I love banana bread.  My love for it stems from a particular banana chocolate chip muffin at a farmstand near my uncle’s house in Bridgehampton.  Sadly, the farmstand doesn’t exist anymore, but I have since learned to make my own in loaf form.  Another thing I love about banana bread is that it isn’t produced from a planned endeavor.  It happens when you didn’t eat your bananas fast enough and they look like this:

Last week, the timing was perfect.  I came home early from work because of snowpocalypse 3.0 to these over-ripe bananas and a fun snow day project.

Snow Day Banana Bread

I modified this recipe from Rebecca Reilly’s book, Gluten-Free Baking. This book is awesome.  It has everything that I used to eat, gluten-free!

1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teapoon gluten-free baking powder

1/4 teaspoon bakin soda

3/4 teaspoon xantham gum

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 teasppon nutmeg

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tbs honey

1 cup mashed bananas

Preheat the oven to 350˚F and lightly grease a loaf pan.  Dust it with some rice flour to ensure the loaf doesn’t stick later.

Mix together the rice flour, potato starch, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium sized bowl.  Then mix the banana, oil, honey, eggs, and lemon in a larger bowl.  Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well blended.  I should note that I use a food processor, but you don’t have to of course!  Confession.  I forgot the sugar.  This recipe calls for sugar, and I didn’t realize I had forgotten it until the loaf was in the oven and my sugar was still on the counter.

Here is my batter in front of a snowy NYC.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and make sure it is distributed evenly.

Bake for 35 minutes or until you determine it is done by sticking a knife into the loaf and it comes out clean.

This gluten-free banana bread looks more beautiful than any “regular” banana bread I’ve made before. Just look at that shiny, crusty, top!

In the end, you have a beautiful,slightly sweet, moist loaf of banana bread.    Because it is so mild, you can add jam, peanut butter, butter, and honey as a spread and it won’t taste over-indulgent.  Yum!