Vegan Banana Bread – Gluten-free & Easy

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This wonderfully soft and moist 1-bowl banana bread is healthy and bursting with delicious banana flavour! It’s also vegan and gluten-free. It only requires simple ingredients you can find in your cupboard and is super easy to make too. Perfect for a healthy breakfast, afternoon snack, or even for a picnic in the park on a sunny day!

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After numerous requests from my lovely readers, I have decided to share my recipe for this delicious vegan banana bread! People say making baked goods vegan is a challenge, but this vegan banana bread recipe makes it so easy – you can make it in 1 bowl! You don’t have to be vegan enjoy it, a lot of people who have never tried vegan banana bread will be pleasantly surprised at how delicious it is! If you have bananas that are about to go overripe with lots of sugar spots,  don’t throw them away! Make this banana bread with them instead

It’s also made with rice flour which makes it gluten-free for all the fellow GF bakers out there! One of the best things about this recipe is that it doesn’t require any ingredients that are hard to come by or are expensive. If you’re thinking to follow a vegan or gluten-free diet and worry that the choice of food will be limited, there’s good news. You don’t have to give up your favourite baked goods at all! Take this Banana bread as an example – making it without eggs, dairy, or gluten is absolutely possible with little swaps of ingredients and a bit of getting used to. 

My absolute favourite way to have a slice of banana bread is to toast until they are warm and a little crispy, then spread a generous amount of peanut butter on. But there’s no limit to how you can enjoy this banana bread!  You can even go fancier and top a slice with your favourite ice creams, plant whipped cream, drizzles of caramel… so many fun ways to enjoy!

Main ingredients and substitutions

Rice flour: The base of this recipe is rice flour. Rice flour is a very popular flour among the gluten-free baking community and I like using them for my gluten-free recipes too. Because rice flour is denser in consistency than regular plain flour, 1:1 swap with plain flour won’t work here. If you want to make it with plain flour, reduce the amount of soy milk by 1/4 cup. If the batter looks dry, then add more soy milk 1 tablespoon at a time until the batter is smooth.

Banana: Use ripe bananas with lots of sugar spots! They are at their best when ripe in terms of nutrition and taste.

Potato flour: I used potato flour to make the texture softer and fluffy. You can also use cornflour, or other starchy flours like tapioca flour or arrowroot flour if you like.

Brown sugar: You can also use regular caster sugar here too. To make it sugar-free, use 1:1 monk fruit sweetener to make it even healthier!

Coconut oil: I used coconut oil to make the bread moist and healthier. I used Nutiva‘s coconut oil! I recommend using their coconut oil but feel free to use vegetable oil in place of coconut oil too if you don’t have it in your cupboard. It will be as delicious!

Other ingredients: soy milk(use any other plant milk of your choice if you like!), baking powder, and baking soda.

*I use bone char-free sugars for all of my recipes. I cover the topic in my article Vegan Baking 101. Go to the “Is sugar vegan?” section to learn more!

Recommended equipment for this recipe

Loaf tin: I used 1lb loaf tin for this banana bread recipe. I think you can use a slightly smaller loaf tin too if you don’t have 1lb. Just make sure that the loaf has at least 2-3cm(1-2inches) of space at the top after pouring the batter so that it has room to rise and won’t overflow. 2lb would be too big unless you are doubling the amount of the ingredients.

Mixing bowl: Use a good large mixing bowl to mix the batter to make mixing easy!

Whisk: One of the good things about using GF flour is that you can mix the batter well with a whisk without being too careful not to overmix as opposed to regular plain flour that contains gluten. 

*The ingredient list and measurement for this recipe can be found in the recipe card at the bottom.

How to make this easy and healthy gluten-free banana bread

Step 1: mash the banana

Let’s start with mashing the banana! I used a ripe banana with lots of sugar spots for the best result for this recipe. Simply mash with a fork or a small potato masher in a bowl until it’s paste-like. Set aside. 

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients

In a large bowl, mix the rice flour, potato flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda with a whisk until well combined and there are no lumps of flour left. Mixing the dry ingredients well at this stage is important – it will make sure that the flavour and texture are the same throughout the bread!

Step 3: Add the wet ingredients and mix the batter

Once you finished mixing the dry ingredients, add the soy milk, coconut oil, and mashed banana to the dry mixture and mix with the same whisk until the batter is nice and smooth. You don’t have to be as careful as when you are mixing the batter with plain flour, as this recipe doesn’t contain any gluten.

Step 4: bake

Pour the batter into a 1lb loaf tin and smooth out the top evenly. Top with one banana split in half then pop it into the oven and bake for 50mins. Do a toothpick test when it’s done. To do that, insert a toothpick into the centre of the bread and if it comes out clean, it’s baked! If it comes out with wet batter, pop it back in and bake for another 5-10 mins until it’s baked.

Tips and tricks

Cover the top with foil halfway through

If your banana bread came out cooked but the top is burnt, you can prevent it from happening by placing a sheet of foil over the bread halfway through the baking, about 30-40 mins after when the top starts to look golden brown. This makes sure that the top won’t get burnt!

Mash the banana well

Mash the banana very well until it’s a smooth paste. If you add too lumpy banana paste to the batter the flavour will not be even throughout the bread. Use a fork or a small potato masher to mash!

How to store the vegan gluten-free banana bread

To store the bread, you can put the loaf in an airtight container and keep it at room temperature for up to 1 day or 2 days in the fridge. If it’s summer and very hot in the room, so keep it in the fridge to keep it fresh. For a longer storage period, you can also store sliced banana bread in a freezer-friendly airtight container in the freezer. Thaw and toast when serving.

Q and A

My banana bread came out burnt on top but not cooked in the middle?

I sometimes experience this myself and I heard from some of you that the same happened too, which is the banana bread comes out burnt on top but not cooked in the middle. The chances are your oven has a higher temperature than it says. One way to fix this is to use an oven thermometer to correctly set the temperature in the oven. 

Another reason can be you are baking it on the very top shelf of your oven. You can place the bread on the lower shelf and see if it helps.

The middle of my banana bread collapsed! Why?

It’s so frustrating to find the middle of your banana bread collapsing! I know how you feel. This can be caused if you add too much leaven agent. The bread will rise rapidly if you add too much baking powder or soda, making the middle of the bread fall apart and the top look baked. If you think you added too much leavening agent, reducing the amount might help.

Another reason could be that you used too much banana in the batter. Banana is dense so if used too much the weight can prevent the middle of the bread from rising. Weigh the banana with a digital scale and see if it help!

Want to master the basics of vegan baking?
Check out Vegan Baking 101 – the beginner’s guide to vegan baking for you to become an excellent vegan baker and familiar with the basics of vegan baking, ingredients, and techniques with useful tips!

You will LOVE this vegan banana bread because it is:

• soft and fluffy
• easy and simple to make
• healthy 
• perfect to bake for your GF friends
• super flavourful

Please leave a comment and rate this recipe in the comment section below if you like this recipe! Let me know and tag me @thechestnutbakery on Instagram too. Thank you for making my recipe, friends!

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