Healthy Chocolate Banana Bread is baked with healthy olive oil, spelt and oat flour for a banana bread recipe that will fast replace your old one!
Healthy Chocolate Banana Bread
Yes, I’m a health nut. Have been since I was a teen and that was a long time ago!
For me, healthy food that still satisfies both hunger and taste are so easy to prepare, if we just focus on ingredients that help rather than hurt.
I knew I needed to create a healthy chocolate banana bread for all those banana bread lovers, like me, who wanted it ‘healthy’!
Which is why I often create other healthy recipes to include a bit of chocolate.
- Chocolate Apple Muffins – because Autumn’s orchard apple slices, dipped in melted chocolate are a favorite treat, so why not a muffin.
- Homemade Chocolate Almond Milk Ice Cream – made with homemade almond milk.
- Almond Crust Chocolate Pie – because I love a good cookie and so I make pie crusts like a cookie and filled it with a silky chocolate egg custard.
- Healthy Chocolate Date Candy – sweetened only with dates and pureed with raw cacao and nuts.
- Savory Chocolate Chili Pasta – oh yes, chocolate pasta with a savory chestnut sauce.
Healthy Banana Bread
Recipes for banana bread are about as available as there are recipes for Zucchini Bread!
Zucchini Bread, which I also boast as being the healthier recipe, got that way because of my mindful ingredient choices.
Kefir and rapeseed oil are my contributions to a healthy zucchini bread, that and the use of coconut sugar.
Banana Muffins Are Really Just Banana Bread
Banana Muffins have been in my family for a long time. Bran, barley flour and olive oil have been the secret ingredients to my healthy banana muffins for my kids.
Muffins have been the way I hide lots of healthy ingredients, both sweet or savory. In fact, I will boast here too that I have the best Muffin Cookbook on the planet!!
Why Make Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins?
Instead of making unhealthy, heavily sugared, nutrition weak flour banana bread, I knew I could do better.
Especially since I raised four children as a single mom, healthy food was my priority.
Since I had an ‘at home’ business, long before it was a thing, it was easier for me to meet this challenge.
I was able to whip up recipes fast, in between hair clients, and muffins suddenly became more than just a breakfast bite.
Obviously my kids benefited from an easy, yet healthy breakfast, and I had peace of mind that I fed them well.
Healthy Chocolate Banana Bread
What is chocolate anyway? Down to basics, it’s a bean that has been roasted, like a coffee bean, ground into a powder and is bitter.
Chocolate as we know it, like from the store and already made into chocolate, is where chocolate has gotten a bad rap for being unhealthy, or fattening.
Bad chocolate is often that candy bar, or cooking chocolate bar loaded with sugar and fats I’ve never heard of.
Healthy Chocolate
Buying chocolate should be a mindful purchase. Select 70% or higher cacao ingredients.
Cooking with chocolate, especially sweet recipes, should always be with raw cacao.
Simply the roasted raw bean, ground into a powder. Add your own selections of sugar and fat to it.
Olive oil, coconut oil or butter are way better fats to use in making chocolate than buying the chocolate already made into a bar.
Healthy Sweet Banana Bread
Over ripe bananas are the absolute best what to make a sweet banana bread or cake.
Since the natural sugar levels in the banana continue to rise as they ripen, they are almost sweet enough to leave out sugar.
Sugar, as you will see in this recipe, is barely a scant 1/4 cup. Not much and even that can be substituted with alternative sweeteners.
How To Make Chocolate Banana Bread
- First, we want to whisk the soft, mushy bananas until they become creamy.
- Second, we begin to layer in the wet ingredients.
- Then the dry ingredients gets whisked in.
- Last the bread is ready to bake and once cooled, a drizzle of 70-85% chocolate chips gets melted and a small drizzle goes on top of the bread.
Equipment Needed
- Mixing bowl
- Whisk
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Loaf pan
- Basting brush
- Oven
Ingredients Needed
- Ripe bananas
- Eggs
- Olive oil
- Milk
- Sugar
- Cacao
- Oat flour
- Spelt flour
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Nutmeg
- Chocolate chips – optional
Healthy Chocolate Banana Bread
Equipment
- Loaf pan
Ingredients
- 4 Overripe bananas lightly mashed
- 3 Eggs
- 1/4 cup Olive oil
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- 1/4 cup Cacao
- 1 1/2 cups Oat flour ground oats
- 1 cup Spelt flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 2 tbsp Chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350, and brush olive oil inside the baking pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk the bananas until creamy. Add the remaining wet ingredients and whisk.
- Whisk in the dry ingredients. Transfer to the prepared baking pan.
- Bake until tester comes out clean. about 45 minutes. Cool.
- Once the bread is cool, melt the chocolate chips and with a fork, drizzle across the top of the bread.
Video
Notes
- For garnish, I dipped freeze-dried banana chips in the drizzle and placed on top of the bread.
- The bread freezes well, so if you’ve got lots of bananas turning brown, simply double the recipe, bake and freeze. Drizzle can be added once the bread is thawed.
I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.