Healthy Pumpkin Banana Bread

Healthy Pumpkin Banana Bread with walnuts and dried cranberries, a delicious no refined sugar added dessert that is moist, incredibly flavourful and super easy to make too. It's a great Autumn treat at this time of the year, and the aroma of freshly-baked spiced cake adds a cosy touch to your kitchen.

Another treat with no refined sugar added, which instead relies on the natural sweetness of the ripe banana and maple syrup to deliver a spectacular dessert that everybody will love. You really can't tell the refined sugar is missing, as it's gorgeously sweet and scrumptious.

Based on my Honey Banana Bread and Plantain Bread, this pumpkin banana bread is wonderfully moist and has a nice crunch coming from the walnuts, and more sweetness and texture from the dried cranberries.

Together with the pumpkin puree, all these ingredients make this sweet loaf an indulgent Fall dessert, minus all the extra calories and sugar. Healthy desserts can be as yummy too, no need to compromise on taste here.

Jump to:

• Ingredients used
• Easy swaps
• Step-by-step photos and instructions
• Expert tips
• Other no refined sugar treats
• Healthy Pumpkin Banana Bread

Ingredients used

• self-raising flour - helps the loaf raise nicely
• bicarbonate of soda - for a light texture
• pumpkin puree - I used canned pumpkin
• banana - well ripe, as it's at its sweetest
• cinnamon and mixed spice / pumpkin pie spice - for an Autumn touch
• oil - it makes the sponge light and airy
• milk - to loosen up the batter
• dried cranberries
• walnuts

Easy swaps

The canned pumpkin puree can be swapped for pureed roasted pumpkin, or even pureed roasted butternut squash or sweet potatoes - they all work well here.

The dried cranberries can be swapped for any other dried fruit: raisins, sultanas, currants, chopped dried apricots or dates, or even a combo of dried fruit.

Walnuts can be swapped for pecans or other nuts of your choice, the more, the better - if you have mixed nuts, you can definitely use them here.

Seeds can be used too, toasted pumpkin seeds would be particularly nice in this healthy pumpkin bread.

Step-by-step photos and instructions

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit, 160 fan oven)
• In a large mixing bowl, sift in the flour, bicarb of soda, cinnamon and mixed spice
• Give everything a good mix
• In a jug, crack the eggs and beat them well until frothy, then add the oil, milk and maple syrup
• Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, add the mashed banana, pumpkin puree, cranberries and chopped walnuts
• Use a spatula to mix all the ingredients together
• Transfer the batter to a load tin that has been greased and flour, and bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean

Expert tips

Make sure you use a non-stick loaf tin for this bread, and that you grease it well either with butter or oil before adding the flour, and the cake should be very easy to remove from the tin once it's baked. Additionally, you can use non-stick baking paper too.

Unripe bananas do not work in this recipe, nor in any other recipes that call for bananas instead of refined sugar - it's the ripe sweet bananas that have the right texture and sweetness to make the cake stand out.

Other no refined sugar treats

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