Gluten-Free Banana Bread with chocolate chips (and no soy, potato or corn)

I've been baking banana bread for a local cafe for a few months now. We took the cafe owner's mom's recipe and tweaked it until it tasted better than the original. It is packed with bananas and is both moist and flavorful and joyfully cinnamon-free (there's just way too much cinnamon in loaf cake recipes, but that's just me). Plus it holds up for a week - and flavor peaks around day 3 or 4.

I actually don't like banana bread. So in developing the recipe, I depended on the cafe staff to tell me how to tweak it. Bananas just...rub me the wrong way. Maybe once a year I'll eat a banana, usually in close proximity to that once-a-year ceremonial drinking of the soft drink. If I don't sleep through it.

Banana bread is an easy recipe to convert to gluten-free. Bananas do wonders in baked goods, adding texture and moisture without making the batter too wet. Because it is a high-fat cake, it does not need gums for structure.

If you'd like to turn this into a dairy free cake, I've included some conversions in the recipe. The cake will be slightly less fatty and delicate, but it should still be delicious.

You can watch me make the banana bread here, on How2Heroes.com:

Gluten-Free Banana-Chocolate Chip Bread

yield: 1 12" loaf or two regular loaves

• 1 C + 2T Teff
• 1 C Light Buckwheat
• 1/4 C Tapioca Flour
• 1/4 C Sweet Brown Rice Flour
• 1-2/3 C Sugar or Rapadura
• 1-1/2 t (corn-free) Baking Powder
• 1-1/4 t Baking Soda
• 1 t Salt

• 4 oz (1 stick) Butter (sub 4 oz jungle shortening or coconut oil)

• 1/4 C Safflower or Sunflower Oil
• 2-1/2 C mashed Bananas, about 4 large Bananas or 6 medium Bananas
• 1/2 C + 1/3 C Buttermilk (or 1/2 C + 1/3 C Water + 1T vinegar)
• 2 ea Eggs (or 2t ground flax plus 1/4 C water)
• 1 T Vanilla

• 1 C chocolate Chips OR Chopped Pecans OR combination of the two

Preheat oven to 350 F (325 in Convection oven). Prepare baking pan, either line with parchment or dust with butter and 'flour' (I use teff, though parchment is the tastier option. Trust me).

Combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of a mixer (or, if no mixer, in a bowl). Add butter and mix until butter/dry combination has consistency of cornmeal.  Add wet ingredients all at once and mix for about 2 minutes. Fold in Nuts/Chocolate or combination. 

Pour into loaf pan. Bake in center rack for about 1 hr, or until a toothpick inserted in the loaf comes out clean.

Allow to cool. Slice and eat or freeze right away. Will remain tender for at least 5 days, if kept in an airtight container.

Comments

[Linda]

That looks good. I'm not a big on bananas, but the rest of my family is. They are always gone before they get ripe enough to bake with. Once in a while it happens, though. I'll try to remember this recipe.

I like the idea of baking for a local cafe. Maybe I should look into that.

[Deanna]

Hi Linsey, here are my veganizing notes as promised!

I subbed Spectrum Organic Shortening for the butter, Ener-G egg replacer for the eggs, and fudged some buttermilk with coconut milk and lemon juice. Everything else was as the recipe required, though I did make sure to use vegan chocolate chips.

And because I'm lazy (and loaf pan-less), I cooked this in my breadmaker having mixed it first. It took about two hours on the regular Bake setting. Baking it this way created a really lovely crust while keeping the crumb moist and fluffy.

I need to stop typing this, or I will be tempted to eat more. Thanks again for sharing your recipe!

[Erin Swing]

Great demo! Who is the maker of the sweet brown rice flour that you use? Do you find a difference in densities between different makes of gfree flours?

W/ any G-Free batter - do you think that letting the batter sit in the fridge would have the flours absorb the liquids?

[Cake and Commerce]

Yes....absolutely brands matter. Part of the reason is particle size - I prefer the finest grind I can find. I don't know the maker of the sweet brown rice flour - I'll ask at the store where I buy it (they package it up from bulk).

Definitely letting batter sit helps with absorption - but no amount of sitting seems to help enough with coarser rice flours. The one thing to think about is leavening - how much will the water impact the rise of the product you are making. Because banana bread takes so long to bake, it is not really an issue with this recipe. In the chocolate chip recipe I have a few months back, there is an overnight recommended sit - which results in truly wonderful cookies.

[My beloved is missing banana bread]

What might be a good substitute for teff? I don't live near a source. I was thinking of coconut flour, but I don't have a clue as what the texture of teff is like.

[Linsey]

I wouldn't use coconut flour as a 1 for 1 substitute. You could use sorghum or any other kind of whole grain gluten-free flour (not starch). You can also mail order teff from amazon, which I recommend, as Teff is a pretty great flour. Alternately, you can replace all my flours with your favorite gluten-free flour mix - make sure it is free of xanthan or guar.

[Sara]

This banana bread is SUPER WOW. Perhaps the best gf treat I've ever had. Linsey graced us with some this weekend, with pecans and chocolate and in both muffin and loaf form. It's hard not to gobble it all up immediately. Admittedly, I love bananas and chocolate and I love the two together. This recipe puts Babycakes in NYC to shame. Linsey: what chocolate do you use?

[Cake and Commerce]

I used Enjoy Life Soy-free chocolate chips in this blog recipe, but in the one you tasted I had a combination of regular chocolate chips and taza 80% chocolate chunks. Thanks Sara!

[Rick Capin]

is the Teff that is used in this whole grain or the ground flour?

[Cake and Commerce]

So sorry to not be specific - it is finely milled teff flour. Thanks! I'll fix that.