Blueberry banana bread is healthy, made with no refined sugar or butter. Moist, naturally sweet and perfect for breakfast.
It has been one snowy February here in Wisconsin. Which consequently means I spend pretty much the entire weekend baking up a storm.
I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I don’t ski/snowboard or really enjoy any outdoor winter activities. My talents and enjoyable times are much better spent inside with the oven on and music playing in the background.
The other weekend I spent much of my time testing this blueberry banana bread recipe.
I won’t lie to you, the first two were complete disappointments.
One was much too wet and never baked properly. The flavor was totally on point, but it probably baked a total of three hours. Thumbs down for that one for sure.
The second one I made some additional adjustments, but it still sank in the center. Not exactly what you want to see when you pull a beautiful banana bread loaf out of the oven, only to see it start to sink right in front of your eyes.
After a few additional adjustments, the third blueberry banana bread was just right! Amazing flavor. Perfect traditional banana bread texture. No refined sugar or butter. So let’s dive in to why the third blueberry banana bread was that oh so perfect loaf.
Blueberry banana bread: the healthy base
I can hear you thinking to yourself, “Danielle, there’s no way you made a banana bread with no refined sugar, or especially butter.”
Well my friend, I’m here to tell you that it is absolutely possible.
This blueberry banana bread starts off with of course mashed bananas. They have so much natural sweetness, that we only need a little additional sweetness to round out this traditional breakfast bread.
Next up is Greek yogurt and avocado. If you’re new around here, you may have stopped reading after hearing avocado.
But trust me, avocado has the right amount of healthy fat content to sub in for butter. It still imparts that rich flavor you’re looking for in a banana bread.
Take it from these healthy gluten free monster cookies, or this decadent chocolate fudge cake, that avocado makes for a perfect butter replacement.
Pure maple syrup rounds out the sweetness factor to replace the traditional brown sugar in this recipe.
Blueberry banana bread: no sinking bread
To help you not make the same mistake I made with my two previous loaves of blueberry banana bread, I wanted to share what changed this from sinking to rising banana bread.
Until I did a little research, I didn’t realize that my true reason behind a sinking banana bread was too much moisture.
I was trying to give this recipe all the same moisture and fluffiness that a butter and sugar banana bread has. Trust that the third try {and this exact recipe} was able to accomplish just that.
What it entailed was adding quite a bit more of my favorite white whole wheat flour, and taking down the amount of blueberries.
Oh, and tossing the blueberries in a bit of additional flour, which helps suspend them within the batter while baking.
All of these slightly minor changes made huge differences in a blueberry banana bread that finally stood up well after coming out of the oven.
Blueberry banana bread: a healthy breakfast option
I absolutely love banana bread, but I could never really wrap my mind around the fact that this butter and sugar bread was an acceptable breakfast option.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love that banana bread option, but I felt that to have an acceptable healthy breakfast, there needed to be some swaps.
Oh, and did those swaps make a delicious difference.
This blueberry banana bread is still sweet, moist, fluffy and has that perfect outside crust that makes you ready to take a big bite right away in the morning.
While this bread has no butter in it, it’s highly suggested to add a pat of butter to a warm, out of the oven, slice of blueberry banana bread.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy breakfast?
Looking for more healthy breakfast ideas? Check these out:
Gluten Free Raisin, Date and Pecan Healthy Breakfast Cookies
Overnight Banana French Toast Bake
- 2 ½ cups white whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup natural sugar
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 2 large ripe bananas
- 1 medium avocado pureed
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- ⅓ cup pure maple syrup
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- ¾ cup fresh blueberries {+ 1 Tbsp. whole wheat flour}
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Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a loaf pan.
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In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
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In a medium-sized bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Stir in the pureed avocado, yogurt and pure maple syrup. Add the eggs, one at a time, and stir to combine. Add in the vanilla and stir to incorporate.
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Add half of the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until combined. Repeat with remaining dry ingredients.
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In the same bowl as the flour mixture, toss together the 1 Tbsp. flour and blueberries. Pour into the batter, and fold the blueberries in. Pour into the prepared loaf pan.
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Bake for 60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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Move the loaf pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5-10 minutes before slicing.
