I am a lazy baker. I prefer recipes with short ingredient lists. Its for this reason that Chestnut Flour continues to appeal to me. Not many gluten free flours work well all on their own. Chestnut has proven to me in several different recipes now that it doesn’t always need additional flours to play a supporting role. That’s not to say that it has to be baked alone. This is just my preference.
Chestnut flour reminds me of cake flour. Its light, and proved to me in my Grain Free Carrot Cake Cupcake recipe that it would work well without eggs. Today I wanted to take it to the next level and see how it would do as an eggless quick bread. The results were great! Chestnut has a distinct flavor that I’m crazy about- nutty and slightly sweet. It tastes phenomenal with warm spices (i.e.. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves). Everything made with this flour ends up having a brown tint to it- rest assured there is no heavy whole grain taste.
Please note that Chestnut flour CANNOT be exchanged for Almond or Coconut. I have had a few readers assume this would work and then contact me upset that my recipe “did not work”. If you are seeking out a recipe using another flour- let me know as I may have another recipe for you somewhere else on the site or in my books.
Feel free to use just about any variety of granulated sugar in this recipe. I used coconut palm sugar. I feel pretty confident that even xylitol should work. Just stick to a granulated variety. (liquid will add too much moisture).
Grain Free/Vegan Banana Bread
1 cup pureed ripe banana
1/2 cup milk (dairy or nondairy) or water.
1/4 Cup oil or melted butter (any mild flavored variety)
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Sucanat or Palm Sugar (see note above)
2 1/2 packed cups Chestnut Flour
1 Tbs Baking Powder (I use double acting)
1 Tsp Vinegar or Lemon Juice.
- Preheat Oven to 325 degrees. Oil a small or medium bread pan.
- Puree ripe bananas and mix with other wet ingredients (milk oil and vanilla).
- Stir in remaining ingredients, mixing in the baking powder and vinegar at the very end.
- Quickly pour into prepared pan and bake 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
I noticed the bread became slightly crumbly as it aged (though not terribly so). This is partly due to the fact that I did not include of any gums (xanthan or guar) In the future I will be playing around with including a small portion of flax meal in the flour mix.
OH, and that glaze? Its just cashew butter mixed with a little coconut oil and melted. I added some chai spice and stevia to fancy it up. Another recipe for another day..
xo,
Brittany
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
oh my gosh I am drooling all over my keyboard!! haha! that looks SO delicious! chestnut flour! interesting! i’ll have to give it a try! thanks for sharing!
YUM! this looks great, never baked with chestnut flavor. sounds very nice!
Thanks Ladies! Its a fun flour, pretty easy to work with. The flavor is fairly strong and I’m finding it works best in sweet recipes
This looks so great!!!! I understand what you say about people trying to substitute flours and it doesn’t work. I get a lot of emails like that, too. All flours just aren’t the same!
Oh yes! Assumptions are not a good thing when it comes to baking. Drives me bonkers sometimes
I’m so glad you’re posting recipes with chestnut flour. . . I tried it years ago and really didn’t like it. Now I’m thinking I need to try again. This bread sounds perfect! When I get my bag of flour, I know where to go to find recipes I can try to use it up.
It has a strong flavor for sure! I can imagine that it will be extra wonderful in the fall- as it will SO compliment Pumpkin, Chocolate, Ginger etc. I do hope you get some and put it to use yourself. Love seeing the things you come up with! xo
Hmm, how would you use for Applesauce Cake/ Cookies? Is it pretty straight across cup-for-cup? I used AP GF flour for it and it’s great, but chestnut just sounds GOOD!
This and your GF Carrot Cupcake recipe look scrumptious but I must watch carbs! How would one figure the carb count in your recipes?
Louise- I’m not a nutritionist, and therefore don’t provide that information.
they can be found under the recipe list tab.
If you are concerned with carbs I recommend checking out my almond flour recipes ( I have a ton)
OK that banana bread looks amazing but THAT GLAZE! More details please!
All you do is make cashew butter with coconut oil. Then I added a portion of a packet of chai tea right to the butter and then sweetened with a little stevia. You could also use any liquid sweetener if you don’t care for stevia.
Where do u buy chestnut flour and what brand do u use?
My favorite brand is nuts.com which I order directly from their site
i just made this!! i added some soaked flax meal cinnamon and ginger and its SOOOO delicious and perfect texture!!! i also blended it all up and whipped up the banana just like eggs in the food processor.. i didn’t have enough eggs so i popped a sweet potato in the micrwave to cook. so i had some of that in there too and the texture is perfect!!
Juniper-how much flax meal did you add? wanted to make some this morning:)
I found this site while searching for something to do with my pack of chestnut flour.. tried this out with some coconut oil instead of butter. And OH MY GOSH!!!! This banana bread is soooo yummy! Lovely site too! Keep up the excellent and inspiring work.
My son and I just made this for him. He is eating it warm out of the oven right now with a big glass of raw milk. He says it is “fab-u-lous!!!” We did our own thing with it: left out the sugar, added 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 1 tsp cinnamon.
I really enjoy your website and refer to it often. We are all gluten-free and my son also cannot do eggs. I recommend your site and recipes all the time to friends. Thank you!
This looks promising. I’m new to gluten free lifestyle, been going gf for about a month and a half now. I live in a somewhat large city, and gf products (like flour) have been hard to find. I found some chestnut flour on clearance and decided to give it a try. Have you tried it with applesauce instead?
{ 1 trackback }