There’s a few food combinations that naturally grab a lot of people’s attention and get their mouths watering, like peanut butter and chocolate. But one of my favorite combinations that is entirely under-rated is cinnamon and banana. The warm flavor of cinnamon combined with sweet banana is heavenly.
And do you know when my favorite meal is? Breakfast. So let’s make some Cinnamon Swirl Banana Oat Bread shall we? 🙂
This Cinnamon Swirl Banana Oat Bread is moist, lightly sweetened with banana, filled with a light cinnamon sugar swirl, and made complete with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top to create a cinnamon-y sweet top.
..Drooling yet? I know I am! 🙂
This Banana Bread is only made with ONE gluten-free flour: oat flour.
I absolutely love making homemade bread for breakfast, but I don’t love buying several different types of flours to create a delicious breakfast bread with. So, a while ago I rolled my sleeves up and got to work on perfecting a healthier, whole grain, gluten-free, quick bread recipe with ONLY oat flour (certified gluten-free) in it. I’d have to say.. I like it now more than working with an all-purpose gluten-free flour!
Many of my other quick bread recipes (such as my Zucchini Oat Muffins and Carrot Coconut Oat Muffins) are based entirely of oat flour.. my love of oat flour runs deep.
Oat flour is very easy to work with, and even easier to make, if you have the right tools. Simply grind up oats in a high powered blender or food processor for a few minutes and you have oat flour! You do want to make sure you’re left with finely ground oat flour, or else your bread will be more crumbly than you’d like it to be.
If you don’t have a high powered blender, then please buy oat flour from the store. It’s blended up very fine and is easy to work with.
And besides being easy to work with, oats are also a healthy, whole grain carb. They’re filled with fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants; oats pack a punch to make any breakfast filling, hearty and healthy.
Look at that crust. Cinnamon sugar deliciousness.
Okay, enough drooling over this Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread. Let’s get to baking!
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your coconut oil and mashed banana. While whisking, add your almond milk till well combined. Then add your vanilla and eggs and briefly blend them in.
To the same bowl, add your oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. I love using nutmeg in banana bread. I think it rounds the flavor out more and adds a depth to it, rather than just cinnamon. If you prefer using just cinnamon, you can omit it.
Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and stir until well combined. Let your batter rest for 5-10 minutes for the oat flour to soak up the wet ingredients and the batter will thicken up a bit.
While you wait, in a small bowl combine your sugar and cinnamon for your cinnamon swirl. Stir them together well. Smell them. YUM. 🙂
Now, are you ready to create that gorgeous Cinnamon Swirl?
Line a loaf pan with parchment paper, sticking out on both sides so you can easily remove your banana bread. It’s important to take your bread out in this way, rather than flipping it over upside down onto a plate, so that you don’t lose the cinnamon sugar you will sprinkle on top of the bread.
Now, scoop about half of your batter into the bread pan and spread it across the bottom into an even layer.
Take your Cinnamon Swirl ingredients and place about 2 tablespoons aside in a smaller bowl, for on top of the bread. Using the rest of your cinnamon swirl ingredients, sprinkle them evenly across the bread batter in your bread pan. This will create that beautiful cinnamon swirl on the side of your Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread.
Next, spoon the rest of your bread batter into the bread pan in small doll-ups, across the top of your cinnamon sugar. Then gently spread them together in an even layer. This helps the cinnamon swirl layer to stay in one place. Then sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of cinnamon swirl ingredients that were set aside across the top.
Bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes.
Let your bread cool, slice, and enjoy!
I really love this Cinnamon Swirl Banana bread as a healthy breakfast option because it’s so easy to make with only oat flour and only 1/4 cup of sugar in it.
Now, I must know: Are you a fan of cinnamon and banana too? 🙂
Looking for other healthy, whole grain, oat flour-based breakfast recipes? Check out my Zucchini Oat Muffins, Peach Oat Pancakes, or Carrot Coconut Oat Muffins.
- 1/4 cup coconut oil (melted, room temperature) or butter
- 1 cup ripe banana, mashed
- 1/2 cup almond milk (or other milk of choice)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 cup oat flour (certified gluten-free)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
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Preheat oven to 350. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
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In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together your coconut oil and mashed banana. While whisking, add your almond milk in. Lastly, add your vanilla and eggs and briefly blend in.
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To the same mixing bowl, add your dry ingredients (oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg) and stir till well combined. Let your batter rest for a 5-10 minutes for the oat flour to soak up the wet ingredients and thicken.
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In a small bowl, combine your cinnamon swirl ingredients. Set aside 2 tablespoons of this mixture for sprinkling the top of your bread, if you'd like.
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To your loaf pan, add half of your bread batter and spread into an even layer on the bottom.. Sprinkle your cinnamon swirl ingredients across the batter, so there is an even layer of cinnamon sugar. Using small spoonfuls, doll-up the bread batter across the top of your bread pan, covering the cinnamon sugar mixture. Spread gently into an even layer.
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Sprinkle the top of your bread batter with the remaining 2 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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Let cool entirely. Remove from pan, slice and devour!
Due to the high amount of banana, I recommend storing this bread in the fridge so that it will last longer. It should last about a week this way.
Made this bread but sub the flour for regular gluten free flour and used monkfruit sweetener instead of regular sugar. Also I added 2 small apples diced up. Was the most amazing bread! Everyone loved it so much. I also added a cream cheese monkfruit sweetened icing ! Mind blown! Making this again for Easter but 6 layered with also apple filling and cream cheese. Going to be the best cake! Ty!!!
Awesome! Great to hear, Barb, thanks for the feedback!
I can’t eat cane sugar. Do you think I could use maple syrup in the bread batter or will that make it too moist? If the maple syrup won’t work, what other sugar alternative do you suggest?
Hi Kim. I wouldn’t recommend maple syrup instead, can you eat coconut sugar?
What size loaf pan did you use? The dimensions were not specified
Is there any sugar or any sweetener in the bread itself separate from the cinnamon and sugar topping? I don’t see any listed the dry ingredients for the bread.
Hi Kim. There is no sugar other than in the cinnamon swirl. If you’d like, I think you could add 1/4-1/2 cup of sugar to the batter and it should work just fine. I also use a standard loaf sized pan, 9×5. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Can we freeze this as well for meal prepping?
Thank you!
Hi Terra. Yes, after baking this bread should freeze just fine!
So moist and delicious and very easy to make! My new favorite banana bread for sure! I feel I can put about 2 tsp of cinnamon/sugar mixture into the center and have it sweet enough. I am going to try making it with chocolate chips next time as some others have commented.
Thanks Maggie! I love hearing how much you enjoyed it 🙂
Loved this, used sunflower oil instead of coconut and only used 2 half tablespoons and also added few dark chocolate chips and used Demerara sugar it was absolutely delicious and will definitely make it again.
I used gf flour w/ xanthan gum, an extra 1/4c banana, 1 1/2T brown sugar and 1T sugar added, and I made in muffin tins, and it is my new go-to. Thank you so much!!
Great to hear, Melissa! Thanks for the comment.
I am wanting to make this delicious recipe again, but would like to use my pampered chef brownie pain that is similar to a muffin pan. Can you tell me if you adjusted the temp and or bake time?
*Pan ????????♀️
plan to bake tomorror. sounds really good.. Please indicate the temperature to bake
Hi Tammy. You’ll bake it at 350 for about 35-40 minutes. I hope you like it!
Absolutely incredible!!! We don’t have sugar so we just added chocolate chips and it was perfect ! Thanks so much!
Awesome!! Thanks for the feedback Dayna, makes my day!
Hey, I am excited to try this recipe but I am wondering if I can substitute egg with flax egg to make it vegan
Hi Polina. This bread is pretty dense, so I’m afraid using flax eggs instead would make it even more dense. I’m sure it would work, but the texture may just be a little off. I would recommend an egg replacer I think first!
I am excited to try this! Do you know if you could bake in muffin cups?
Hi Bonnie. Yes, I’ve seen others bake this in muffin cups and it turns out great! Maybe even better that way 🙂 I would recommend you start to check them after baking them about 15 minutes and go from there.
Hi! Just tried this for the first time! What a hit! 3 and 4 year olds loved it! So moist and flavorful…I even held back on the sugar topping and we drizzled a bit of pure maple syrup on each slice. Much better to control the sweetness per person. Little guy ate three pieces without syrup! 🙂 I also replaced the eggs with flax eggs to make it dairy free! Perfection! Thank you
Hi Rebecca, so happy to hear that you all loved it! Love hearing that about the kids too, reminds me of mine! 🙂
This was soooooo good! Thank you for sharing!
Awesome! So glad to hear that, Heather, thank you!
Can I use swerve and cinnamon for the swirl?
Hi Sue, I hate to say it but I have no idea. I have never baked with swerve before!
Just tried this and definitely a keeper. I added 1 tablespoon of brown sugar as I was afraid it wouldn’t be sweet enough due to some of the comments, otherwise followed the directions. Not sure if it needed it but this is great banana bread. Baked it just 35 mins and I’d say that was the right amount of time.
Thank you so much David! So glad to hear that!!
Would I be able to sub the coconut oil in this recipe for apple sauce?
Hi Samantha, I wouldn’t recommend it in this recipe in particular because there is already so much mashed banana. I think the texture turns out best with the oil. That being said, I haven’t tried substituting with applesauce so you can always give it a shot and I hope it turns out well!
This is delicious banana bread! It feels like fall with the added cinnamon.
I did add 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips. Would definitely recommend! Thank you so much for the recipe!
Thank you so much Kathy! And yum, dark chocolate chips sound delicious in that bread too!
My go to banana bread! I don’t understand how someone said it wasn’t sweet enough because I love it and even my kids eat it, so it must be sweet enough. The last few times I made the bread I made a crust crumble with brown sugar, butter and gluten free flour, gives it even more sweetness!
Hi Jena – Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you enjoy the bread so much! And that crumble on top sounds delicious!!
I thought it was delicious! I did add 1/2 cup of organic sugar to the dry ingredients. So good! Thanks!
Thank you Debbie! I’m so glad you loved it!
Wondering if I measure oats BEFORE or AFTER I grind? Sounds yummy, as I’m looking for a healthier option without all the sweetness.
Hi Alice, you would measure the oats as oat flour after you grind them. It may take closer to 2 cups of oats to make 1 3/4 cups of oat flour. I hope you like this bread!
Terrible. I wondered about no sugar in the batter, but I trusted it. It really lacked sweetness and flavour. The swirl wasn’t enough.
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy this bread. A bread more based on banana as the sweetener, rather than all sugar, does have a different flavor and some don’t enjoy it!
can you replace the oat flour with any other gluten free flours (almond, coconut)?
Hi Eliza – I haven’t made this bread with other gluten-free flours, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Oat flour takes up more liquid than other flours, so it functions a little differently. Sorry, hope that helps!