Gingerbread Banana Bread – Soft and moist gingerbread combines with sweet homemade banana bread for the ultimate holiday baked good.
Maple Syrup And Agave – Are They Better For You Than Sugar?
Pretty much on a weekly basis, readers ask me what I think of agave, maple syrup, and other alternatives to white sugar.
Are they healthier?
Are they good for you?
Should you replace white sugar with maple syrup?
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While these sweeteners might be a little less unhealthy than table sugar, that doesn’t mean they are good for you.
Sugar is still sugar, and it’s a good idea to cut back no matter what type of sugar you are using, whether it’s maple syrup, agave, honey, coconut sugar, brown sugar, or white table sugar.
I keep this in mind when developing recipes, and most or all of the recipes on my site that call for any type of sugar will have significantly less sugar than traditional versions of the same recipes.
There is, however, one exception: blackstrap molasses.
Blackstrap molasses is by far my favorite sweetener, not just for its gingerbread flavor but also because it offers an incredible number of health benefits packed into one tiny tablespoon, including copper, manganese, magnesium, potassium, and 20% of the RDA for both calcium and iron.
If you’re new to molasses, be sure to try my recipe for Vegan Pecan Pie.
Especially around Christmastime, I try to add molasses to as many recipes as I can.
And since I’ve already done regular gingerbread, with my 3 Secret Ingredient Gingerbread Recipe, making banana bread seemed like the logical next step.
If you like gingerbread and bananas, you will love this vegan gingerbread banana bread!
Adapted from my Healthy Banana Bread
Gingerbread Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups mashed banana
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup milk of choice OR oil
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup, agave, or honey
- 1/4 cup molasses – blackstrap or regular
- 1 1/2 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 3/4 tsp each: baking powder and salt
- 2 cups spelt, white, or bob’s gf flour (260g)
- optional pinch stevia or 3 tbsp sugar for more of a dessert bread
- optional 1/2 cup raisins or crushed walnuts
Instructions
- Grease a 9x5 loaf pan very well, going up the sides. (Or line the pan with parchment.) Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk the first 6 ingredients together in a bowl, then set aside. In a large bowl, stir remaining ingredients together very well. Pour wet over dry, stir just until evenly mixed, and smooth into the loaf pan. Bake on the center rack for 33 minutes – then do not open the oven even to peek, but turn off the heat. Let sit in the closed oven for 10 additional minutes. Remove and let cool completely before going around the sides with a knife and inverting onto a plate or cutting from the pan. Store leftover slices in the fridge for 2-3 days or freeze for up to a month.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
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Seems to be a great recipe. I ha ve lots of your recipes in files!
Mine is not a comment. I used to be able to put your recipes on Microsoft word and keep them in files. Since a few months, I cannot enlighten the recipes. The problem is that I don’t want to print them all. Please help!
This is a great recipe! I baked it (and took the GF option), took photos, and posted about it on my blog. You can see a full review at thekalestorm.wordpress.com. ?
I’ve made this recipe a few times and, slathered with a little butter, it’s quickly become a favorite. The moist banana texture and ginger taste is an ingenious combination! I made it using honey, white flour, regular molasses, and added the optional sugar. Tomorrow I’m making with blackstrap molasses and am curious to see what the difference in flavor will be.
I just made this bread, and it is very good. I only had 3 overripe bananas, which equaled one cup mashed, but it still came out moist. I didn’t have enough gluten free flour, so I used unbleached all-purpose flour (I think whole wheat flour could be good also), and I used a full 1/2 cup of blackstrap molasses with no other added sweetener. For the vinegar, I used apple cider. I like that the bread was not too sweet, which made me feel good about giving it to my kiddos for a Saturday morning breakfast treat. I will definitely be making this again! Thanks for a terrific recipe.
I love this recipe… ive been using date syrup and maple syrup… with chunks of date inside yuuuuum. Love living in Oman and having access to delicious dates in huge volumes…
This bread is amazing!!! I love making it into muffins and adding chocolate chips to the batter. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. My entire family thoroughly enjoys it whenever I make it. Quick question: where can I get your cookbook?
Amazon has the best price for her book! https://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Covered-Katie-Delicious-Recipes-Secretly/dp/1455599700/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Thank you so much Julie Dove!
I made this, and it was fabulous! I used a combination of Einkorn flour and gluten free flour plus an additional egg because I’m not vegan and like the extra protein. 1 1/3 cup gluten free flour mix plus 2/3 cup einkorn. I used coconut oil instead of milk and chopped walnuts.
I just made this with whole wheat flour and IT. IS. DELICIOUS. This is HANDSDOWN one of the best things I’ve baked recently! It’s incredibly good – thanks for the great recipe!
Just tried to make the Gingerbread flavour after reading this article. However made the taste prettier enough to eatable. Well next time I will be perfect same as of You…. Meet Katie.
Good content and pics for sweet lovers and very good for the people who ate suffering from diabetes. Because all the recipe are sugar free. Which can fulfilled every diabetic people cravings.
Thank you.
I made this last week. I’m a professional baker and against my better judgment I followed the baking time as written. It seemed to short for a quick bread. Sure enough, I took it out of the oven and it immediately sank in the center. I was kind of upset cause I used spelt flour which I have to get mailed to me. The part that was baked tasted delicious. I gave the recipe another try adding 10 minutes to the baking time and it turned out perfect! I would definitely make this again.
Made it this weekend. It was delicious! A bit undercooked in the middle (which I didn’t realize until we got to the middle part), but it was still good. Next time, I’ll add 3 minutes to the cooking time. Great flavor though. Perfect for breakfast.
is there anything else which i could use as an alternate to molasses ??
thank you
I made this and it is delicious. I did not add the extra sugar but sprinkled some raw sugar on top before baking. I am not vegan so I threw an egg in thete too. I tnink the flavors improved overnight in the fridge. Again delicious. Thanks
I used 4 medium very very ripe bananas. I think it was about 1 3/4 cups ? Also used pillsbury gf flour, which probably appreciated the very ripe and plentiful bananas. Used 100% pumpkin pie spice for the spices since it was the only source of ground ginger I had. And I used sorghum syrup from local Amish market–1/2 cup in place of both the liquid sweeteners called for in the beginning. It is similar in taste and nutrition to what is called for. I did everything else to the recipe. Oh. I added semi sweet chocolate chips. So I may not deserve to comment, but I think this is pretty close to what the result would be if I had all the right stuff, and wow it is amazing!!! I hope that my subs will give someone confidence to try this using what you have on hand.
Terrific! Initially I thought it was rather dry until I realized that I forgot the milk. Oops! Next time I think I will reduce the ground cloves. Otherwis this is a wonderful recipe. Thanks Katie