Rye banana bread is a must-have in your little black book of quick bread recipes.
I love that rye flour is making a comeback in recent years. And what’s interesting is that we now see it in things other than regular bread: rye chocolate chip cookies, brownies, waffles, wonderful-tasting pie crust made of rye flour, and so much more. It turns out that rye’s dark color, slightly sour taste, and dense texture go superbly well with chocolate, apples, berries, as well as with sweeter fruits like dates, and yes, bananas.
Now I have made my fair share of banana bread recipes over the years, from the classic one I have photocopied on the fridge from my mom’s Fanny Farmer cookbook to gluten free ones like this one made almond flour, this more robust one made of buckwheat or this masa harina chocolate one, which is probably one of the recipes that gets the most traffic on my website. Yet, I felt like another recipe could be added to the collection. Also, rye is high in dietary fiber, which is always a good thing as far as I am concerned.
At first, I just took one of my gluten-free ones and swapped out the flour combination with rye. The result was ok but I felt like something was definitely missing taste-wise. Then, I stumbled across a recipe found on King Arthur’s website where they use a lot of spices. Of course, spices! How could I of all people not have thought of that, right? But whilst it was really good, the end result to be a little too sweet for my liking and the rye flavoring too strong for my kids. After all, you need to keep in mind that most rye breads don’t have more than 50% rye in them and it is usually cut with a lighter flour. So I made minor adjustments and this recipe has become our household’s standard for banana rye bread. The flavor of the spices and honey really come out well and the nutty flavors of rye and spelt are a well-balanced match. The texture is also moist just the way banana bread should be. Conclusion: it’s a prime candidate for breakfast or brunch. Like a lot of quickbreads, I like to let it cool completely and then cut thick slices that I freeze for busy mornings to come. From time to time, I also make a loaf on a Friday night so that we can breakfast and snack on it over the weekend. And most recently, I brought it on a weekend away with friends and it was a hit. Either way, it’s a winner in my books.
Notes:
- If you don’t have spelt flour, you can swap it with whole wheat and get great results too)
- Don’t skip out on the honey, it will really adds a great flavor
- When it comes to the spices, feel free to play around with them – I tend to use the French equivalent of pumpkin spice but I have also tried it with a mix of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and clove with great success
- If you want to replace the butter with coconut oil, no problem, just make sure it is odorless.
- You can swap the pecans for the walnuts and get great results
- Do add raisins, dates or even dark chocolate chunks/chips for added deliciousness
- Want to get a video of how to make this? Check out my IGTV channel, the recipe is here
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Ingredients
- 1/2 cup/120g butter or coconut oil (odorless)
- 1/2 cup/100g coconut sugar (brown sugar also works)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 bananas (3 mashed bananas and 1 for decoration that you slice lengthwise)
- 2 eggs
- 3-4 tbsp honey
- 1 1/2 cup/180g rye flour
- 1 1/2 cup/180g spelt or whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp of pumpkin spice mix or a mix of warming spices of your choice (cardamom powder, ginger powder, clove powder, additional cinnamon, nutmeg, etc)
- 1/2 cup pecan halves
Instruction
- Preheat oven to 175C and line a loaf pan with parchment paper
- In a bowl, using an electric hand beater or blender, Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add in the vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl, mix the 3 mashed bananas, eggs and honey
- In a third bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices
- Pour the banana mixture into the creamed butter and sugar, mixing well. Mix in pecans. Then add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan and arrange the 2 banana halves nicely on top. Bake for 50 minutes or until it is fully cooked through. If the top starts getting too dark, cover it with an aluminium paper and lower the heat slightly
