Refined Sugar Free Banana Bread Recipe

Who doesn’t love finding ways to sneak fruits and veggies into delicious, sweet snacks? Banana bread fresh out of the oven with some butter… yes, please 😁 But so many banana bread recipes use a lot of sugar, which kinda defeats the purpose if you want to create a healthier dessert or snack. Enter this lovely, refined sugar free banana bread recipe. It’s naturally sweetened with super ripe banana’s and a bit of honey or maple syrup. Perfect for gifting or eating all by yourself 😉

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Ingredients for refined sugar free banana bread

First off, of course, we need banana’s. Well spotted, well past their prime banana’s. These banana’s contain more sugar than the ones you’d prefer for fresh snacking. More sugar in the banana’s equals less sugar needed to sweeten our bread, or in this case less honey (or maple syrup).

For this recipe we will use four medium to large banana’s. When mashed it’s around two cups worth. Never fear if you don’t have four banana’s though, you can get by with two you’ll just want to add a bit more honey to the batter.

• softened butter – we always use salted butter, but you can use unsalted.
• honey or maple syrup – use local raw honey to support your local agriculture. Plus it tastes way better. If you have an infant in your home (under 1 year old) honey isn’t safe for them to eat yet, so maple syrup makes a great substitute.
• eggs – pastured chicken eggs contain the most nutrients, but they are expensive. Get what you can afford, don’t feel guilty if you can’t have the best option right now.
• vanilla extract – use the real stuff, please. That is unless you like beaver butts and petroleum. It’s also fairly simple to make yourself 🙂
• all purpose flour – if you’d like to make this refined sugar free banana bread recipe even more nutritious go ahead and substitute with whole wheat or a mix of all purpose and whole grain flour.
• baking soda & baking powder – when baking with honey you’ll need a bit more leavening agents in your doughs to achieve a fluffy texture. Otherwise, your creations will still taste amazing but they will be very dense.
• sea salt – we love Redmond’s Real Salt. It’s the only salt in our home and it’s so delicious.
• walnuts or pecans – this is optional, so if you have a nut allergy just omit. Either nut makes a perfect addition to this banana bread.

The process

To start, gather all of your ingredients and preheat your oven to 350F. Grease your bread pan with some butter or other mild flavored oil. I love my glass bread pans. Ensure your bread pan is about 10.5″ L x 4.5″ W x 3″ H.

Go ahead and mash your banana’s using a fork or potato masher. You want them the consistency of applesauce. Chop up your nuts now if using.

In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter, honey, eggs, and vanilla. Then mix in the mashed banana’s.

In a separate, smaller mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk until fully combined and fluffy.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and whisk until fully incorporated. The consistency will be similar to a really thick pancake batter.

Using a spoon or spatula fold in the chopped nuts if using.

Pour the batter into your prepared bread pan. Bake at 350F for 1 hour and 20 minutes to 90 minutes. Because we are using a liquid sweetener it does take a bit longer to fully cook the banana bread than if we used refined sugar.

How much honey do you need to add?

For this recipe, if you are using about 2 cups of mashed, well ripened banana’s you’ll only need 1/2 cup of honey or maple syrup. And even that amount can be lessened if you’d prefer. You could fully omit the honey if that’s what you’d like. In that case check your banana bread for doneness after an hour of baking.

If you are working with less than the 2 cups of mashed banana or perhaps they weren’t sufficiently ripened (you just really wanted banana bread, I get you) then you can increase the honey to 3/4 cups.

Add in’s

You could add up to 1 1/2 cups of add in’s. Great additions to the refined sugar free banana bread are:

• nuts, pecans or walnuts are my favorite
• chocolate chips
• raisins
• chopped dates
• a swirl of peanut butter and jam
• cream cheese
• streusel topping

You can get so creative with banana bread and I’d love to hear what kind of things you all come up with in the comments below. I hope you love this recipe as much as we do.

Happy baking! 😊

If you love healthier options to sweet treats check out these other posts: