Gluten-free Banana Bread With a Secret Ingredient

As I get closer to my competition (April 26th) and continue to eat clean and somewhat boring, my cravings for treats have gone down. But sometimes when I am craving a treat I break out my baking pans and think of what I can create that sort of fits into my competition diet (I will describe what that looks like in another post very soon!).

Enter Gluten-free Banana Bread…with added protein.

When getting close to a competition your calories are reduced so you can get “cut”. This isn’t something you do long-term and thankfully I haven’t had to reduce my calories much so far (I’m 7 weeks out from my comp). Someone posted a banana bread recipe on the Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness Facebook group and I had to make a version of it! I changed up his recipe, reducing the fat by adding applesauce and using coconut oil instead of margarine, using coconut sugar instead of agave, and using different flours. I also made it smaller in case my experiment didn’t turn out. I crossed my fingers and I’m happy to say it turned out pretty tasty.

It’s a nice small loaf in case you come close to eating it all in one day (like I did!). I literally used the flours in my pantry, which happened to be chickpea and white sorghum. I have no idea if it will work with different flours, but my instinct says you can trade out the sorghum for any gluten-free flour (like rice, oat, or quinoa). If you do make changes let us know how it works in the comments!

As you can see it’s a bit crumbly but I didn’t mind it!

Gluten-free Banana Bread
Makes 8 servings

Dry:
1/2 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
2 scoops Unflavored Plantfusion
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch sea salt

Wet:
1 large, ripe banana
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mash banana in a small bowl and whisk together with the rest of the wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and combine with a spatula until dry ingredients are nice and wet. The batter will be thick, not runny.

Lightly spray a glass loaf pan with pan spray. Place batter in pan and press down evenly while smoothing over the top. Bake for about 30 minutes, testing with a toothpick at the 30 minute mark. Let cool completely then cut into squares.

What have you been baking lately?