Grain free wholesome banana bread recipe with chestnut flour and walnuts, perfect for grain-free diets.
I have baked lots of banana bread in the past four weeks during our grain free diet and this one is the best grain free bread I have made. The beautiful mix of chestnut flour, walnuts and bananas is just match made in heaven. I screamed with delight when this one came out of the oven!
Chestnut flour is rich in minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients; is naturally sweet and together with the walnuts, bananas, cinnamon and vanilla create delicious sweet flavor so there is not much need to add other sweeteners. I have made it with and without maple syrup, if you prefer less sweetness you might omit the maple syrup.
I love simple baking and this recipe is just that, easy, simple and delicious. Perfect if you are following grain free or Paleo style diet or just fancy experimenting with new flour and flavors. Definitely a great way to include less grains in your diet and for me one of those recipes I will be making at least couple of times every month.
This banana bread tastes wonderful toasted with butter for healthy nutritious breakfast or anytime snack. You will be amazed how good this one tastes!
Grain free banana bread with chestnut flour
Grain free wholesome banana bread recipe with chestnut flour and walnuts, perfect for grain-free diets.
Ingredients
- 3 medium bananas
- 1 cup chestnut flour (150 grams)
- 1 cup ground walnuts (100 grams)
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 tablespoons butter (43 grams melted) or coconut oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C), 350 °F fan (180 °C fan)
- Line a 12" x 4" (30 x 10cm) tin with baking paper.
- Peel and mash the bananas with a fork and set aside.
- Ground the walnuts.
- In a bowl whisk together chestnut flour, ground walnuts, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and pinch of salt and set aside.
- Melt the butter and set aside.
- Whisk the eggs, maple syrup, vanilla and apple cider vinegar and fold into your dry mix.
- Now stir in the mashed bananas.
- Finally fold in the melted butter.
- Spoon the mixture into your lined tin and bake for 50 min or until a cocktail stick comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool down.
- Store in a fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.
- Enjoy!
Notes
The baking time will vary if the tin you use is different size.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving:Calories: 355Total Fat: 21gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 12gCholesterol: 62mgSodium: 266mgCarbohydrates: 39gFiber: 3gSugar: 10gProtein: 7g
With some bananas that needed using up it was time to try your banana bread recipe today! I had to adapt it a bit as I didn’t have any chestnut flour so I used wholegrain spelt instead… with a squeeze of lemon juice instead of the apple cider vinegar… and it was really yummy! I’m really keen to try this again with chestnut flour next time… I’ve spent a lot of time in Corsica on hols and chestnut is in absolutely everything there so it will remind me of somewhere I love to be :-)
Hi Teresa, so happy to hear that you’ve made the banana bread and it turned out great! Let me know how you like it with the chestnut flour next time:)
I love having the banana bread for breakfast, it is lovely with coffee. I am just going to bake another one today! As another reader said I used spelt flour instead of chestnut flour and it worked very well.
Hi Cecilia, this makes me so happy that you love the recipe and you’re making it again! xx
I bake this bread every week and started using chestnut flour instead of spelt flour as I did before. Great result.
Thank you so much for commenting! I’m so happy you love this recipe so much! I must make it myself again, I’m constantly experimenting with new recipes and don’t get chance to make the ones I really love! x
Thank you for this wonderful recipe.I started being grain free and dairy free a couple of weeks ago due to auto immune diseases,after being gluten free for 10 years (celiac disease).I still use butter,as it seems to be fine with me.I used water chestnut flour instead of italian chestnut.Delicious!!!
You’re so welcome Ann, I’m so happy you’ve enjoyed this recipe! I’m yet to try water chestnut flour, I’m quite new to that one :)
Hi there, I’m trying to make a sandwhich bread using chesnut, and would like to leave the bananas out of the recipe. I currently stocked up on chesnut flour, walnutflour, rice flour, coconut flour and tapioca.
If I’d follow your recipe, minus the banana’s, with how much flour would I have to replace it, which would be the best kind to add, and what would be needed for extra moisture and binding besides eggs? Hope you have some tips!
All the best,
Csilla
Hi Csilla, if you like to leave out the bananas you will have to replace them with some other pureed/grated fruit or vegetable. Without that the recipe would have to change completely. I suggest apple sauce/grated apple, mashed cooked or raw grated sweet potato or squash, grated courgette (zucchini) could also work. Have a look at my Apple and Rosemary Grain Free Bread, it’s a very similar recipe where I’ve used two grated apples. Hope this helps :)
Hello Hana, I just made your chestnut flour banana bread recipe and it’s devine! So happy to find you online!! I’m on a restricted diet and can only do chestnut flour right now. Is there a rule of thumb when substituting chestnut flour? I was wondering if I could substitute it equally for almond and coconut flour recipes?? Thank you!
Hi Casey, I’m so happy that you’ve enjoyed this bread! You could happily replace chestnut flour with almond flour in recipes, but coconut flour behaves very different and you won’t be able to substitute it equally. I find coconut flour quite tricky to bake with and I don’t use it very much. Normally you should use only tiny amount of coconut flour and always add extra eggs. Hope this helps :)
I’m so glad I found this recipe, thanks for posting it! It’s my second time making this, although I deviate a little each time. (I always seem to with recipes, even though I’m pretty novice and probably shouldn’t go too off piste. ;-) I substituted the eggs with half of them flax seed/water ones and half the (unsweetened) apple puree option out there. I used some ground hazelnut along with walnuts and pecans for the nut portion. And I did the coconut oil option for the butter. I used a muffin tin (with recipe doubled) and had a cooking time of about 15 minutes instead. Given the bananas and the apple puree I used, it was totally fine without any additional sweetener. I happily came out with a dozen nice banana bread muffins. Such a great way to stay gluten and vegan, plus also move to lower carb options. Thank you for starting me on the road to baking with chestnut flour!
(gluten-free, I mean :-)
Hi Claire, thank you so much for coming back and leaving me such amazing comment and sharing your vegan substitutions. This recipe was one of my first recipes on the blog when I was still eating eggs and some dairy and I always wanted to make vegan version. I’m so happy it worked so well for you! Isn’t chestnut flour amazing? I have two lovely recent recipes with chestnut flour, the Upside Down Blood Orange Cake and the Gingerbread Christmas Mini Cakes, both really lovely that you might also like :) xx
This recipe is very special!
Have made it a dozen times over and just needed to thank you for it! Love the apple cider vinegar in it and the chestnut flour works perfectly. I
It’s made a lot of people very happy!
Hi Jen, Thank you so much for this wonderful comment! And now I’m happy! Love H
This is a fantastic recipe, Hana. I’m now sorry I only brought a 500gr bag of chestnut flour rather than 1kg one, got it in Italy in a chestnut fair and from now on when I go there I will look it up to see if I can get some more this being a country where chestnuts are consumed I hope I can get the flour even out of season.
I had 6 medium bananas and so I doubled the recipe and made 1 large bread. The nut portion was a mixture of mainly pecans but also walnut, cashew and sunflower seeds, this is what I had on hand. I went ahead and didn’t add any sweeteners and indeed the sweetness is perfect as is.
Delicous!
I’m so happy you love it Keren! Thank you so much for your comment, comments like yours always make my day! I love baking with chestnut flour, it’s expensive but so worth the occasional treat. Love H
I forgot to mention I used flax eggs in this recipe. It worked perfectly.
Hi there… I made this on a rainy Sunday … and gosh… the sun came up when I tasted it! Delicious!!!
I substituted the walnuts for almonds… and it is great… I enjoy it most with some peanutbutter… yummy! thanks again!
You’re so welcome Fabi! I’m so happy you love this recipe! Thank you for your lovely comment :)