Gluten Free Banana Nut Bread

I’m on a GF kick.  Not because anyone in our house requires GF but because my best friend, who is, challenged me to make a good GF Banana Nut Bread.  And I love a good challenge. 

When I first started baking as a teen, I used to love making banana bread.  My only problem was that I could never get the bread to have the little brown flecks synonymous with banana bread.  Mine usually came out of the oven and white as snow.  It tasted great but most people would say it looked nothing like traditional banana bread.  It took me almost 10 years to finally get it with the flecks.  Now I have a great banana bread recipe but decided to tweak it with the request for gluten free.

I took out the butter and buttermilk and replaced with apple sauce and Greek yogurt. So if you take out the walnuts and chocolate chips, this truly would be a non-fat bread.  As it stands now it’s low fat! You could also use stevia or honey in place of the white sugar.

Recipe:

• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 very ripe bananas
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
• 2 cups GF flour (my fav is Cup 4 Cup)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Prepare two loaf pans and set aside.
3. In bowl of a stand mixer, combine all ingredients excluding walnuts and chocolate chips.
4. When just combined, remove paddle and fold in walnuts and chips.  If you mix too much, the bread gets a bit chewy.
5. Divide batter into two and bake for 30-40 minutes. Or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let stand 10 minutes and then remove from pan.
7. Cool.  Keeps wrapped for 4-5 days, or in freezer 3-4 weeks.
8. Enjoy!

This bread is fabulous! I gave one loaf to a friend who just had a baby and ate the other.  Yup all by myself.  Rob doesn’t like nuts baked into things plus he wasn’t here to complain about it :)

You could also use regular all-purpose flour but when Sapna gave me the challenge I was all over it!  So if you have a bakers challenge for me, I’m always up for it!

Thanks for looking!