Luckily, I was able to snap the photo above before my husband and kids devoured the last two pieces. Needless to say, this grain free pumpkin bread is a big hit at my house.
Based on my grandma's tried-and-true banana bread recipe, over the years I've discovered that I can substitute pumpkin, squash, zucchini, or just about any moist and mashable or shreddable fruit or veggie for bananas. More recently, I've converted this recipe to use almond meal, making a grain free pumpkin bread that doesn't make your taste buds even consider the missing wheat.
Grandma's well-loved recipe for traditional banana bread.
Grain free pumpkin bread ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups almond flour
- 4 eggs, preferably from pasture-raised chickens
- 1/2 cup butter and/or coconut oil
- 3/4 cup sucanat (unrefined, dried cane juice)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 cup cooked pumpkin or squash*
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
Grain free pumpkin bread ingredients
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Grease a loaf pan thoroughly with butter or coconut oil.
- Cream together butter/coconut oil and sucanat.
- Beat in eggs.
- Stir in vanilla, spices, baking soda, and salt.
- When well combined add the flour and chocolate chips, stir until combined.
- Bake on center rack for 45-50 minutes until an inserted knife comes out mostly clean.
- Allow to cool, slice, and serve with a tall glass of cold, raw milk.
*To prepare the pumpkin or squash:
- Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-45 minutes, depending on the size of your gourd, directly on the oven rack. The pumpkin is done when you can easily insert a fork into the skin.
- Allow to cool for ease in handling.
- Slice the gourd in half and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits – discard.
- Scoop out the flesh and use for this recipe.
- Freeze the extras or use in another recipe.
“Grain Free Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips” can be seen at the following blog carnivals: Fat Tuesday, The Gallery of Favorites, Fill Those Jars Friday, Keep it Real Thursday, Eat, Make, Grow Thursday, Pennywise Platter, Monday Mania, Weekend Gourmet, The Morristribes Homesteader Blog Carnival, and My Meatless Mondays. Hop on over to check out some other posts you may enjoy!
Sounds delicious! We our loved banana bread recipe too – looking forward to trying out pumpkin!
Emily, is the same delicious bread you left us the other day? The kids LOVED it and I need to reproduce.
Any thoughts for doing this recipe grain free if you have tree nut and coconut allergies?
What about seeds? Can you eat sunflower seeds?
What would be a good substitute for the unrefined, dried cane juice? I can’t have any sugar of any type or artificial sugar substitutes.
Maple syrup? Honey? Liquid stevia?
Marcus – What can you have then?
I can have stevia. What quantity should I use?
we have Lyme disease so we aren’t allowed sugar either, a stevia measurement would be great!
Unfortunately I don’t use stevia, so you’re probably better versed at a conversion than I am. Any stevia experts have recommendation for converting measurement from sugar in this recipe?
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i so want to make this right now but dont have enough sucanat left. i can use palm sugar instead? also is it an eqaul sub? thanks!!
Yes, Elizabeth. You could substitute palm sugar for rapadura 1:1.
Is the pumpkin precooked and musher or is it raw and chunky?
Great question, Sandy! I modified the post with instructions, but the squash should be cooked first. 🙂
Your bread sounds delicious! Although my family can eat grains, I like almond flour for the flavour it adds. It’s great to have a recipe that you can switch up like that, and I really do like this pumpkin version!
Sounds good. What size loaf pan do you use?
I just made this tonight. It is SO good, even better than I thought it would be. I’m off to get a second slice. Thanks, Emily!
YAY! So glad you like it, Ariel. Just don’t follow in my footsteps and eat the whole thing in one sitting. 😉
I cannot, in good faith, say that what I ate was a “slice.” It was much, much bigger than that! 🙂
Can Agave be used instead of sucanat? Also can any other type of flour be used in the same amount? We don’t have to be grain free, though we do aim for a great variety in our home. Just want to know what my option are. 🙂 Thank you!
Agave is very high in fructose and should be avoided at all costs. My wife and I have to avoid all grains. Not only did we lose much unwanted weight, but we feel much better. Also, our blood stats went to absolutely normal when we ditched grains.
Hi Anne MK – I agree with Marcus about the agave – it’s a highly processed food with really good marketing. I would avoid it.
If you want to use regular flour you can follow the proportions of ingredients in the image of the original recipe above. Personally, I would still reduce the sweetener by half, but that’s up to you.
I’ve made this twice now. DELICIOUS!!! BUT the chocolate chips keep falling all to the bottom, making the loaf come apart when taking it out of the pan and leaving a a gooey, chocolate mess at the bottom. Any suggestions on how to avoid this?
Try coating the chips in some almond flour before stirring into the batter.
Hi Meg – If you are using coconut oil instead of butter this may be a problem. You might try dropping them in part of the way through baking or try Dayan solution above.
If you are using butter, make sure it is not too melted, just soft enough to cream with the sugar.
AAAH that’s my problem! melted butter! I shall try again with just soft butter. Thanks for this, its super yummy…… just doesnt last long in my house 😛
Meg, I’m concerned about the same thing happening. Any success with the unmelted butter method?
Emily I just made this with banana instead of pumpkin and its delicious! Wow!!! Who needs white flour?
Oh good! It IS a super versatile recipe. 🙂
I would love to try this with banana. How much banana did you use? A cup?
I ended up making this with the following adjustments:
* 1 cup mashed banana (though I’ll probably use 1 and 1/2 cups next time to get a stronger banana flavor).
*1/4 cup of coconut flour in addition to the almond flour.
*1/3 cup Slivered almonds, which gave the bread a nice nuttiness.
*1/3 cup of coconut sugar instead of the 3/4 cup of sucanat that the recipe suggests.
*A splash of hemp milk
Everything else I followed as is in the recipe and it turned out divine. I’m new to baking and to using almond flour so thanks for this recipe that works really well!
Hi Noor – you can use the same amount of banana as pumpkin.
Another easy way to prepare the squash (if you have a large crock pot) is just to toss the whole squash in the crock pot and leave it overnight on low (or you could probably do it for a few hours on high). When it is soft, you can cut it open and scoop out the flesh. I do this all the time because we use squash/pumpkin/gourds in a variety of grain-free recipes. I like to prepare it this way in the summer, especially, as I try to avoid using my oven as much as possible (it makes my kitchen too hot)! I will use my toaster oven to make this bread… thanks so much for the recipe!
Hi Emily!
At what point do you add the cooked pumpkin or squash??? Mine is in the oven already, I added the squash after adding the spices and before flour… let’s see if I made it the right way…. 🙂
Can you use almond meal instead of almond flour? What about coconut flour? Also, where can I get a good organic almond flour?
Hi Elisa, thanks for the question. It may change the recipe a bit but it should work out. If you try it, please be sure to let us know how it turns out. Where you can get almond flour will really depend on where you are based.
Can I ask what size pan you used on your pumpkin bread recipe I found it still seemed gooey in the center though toothpick came out clean also do u ever use almond meal in place of almond flour?
Hi Mary, any standard loaf pan should be fine. Almond meal may change the recipe but you should be able to use it.
This sounds like exactly what I am looking for! Yum! But I am in a bit of a time crunch. Have you ever tried this with canned pumpkin? Do you think it would change the amount?
I used canned once. Same amount as recipe. Still super yummy!
Thanks for sharing your valuable information and recipes! My family and I loved this recipe! I am going to try your grandmother’s banana bread recipe too:)