Vegan Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I was really craving some banana bread, and luckily I had some over-ripe bananas waiting for me in the freezer. I knew I wanted to make this recipe vegan because I wanted to ensure that I could share it with the twins I nanny for, since it’s their birthday this week, and banana bread is way healthier than cake (and I always feel more comfortable feeding babies vegan baked goods, though you can certainly feed “regular” baked goods to them if you’d like). Who wouldn’t want peanut butter banana bread for their birthday?

1½ cups mashed banana (2-3 large, very ripe bananas)

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 Tbs. coconut oil (or vegetable, or canola)

¼ cup peanut butter (I used crunchy for the added texture, but you can use creamy)

½ cup Splenda

1/3 cup brown sugar

½ tsp. vanilla extract

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. allspice

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup flax seed meal

2 cups spelt flour (you can use a.p., whole wheat, or gluten-free)

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

1 Tbs. chopped dry roasted peanuts

~Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9×5” loaf pan with nonstick spray.

~In a large bowl, combine bananas, applesauce, coconut oil (warm up a bit to achieve liquid state), peanut butter, Splenda, and brown sugar. Stir well. Add vanilla, cinnamon, allspice and salt and stir well. Then, add the rest of the dry ingredients and peanuts. Stir until all combined. Pour batter into your prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hr and 5 min, or until a test stick comes out clean (if it starts to get too dark on top, you can tent a piece of foil over the top towards the end of the baking time). 

Strike up a conversation: What do you like in your banana bread?