Read time: 5 minutes

Most banana bread is cake. This one isn’t, and the difference is three ingredients.

In July I told you I ate three pieces of this banana bread after dinner and woke up to a resting heart rate of 54 — dead even with my monthly average. Then I promised you the recipe. Here it is.

I’ve loved banana bread since I was a kid. My grandmother was known for her apple pie, her cinnamon rolls and her banana bread — legendary in our family, and documented on handwritten cards.

I make baked goods because I want to eat them, not because I like to bake.

What’s doing the work

My grandmother’s recipe and mine have one ingredient in common: bananas.

Most “healthy” dessert recipes trade one processed ingredient for another and call it a win. Coconut sugar instead of cane sugar. Almond flour and half a cup of oil.

Three questions separate the real ones from the rest.

What’s doing the sweetening? Overripe bananas. That’s the entire answer — I’ve made this loaf with no maple syrup and no chocolate chips and it’s delicious. The tablespoon of maple and the date-sweetened chips are extras I add because I like them.

What’s doing the fat? Ground flax and walnuts — fat still inside the food it came in. No oil, no butter.

What’s doing the structure? Buckwheat flour and rolled oats. Whole foods with their fiber intact.

One slice of this loaf has 8.8 grams of fiber. From a dessert.

Run those three questions at any recipe before you shop for it. Most fail the first two. The ones that pass are what you build your next 50 years of eating around.

Dessert isn’t the problem. The ingredient list is.

The technique is waiting

Five bananas — four for the batter, one sliced lengthwise across the top. Don’t skip the fifth; it bakes into a dark, sticky strip, the sweetest bite in the loaf.

All five need completely brown skins. Not spotted. Brown. That takes two to four weeks on the counter, usually around three. Nobody tells you this, and your instinct will say you’ve gone too far. You haven’t.

You know why it matters, even if you’ve never put it in these terms. A firm yellow banana — where most of us eat them — tastes mild. A heavily spotted one, the stage most of us won’t touch, is noticeably sweeter. That’s starch converting to sugar: a fully ripe banana holds about 1% starch, an overripe one none. Brown skins mean the conversion finished, and the ripening has done the sweetening so you don’t have to.

It doesn’t taste like cake. It tastes like bananas — which is the point. Give your tastebuds a couple of loaves.

The recipe

Adapted from That Vegan Babe’s vegan banana bread. My changes are at the bottom.

Ingredients

• 5 overripe bananas — 4 for the batter, 1 sliced lengthwise for the top
• 2 tbsp ground flax + 5 tbsp warm water
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp pure maple syrup (optional)
• 1 1/3 cups buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1–2 tbsp date-sweetened vegan chocolate chips (I use Just Date)
• 4–5 tbsp chopped walnuts

Method

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Line a metal loaf pan with parchment, or use a silicone non-stick pan.
2. Stir the ground flax into the warm water and let it sit 10–15 minutes, until it thickens.
3. Mash the four bananas in a large bowl — about 1 1/3 cups. Going much over makes the loaf gummy. If your bananas are on the big side, add a little more flour to compensate.
4. Add the flax mixture, applesauce, vanilla and maple syrup. Combine well.
5. Add the buckwheat flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir until no dry pockets remain.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
7. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread it level — it’s thick, closer to a dough than a pour. Slice the fifth banana lengthwise and lay it across the top. It will likely fall apart — a banana this ripe doesn’t hold together. Arrange the pieces however they land.
8. Bake 60–75 minutes. Test with a toothpick at 60 minutes — mine usually needs the full 75. The crust should be deep brown and firm.
9. Cool before slicing. It holds in the fridge for a week and tastes good cold. If more than one person lives in your house, this is theoretical — mine tends to disappear in two days.

How I make it mine

I’ve made this a dozen-plus times. What I’ve settled on:

• Buckwheat flour, or spelt. I’ve made it with both. I’ve also tried oat flour and a half-and-half blend. Buckwheat is my favorite. Buckwheat and spelt carry similar fiber — roughly four times what’s in all-purpose flour.
• A tablespoon of maple. I’ve made it with and without. It doesn’t need it — I add it because I like it. Check your bottle; the only ingredient should be pure maple syrup.
• Walnuts. Whenever I have them on hand. Eye ball an amount that looks good.
• I don’t measure the bananas. I use four and add a little more flour if the batter looks like it’s headed toward gummy. Proper bakers will want the scale.
• Experiment. I’ve added frozen wild blueberries. The base is forgiving enough to take your ideas; run one variable per loaf so you know what did what.
• I grind whole flax seeds in a coffee grinder. Pre-ground goes rancid faster.
• It’s not only dessert. I’ve eaten it after dinner and I’ve eaten it for breakfast. Nothing in it disqualifies it from either.

Start here

Buy five bananas today and leave them alone. The recipe starts three weeks before the oven does. Wait them out, and banana bread becomes a food you don’t have to ration.

Thanks for reading!

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References & Additional Reading

• Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses – The Lancet
• Starch and sugar transformation during the ripening of plantains and bananas – Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

Image credit: Paco Álamo

This post does not constitute medical advice. Please consult with your healthcare provider regarding your specific health needs.