Sugar Free Chocolate Banana Bread
There’s something unbelievably comforting, warming and indulgent about a large slice of banana bread, especially when served warm with butter that melts into it and drips down the sides. Served with a cup of hot tea or coffee, it can make a grey, drizzly day seem so much better!
I’ve always loved banana bread. I used to think of it as a healthy option, and would sometimes deliberately buy a few extra bananas in my weekly shop and let them go nice and brown so I could have an excuse to make some. It’s very easy to make, and it’s got fruit in it – surely it must be healthy?
Sadly, most banana breads and recipes contain huge amounts of sugar, which seems ridiculous for such a sweet fruit. After giving up sugar on the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program, my tastebuds changed dramatically and fruit tasted like pudding. Seriously. A bowl of strawberries felt luxurious. And bananas tasted sweetest of all. So I quickly realised that I could make an amazing banana bread without the need to add any extra sugar at all!
Although you could make it plain if you like (just leave out the chocolate chips or replace with cacao nibs), I personally feel that banana and chocolate is a match made in heaven, and it’s my way of adding an extra little bit of sweetness without adding in a cup of sugar to the batter. By all means, make it free of added sugars (anyone on Sugar Free January?), but if you want it to taste like the sweet banana breads you might be used to, or just fancy an extra dose of indulgence, add the chocolate. It still comes out at less than 1/8 of a teaspoon (<0.5g) added sugar per slice, so it is really not far off being sugar free!
Kids LOVE this, too. And it gets them used to a slightly less sweet version. I’m a big advocate of baking sweet treats for kids yourself and using as little sugar or sweetener as you can get away with (and then use less each time), in order to adjust their developing tastebuds. They are not missing out – in fact, they are most likely seriously enjoying themselves (my son calls these “banana brownies”), and it means that when they do inevitably taste something shop-bought or highly sweetened, they may well find it too sweet as their tastebuds are not used to it.
Whether you are making this for the little kids or the big ones (like me), with or without the little bit of added sugar, for breakfast, snack time or dessert, I can guarantee it will taste delicious and be much appreciated. And use up those browning bananas in your fruit bowl in a much healthier way than usual!
This banana bread can be made (very) low sugar or sugar free, but it's always delicious! 🙂
- 250 g (1 and 3/4 cups) wholemeal flour (or use half wholemeal and plain, or even half gluten free plain and buckwheat for gluten free)
- 25 g (1/4 cup) cacao powder
- 1 tsp baking powder (use gluten free if you need it)
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 ripe bananas
- 2 medium eggs
- 110 g (1 stick) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp sugar free vanilla extract
- a few drops liquid stevia**, optional (only if you want a slightly sweeter loaf)
- 50 g (1/4 cup) 85%-90% dark chocolate, chopped into chunks (leave out or use cacao nibs or chopped nuts for sugar free
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Preheat the oven to 190C/350F/gas 5. Grease and line a 2lb (1kg) loaf tin.
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Mix the flour, cacao powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whizz the peeled ripe bananas in a food processor until mashed and add the remaining ingredients, except the chocolate, before blitzing again until smooth(ish). If you prefer, you can mash the bananas and mix with the other ingredients by hand in a second mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold in gently until just combined (don't overmix). Add about 2/3 of the chocolate chunks and stir them through the batter gently, then pour into the prepare loaf tin and dot with the remaining chocolate.
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Bake in the preheated oven for 45 mins - 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. If the chocolate starts to burn or the top of the loaf is getting dark, cover the loaf with some tin foil for the remaining baking time.
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Allow to cool slightly or completely before serving. Best served warm (shortly after baking or reheated for a few seconds in the microwave, in thick slices, ideally with a spread of butter or sugar free nut butter.
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Keeps for up to 3/4 days in the fridge. This loaf also freezes really well, just slice and freeze in a zip-lock bag or freezer safe container. You can easily double the batter and have one to eat for the week and one to freeze for another time.
*are your bananas not particularly ripe but you really want to make this loaf today? Check out these speedy tips for ripening bananas quickly (the microwave one works really well!).
**not sure where to get hold of liquid stevia? We buy this one - you need such tiny amounts (literally a couple of drops) in anything that this has lasted us over a year and we still have most of it!
I love this recipe thank you for posting it! I have started trying to reduce my sugar without having to give up on tasty food, this loaf was delicious and very satisfying, my family loved it too (although one or two other people who tried it complained that it wasn’t very sweet!)
I can’t wait to try some of your other recipes.
Aaw, thanks Jennifer, I’m glad you loved it! 🙂 It is not a very sweet loaf, so some people may not find it sweet enough if they are used to very sugary banana breads from coffee shops or conventional recipes. You can always add some xylitol or stevia to sweeten it further, but if you’re trying to lower your sugar intake I definitely think it’s good to use as little as possible (or ideally none at all) to help your tastebuds adjust. I hope you have as much success with other recipes – let me know how you get on! 🙂
Absolutely the most delicious cake i have ever had, with 0 sugar!! I made a more “grown up” versjon and added some roughly cut peacan nuts, some roughly cut chocolate butter and cocoa mass, turned out great! I also put a tiny bit monk fruit powder, a tsp date sirup, with 10 drops of stevia. Perfect sweatness. Thank you Claire!
🙂 Glad you enjoyed it Jenni, I love this one! Sounds like yummy swaps. I’ve not used monkfruit powder before but sounds like it worked for you. 🙂
Hello, thank you so much for this recipe! I have just made it and really enjoyed my first slice! I had to make some substitutions due to many and varied dietary needs so swapped eggs for chickpea flour/water mix and used gluten free flour. No sweetener. Also used light olive oil as didn’t have either of the others. It turned out really well, so tasty. Mine didn’t rise as much as yours though, but suspect this was due to the GF flour. Will add a bit more of the raising agents next time and probably a bit more liquid. There will definitely be a next time though!
I’m glad you enjoyed it Amy, and thanks for the substitution suggestions, that’s good to know. Yes, I expect just a little more raising agent would help it rise better – it was probably more due to the egg substitution than the gluten free flour, but a little more raising agent would solve that! 🙂
Hi Claire. I can’t wait to try this. If I’m halving the quantities, do I still need to bake it for 45 mins? Or would it be a bit less?
Hi Sunami, sorry for the late reply! If you are halving the ingredients, you probably will find you need to bake it for less time. I would check after about 30 mins, and if a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean it should be done. I expect it would still take closer to 40 though. Hope you enjoy it. 🙂
I made this loaf this evening and my husband and I simply loved it! I substituted the Stevia drop(s) for 2/3 cup of Swerve granulated sweetener and used sugar free chocolate squares. Omg! What a treat!
Thank you!!
I substituted 3/4 c coconut flour, used coconut oil, and made cupcakes.
Coconut flour is dryer, so the dough was less soupy than usual.
I cooked them for 32 minutes.
They didn’t round out on the top as a normal loaf will. Yum!
Great to know those subs work!
hey can u please tell the quantity of bananas in cups?
Using average medium-sized bananas, 3 of them should come to about 1 cup when mashed.
One of the best banana bread recipe. I used freshly milled whole wheat flour. The result was delicious 😋
Recipe ended up turning out ok but the flour measurement is way off. 1 cup is about 120g so the listed amount should be about 210g, not 250g. This is 2 cups of flour in most other conversions. Granted it might vary for a whole meal flour but my point still stands that there is too much flour to wet ingredients
I wish I was paying attention to the amount before adding because it led to a very thick and dry batter. Therefore it’s quite a dense, almost bread like finish. The cocoa powder could also be increased as its flavor was not prominent after baking. I’d even double the cocoa next time and would greatly reduce the flour