Healthy Gluten Free Pumpkin Banana Bread!

Year after year, I start getting excited about fall more and more. It reminds me of when I was a kid, and the afternoons after the first days of school spent lighting candles with my mom and telling her about my new classes. Fall is also the time of sweaters, warm drinks, and yummy pumpkin flavors. Pumpkin pie, as you all know, is one of my favorite things, so this year I am trying to find new recipes to add pumpkin to.

The back story to this banana bread is a funny one; my dad and I both like to eat bananas when they are still green, but we had a couple that were too brown for us, and my mom just doesn’t really care for bananas in general. My dad always gives me a hard time about not eating the bananas before they get too brown, so I bet him (we’re a slightly competitive family) I would eat them before we ended up throwing them into the yard for the raccoons to eat. 

I was just about to suck it up and eat one of the too-ripe bananas when I realized I could use them to make a really yummy banana bread. I started looking up recipes for healthy and gluten-free banana bread, and found a couple that looked promising. Applesauce was used in a lot of them to make sure the loaves were moist, and I thought, why not replace the applesauce with pumpkin and make pumpkin-banana bread?! I was skeptic of how it would turn out since pumpkin is a lot thicker than applesauce, so I used less pumpkin than applesauce was called for, and added some water to thin it out a bit. This worked really well, and the batter ended up really smooth!

I used the one-to-one baking flour from Bob’s Red Mill, and it is my favorite gluten-free flour! You literally just substitute it with the exact measurements as regular flour in recipes, and they turn out great. I would definitely recommend buying this for gluten-free recipes! My mom uses it to make our family-favorite cheese sauce, and you can’t tell a difference in taste. 

The whole process of putting the bread together is really simple: you just mix the dry ingredients separately from the wet, and once they are ready, you mix the two together in one bowl!

 I used about 3/4 cup of pumpkin and added in 1/4 of water to make a full cup!

 Mash the bananas until they look about like this!

 All of the wet ingredients mixed up should look like this!

The batter should be really smooth once you combine the wet an dry ingredients.

You can totally add in some chocolate chips, too, because why not…

 I made muffins as well as a loaf of bread since I had enough batter!

 Just look at that pumpkin-chocolate-banana-y goodness!

Healthy Gluten Free Pumpkin Banana Bread
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (plus 1/4 water)
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey (or sugar if you would like!)
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill One-to-One Gluten Free Baking Flour (or any other gluten free flour!)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 mashed rip bananas (or about 1 1/4-1/2 cups)
1/2 cup chocolate chips if you would like!

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a small bowl, and in another small bowl, mix the pumpkin and water together until it has an applesauce consistency. Add the other wet ingredients together, and mix until everything is combined. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together in a large bowl, and add in chocolate chips if you prefer – if not, you could add in some nuts, or nothing at all! Melt some coconut oil and soak a paper towel in it to coat your muffin tin and/or bread pan with. Pour the batter into the pans, and put the muffins in the oven for about 16-18 minutes, or until golden brown, and put the bread in for 45 minutes. Check on them regularly if there isn’t as much batter in the pan. Let your yummy gluten-free goodies cool and enjoy the wonderful taste that is pumpkin!

I think I could eat pumpkin year-round and be perfectly happy, but there’s something so special about getting to enjoy it as soon as it turns to fall! I’m so happy I decided to use those pesky brown bananas instead of throwing them away, because now I get to enjoy these gluten-free muffins and bread! The Bob’s Red Mill flour really does make gluten-free baked goods taste just as good as regular goodies, and it’s so easy to work with. I would definitely try it out if you haven’t already!

What is your favorite fall flavor?

Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day! 🙂