish Moss (Carageenan) which has health benefits and is a raw, natural product. BTW; this stuff makes incredible meringues and gelle’s for sweets without using corn starch, etc!
I use this recipe often with the following subs; Agave instead of sugar, ground flax and applesauce for eggs, rice, almond or hemp milk in place of soy.
YUMMY! I love this bread! Thanks again for sharing!
I used buckwheat flour instead of the soy, and it’s terrific. I also used canola instead of coconut but used less. The bananas are pretty wet so I didn’t find I needed the extra oil (I used 1 2/3 cup). I’m wondering how long to cook this batter as muffins.
I am new to gluten free cooking. I just have one question. I couldn’t find Gluten Free Bread Flour, just Gluten free Bread Flour Mix. Is it the same? Can I use the Bread Flour Mix? Please advise.
Is the gluten free bread mix flour the same as the gluten free bread flour? I can only find the gf bread mix, not the gf bread flour by itself.
Thanks for the recipe. I made it tonight. I only had 1 cup of my precious virgin coconut oil left, so I used the more easily acquired (and cheaper) softened unsalted butter. It was still great. I put a cup or two of coconut flour in my flour mix (the recipe from this site) instead of the same amount of cornstarch since I was out. And a few years ago, before going GF, I started a “no-refined-carbs” diet. This made going GF pretty easy since refined white flour is in most everything. I guess I was weaning myself off of gluten and didn’t even realize it. When a friend suggested going GF to improve my candida symptoms, I went for it. I’ve been feeling great ever since. So all this to say that I used one cup of honey in place of the 2 cups of sugar. This is the ratio I always use when substituting honey for sugar. Well, the bread was great. Not fluffy like gluten-rich banana bread, but still tasty!