I took my childhood banana bread recipe and turned it chocolate…with a peanut butter swirl on top! This bread is delicious enough to be a dessert but healthy enough to pair with eggs and sausage on your breakfast plate. Made with fresh milled flour instead of all purpose, it’s full of necessary vitamins and minerals that nourish our bodies. How’s that for “daily bread”?

the benefits of Fresh milled flour

White flour (and even “whole wheat” flour) found in stores is a dead food. All nutrients have been stripped from it by removing the bran and the germ. The vitamins, minerals, fiber, and fatty acids are in the bran and the germ, which have been missing from our flour since the early 1900’s. Seeing the increase of disease and birth defects, they tried to correct their mistake by fortifying the flour with synthetic B vitamins, synthetic iron, and folic acid (the synthetic version of folate). They also began chemically bleaching and conditioning the flour with potassium bromate. It’s one of the most adulterated foods on the market today. Fresh milled wheat on the other hand, is a whole food with the bran, germ, and endosperm consumed together, giving our bodies the protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals that are supposed to be there. Wheat done right is a health food. I highly recommend looking into the work of Sue Becker for more information about this!

how to get fresh milled flour

The best way to get fresh milled flour is to mill your own at home. I purchase wheat berries in bulk and mill them into flour using my Nutrimill Harvest. I’ll admit it was intimidating at first, but now I can do it in my sleep. And it hardly adds any time to the baking process. After milling, flour loses its benefits quickly, so it’s best to mill at home and use right away, or mill at a friend’s and store it in your freezer. You can use my code KAETLYN20 for 20% off your entire Nutrimill purchase at checkout.

What you need

1 cup of mashed, very ripe bananas
2/3 cup of cane sugar
1/4 cup of coconut oil or butter, melted
1 large egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup of all freshly milled soft white wheat
1/2 cup of cacao or cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
Natural peanut butter or almond butter for topping (optional)

To Prepare

Begin by preheating your oven to 350°F.
In a mixer or by hand, combine the mashed banana with the sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla. Mix together until combined.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cacao powder, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt.
Slowly incorporate the dry mixture into the wet, mixing only until combined.
If you enjoy chopped nuts or chocolate chips in your banana bread, now is the time to gently fold a handful of them into the batter.
Allow the mixture to sit for a few minutes to thicken up. Then, pour the batter into a well-greased loaf pan and swirl peanut butter or almond butter on top if desired.
Bake for 45-55 minutes at 350°F or until a knife comes out clean. Keep in mind that the type of loaf pan you use will determine cooking time. For example, a glass or cast iron loaf pan will take longer to cook while a tin loaf pan will finish faster.
Remove from the oven and cool the bread on a cooling rack before slicing and serving.
For a light and fluffy bread, store in an airtight container in the cupboard. For a chewier bread, store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.