Healthy Banana Bread Recipe (With Spelt Flour)

Name: Healthy Banana Bread
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 2 Large ripe bananas (or 3 small); 6 tbsp Honey; 2 Large eggs; 1 Egg white; 1 tsp Vanilla extract; 1 tsp Apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice); 3 tbsp Olive oil; 50 g Ground almonds; 1 tsp Ground cinnamon; 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg; 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda; 175 g Wholegrain spelt flour (or any other variety of wholegrain flour); 10 g Flaked almonds (Topping - optional); 25 g Chopped walnuts (Topping - optional)

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Easy to make healthy banana bread, baked fresh at home with wholegrain spelt flour, honey and olive oil. The mixture is easy to prepare and can be ready in just 10 minutes! This delicious banana bread bakes with a perfect rise, a moist crumbly finish, and has a scattering of nuts for that extra boost in healthy fats.

Banana bread loaf on brown crumpled paper with 2 pieces sliced and falling down from the front of the loaf.

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👩🏻‍🍳 Why make this recipe
🥘 Ingredients
🔪 Step by step instructions
💭 Expert tips
❓ Frequently asked questions
🍨 Other fruity dessert recipes
📖 Recipe

👩🏻‍🍳 Why make this recipe

With a simple method that requires only 10 minutes of prep time, this is a great dessert for when you have mouths to feed and time to save! Theres no need for any mixers and theres certainly no concerns over adding eggs too quickly or mixtures splitting. Just mix together the ingredients, pour into a lined loaf tin and bake. Super simple.

The ingredients in this recipe are also super healthy and include honey instead of refined sugar, oil instead of butter, and a mix of ground almonds and organic wholegrain spelt flour instead of plain white flour. This healthy banana bread also has an extra egg white and a teaspoon of organic apple Cider Vinegar. The end product: a wholesome, flavourful, nutritious and no mess banana bread treat.

🥘 Ingredients

To make this healthy banana bread recipe you will need:

Ingredient notes

Bananas: Use bananas that are ripe and soft. Bananas that are underripe will be harder to mash up and less sweet

Ground cinnamon and nutmeg: spices work wonderfully well in banana bread and add a warming sweet and woody flavour. However, you can leave these out or replace with your preferred spices.

Apple cider vinegar: If you can't get hold of any replace with lemon juice.

Wholegrain spelt flour: Any type of wholegrain flour will work here. If you prefer you can replace with your preferred type of flour (gluten free, rye, almond). For a standard banana bread loaf opt for plain flour.

Ground almonds: If you don't have ground almonds or would prefer not use, then replace with the same amount of flour.

Toppings: Topping options could include nuts and seeds, dried banana chips, pieces of fresh banana or a whole banana sliced in half length ways and positioned on top with the inside facing upwards. Place all topping on the top of the cake mix before being baked.

🔪 Step by step instructions

Start by pre-heating the oven to 165 degrees C. Then lightly grease a loaf tin and line with strip of greaseproof paper (should be as wide as the length of the tin) (Paper just needs to cover the base and the 2 long inner sides). Peel the bananas and place in a large mixing bowl. Use a fork to mash the bananas to a rough pulp (no need for the banana to be pureed as a few lumpy pieces adds to the texture and flavour).
Next add in all the other wet ingredients: 6tbsp honey, 2 eggs and one egg white, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice), and 3 tbsp of olive oil. Whisk together until fully combined.
Next add all the dry ingredients, apart from the flour, to the wet mixture: 50g ground almonds, 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda. Use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to gently stir together.
Lastly add the wholegrain spelt flour (or other variety of wholegrain flour) to the bowl and fold in gently using the spatula.
Carefully pour the banana bread mixture into the lined loaf tin and sprinkle over the flaked almonds and chopped walnuts. Alternative fold the nuts into the mixture before transferring to the tin. Place the loaf tin in the centre of the pre-heated oven. Bake for 50 minutes until golden brown and a inserted skewer comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to stand for a minute or two before removing from the tin and placing on a cooling rack. When completely cool, remove the greaseproof paper, slice and serve.

💭 Expert tips

For gluten free banana bread replace the wholegrain flour with gluten free flour and check the labels of all other ingredients for any traces of gluten.
Use the nuts as a topping or stir into the cake mixture before pouring into the tin. Or if you prefer leave out altogether.

❓ Frequently asked questions

Can bananas be too ripe to use in this recipe?

If the banana skins are completely black they may well be off. In which case its probably not worth using them. I have used bananas that have skins ranging from pale yellow to brown spotty and find that these always work well. Bananas with brown spotty skins will be softer and so will mash up easier, but the taste isn't really affected. Bananas with green skins are too underripe and will be very hard and less sweet. To speed up the ripening process, loosely wrap the bananas in a brown paper bag.

What nuts go well with banana bread?

My favourite nut to go with banana is the walnut. Banana and walnut is a classic combination of sweet vs bitter and smooth vs crunchy, which is often found in the banana loaf recipe. Peanut butter and banana is obviously another well know classic combination. This salty nut-butter can be used to spread onto a slice of the finished loaf. Other nuts you could try: chopped hazelnuts, pistachio nuts or pecan nuts.

What else can you add to banana bread?

To make this recipe your own, try adding different toppings or mix the toppings into the banana bread mixture. Or why not try mixing in nutella or other nut butters. If you're not a massive fan of nuts you could try blueberries, chopped dates, chocolate chips, dried banana, sultanas, black sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, orange peel or lime zest.

How to store?

Banana bread will keep well and stay moist for at least 3-4 days if stored correctly. Wrap the banana bread in two layers of cling film or foil. Then store in a sealed, container at room temperature.

Loaf of healthy banana bread being sliced in to.

🍨 Other fruity dessert recipes

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📖 Recipe

This post was first published in July 2019. Updated in May 2021 with improved step by step instructions and expert tips.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links to products I am recommending (apple cider vinegar and wholegrain spelt flour), which means if you click this link and then go on to purchase the product, I will receive a small percentage – this will not affect the amount you pay. I will only ever link to and promote products that I have tried and tested myself.

Healthy Banana Bread