One of my favourite cakes is banana bread (not sure why it’s called bread and not cake though…)! I make this frequently at home. When Peter and I started eating Paleo about two years ago, this became my go-to sweet craving. I love that it’s both sweet and filling, yet relatively healthy. Some recipes for Paleo banana bread add additional sugar or honey, but I feel there’s no need for that at all.
A healthy treat for the whole family.
The great thing about banana bread is that it’s hard to get it wrong and easy to create variations. This recipe is my favourite and easy to switch up. One warning – I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cinnamon and cardamom so I put a lot of these spices into my banana bread. If you’re not a big fan, you can, of course, reduce the amount or include your own favourite spices.
Happy baking and let me know what your favourite variation is!
Karin
P.S. Are you curious about my next recipe? Gravlax will be out next in June. Like Vanilla Beige on Facebook so you don’t miss it!
Karin’s “Healthy” Paleo Banana Bread
The best thing about this recipe is that you can replace the nuts and spices to alternative nuts and spices that you may prefer.
Ingredients
- Butter (for greasing your loaf or muffin pan)
- 4-5 mashed bananas (approx 550 grams)
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup of chopped almonds or any other nut or combination of nuts
- 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
- ½ cup (75 grams) coconut flour OR desiccated coconut OR ½ cup of almond flour
- 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon of cardamom
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon of sea salt
If you have trouble finding any of these products, my list of where to buy the ingredients is at the end of this recipe.
Variations – Want to change it up a bit? Add one of the following:
- ½-1 cup of (frozen) blueberries
- ⅓ cup of unsweetened chocolate chunks or pieces
Method
- Grease a loaf or muffin pan with butter.
- Preheat the oven to 185C.
- Combine the mashed bananas, eggs, coconut oil and nuts and mix til just combined.
- Add the coconut flour (or dessicated coconut or almond flour), spices, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt to the bowl and mix further.If you’re adding anything optional, carefully add them in now (blueberries or chocolate) – just stir briefly.
- Pour the batter into the greased pan and spread evenly.
The mix will be rather wet and sticky because no flour is used.
- Bake between 50 – 90 minutes. As the batter starts off rather wet, this recipe can take some time to cook. Keep an eye on the loaf while it is in the oven as different ovens will need different cooking times.
- Insert a toothpick into the middle to check. When the toothpick comes out clean and somewhat dry, it’s ready. Otherwise leave it in the oven for another 10 – 20 min, checking frequently.
- Remove from the oven and let it cool off.
I can never wait for the bread to cool down before eating it. However, try to leave it for at least 15-20min so it’s easier to slice.
When the bread is completely cooled off, you can place it in an air-tight container and store in the fridge.
TIP – you can eat the banana bread cold or heat it up by slicing it and placing the slice in a frying pan with a bit of coconut oil. Heat on medium heat to your liking. This warms up the bread and gives it a super yummy crust.
Where to buy ingredients?
Struggling on where to get the ingredients in the recipe without it costing you an arm and a leg? Try some of my favourite stores:
www.yesnatural.sg: A healthy, organic produce store. They have a couple retail outlets and you can shop online.
www.phoonhuat.com: A baking supply store with multiple retail outlets. They are especially great for nuts, flours and spices.
www.natures-glory.com: I haven’t actually been here yet but I know they have great selection of organic fruits and vegetables as well as all other Paleo and natural ingredients
Green Goods Project: I got Malagos Chocolate from them. It was delicious!
This recipe is inspired by bakerita.com and Karin has adapted it to for her recipe.
Read our interview with Karin to find out more about her and EATSingapore.
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