Nana's Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Nana's Peanut Butter Banana Bread is a gluten free/dairy free recipe post by contributing author Jane Scott.

With Christmas coming soon, I thought gluten/dairy free banana bread loaves with peanut butter added for a special flavor would make great gifts. They can be individually wrapped with bows added to colored green or red clear wrap for a festive look. I got the idea for this banana bread recipe using peanut butter from my Mom Dorothy. In fact, I found her worn, original recipe card with the peanut butter and butternut flavoring handwritten into the typed banana bread recipe. Since my brother Larry and I were so fond of banana peanut butter sandwiches, Mom thought we’d like peanut butter in our banana bread as well.

I made Mom’s original recipe using regular flour and it worked out really well. Since I’m gluten intolerant, I rewrote it to use gluten free flour and lactose free milk. I used regular butter as it has no lactose in it. But, if you’re a vegan, you can use the Nutiva organic coconut oil brand with non-dairy butter flavor as it has the same consistency as butter. When I found out that my best friend Rie can’t tolerate peanut butter, she suggested I use either almond or cashew butter in place of the peanut butter. So, that’s another idea that some of you may want to try.

Hints on replacing regular flour with gluten free flour:
I tried different gluten free flours and found that I liked the “1 to 1 Bob’s Red Mill” brand for this bread. Since I was changing the flour from regular to gluten free, I had to use different amounts of certain ingredients. I started by mixing all the wet ingredients together and then adding the dry ingredients gradually. As I didn’t know ahead of time how much gluten free flour I’d need, as various mixes turn out differently, I started by adding the gluten free flour mix slowly in ¼ cup increments. I added the leavening separately after determining how much gluten free flour worked best. If using a different gluten free brand flour mix such as King Arthur brand, I’d advise using the same technique of adding flour and leavening separately as well as adding the gluten free flour mix gradually in ¼ cup increments to determine amount of flour mix you’ll actually need.

Here's the flour I used, available on Amazon (affiliate):

My Mom’s banana bread recipe used 2 cups of regular flour. After experimentation I found that 1 ¼ cups of gluten free flour was sufficient and more than that made the batter too dense. Also, in converting Mom’s original recipe to be gluten free, I added extra peanut butter (¾ c. rather than ½ c.), an additional egg (3 rather than 2), almond milk (3 oz.), 2 tsp. of the vanilla/butternut flavoring rather than 1 tsp., and extra leavening (baking soda, baking powder, & xanthan gum) to create a moist, delicious and well balanced banana bread.

Dorothy’s Peanutty Banana Bread

(Jane Scott's mother's original recipe using regular flour)

Handwritten in: ½ c. peanut butter, 1 tsp. butternut flavoring

Cream shortening. Add sugar. Add mashed bananas. Add eggs. Add flour and soda and last add nuts and flavoring. (I suggest adding the peanut butter and flavoring before adding the bananas and omitting the ¼ c. nuts.) Bake in loaf pan at 300 degrees for 1 hour.

When I baked this recipe above I omitted the nuts, used the peanut butter and flavoring, used only ½ tsp. of soda, and added 1 ½ tsp. baking powder.