Healthy Chocolate Banana Loaf Recipe

Hey, friends! I’ve gotten quite a few requests to share some of the recipes for foods I’ve been posting lately. I figured now is as good a time as ever, considering there’s not much else to do. When you’re forced to stay home, what better to do than to bake!

I found this recipe on Pinterest. It was created by Aleyda at The Dish on Healthy. She’s also from Toronto and has a ton of yummy and healthy recipes on her site! I definitely recommend checking her out. I’ll link her website here.

I love when I find healthy alternative recipes. Regular, store-bought chocolate cake can be so unhealthy. They’re usually loaded with refined sugar and preservatives and ingredients you can’t even pronounce. This isn’t real food.

But this recipe is loaded with real ingredients and can easily be made gluten free and vegan! That’s a big win in my books!

As usual, I try to make recipes my own with a small personal twist. I’ll link the original recipe here, but I’m going to be sharing my version below.

Print Pin

Healthy Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake

A moist, chocolatey cake using overripe bananas with no processed sugar and vegan option

Course Dessert

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 9

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups all purpose whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp raw cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup semisweet or dairy-free chocolate chips
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 4 very ripe bananas mashed
• 3/4 cup coconut sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil OR vegan butter melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp espresso powder optional
• 1/4 cup cacao nibs

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F and line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
• In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together: flour, raw cacao powder, coconut sugar, baking soda and espresso powder.
• In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a large fork and whisk with the eggs, coconut oil and vanilla. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the large, wet ingredient bowl, mixing/whisking as you go. Don’t over mix. This results in a very dense cake.
• Fold the chocolate chips into the mixture. Gently pour into the lined loaf pan and sprinkle the cacao nibs on top.
• Place inside the oven and bake for 55-65 minutes. My oven required 60 minutes. Insert a knife or toothpick into the middle of the cake and see if it comes out mostly clean. If it does, it’s ready.

If you’d like to use a different kind of flour, or make this loaf gluten free, Aleyda recommends using spelt flour or gluten free oat flour. I have not tried it, but I’m curious to see if Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 baking flour.

Also, if you don’t have cacao nibs on hand, you can simply use some more chocolate chips on the top, like the original recipe calls for.

The espresso powder is also an optional step, feel free to modify as needed.

I really like this recipe because it’s sweetened with coconut sugar. While yes, this is still a sugar, it’s not as processed or inflammatory as regular white refined sugar. It also contains trace amounts of some minerals, so there are more benefits to it.

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