Chai Spiced Banana Bread

What is "stress baking"? Stress baking is a coping mechanism for stressed-out second-year medical students. Triggers can include exam week, medication flow charts for hypertension, hours of reading EKGs, and cabin fever.

Well, friends and family... that is my life! Second-year of medical school is tough. I spend 8-12 hours every day roaming around my house with my laptop. I alternate between my standing desk, my exercise ball, my desk chair, and my couch as a study location. It is nice to be able to do it all from home, but it surely isn’t any less work!

So fortunate for you all, the outcome of my stress and brain overload is some delicious creations in the kitchen. And today I am happy to share this spiced chai banana bread recipe!!!

I realized I hit the jackpot on this recipe when I cut myself a slice for my Ohio road trip this past weekend. I topped my slice with some almond butter and treated myself to my favorite latte from Terra Cafe. My order: a warm lavender latte with almond milk. Lavender? YES LAVENDER! It is one of their specialty homemade syrups. Trust me, it is the best. For starters ask for it with 1/2 vanilla and 1/2 lavender. What a combo! 😉

My struggle with finding the perfect banana bread recipe began a few months ago. I wanted to find something healthy and filling to keep me full and focused through my morning lectures. I love to top mine with some frozen raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries and pop it in the microwave for 1 minute. And then I drizzle a little almond butter on top. SO YUMMY!

The thing I love about this recipe is that you can totally make it how you want it! My sister loves her banana bread with chocolate chips and walnuts in it. So this recipe can easily be adapted with some mix-ins if desired. It was adapted from Ambitious Kitchen's Healthy Chai Banana Bread. Her recipe has a cashew butter vanilla glaze.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and this post. As always, let me know if you try it out! So many friends reached out to me about their pumpkin cookie baking. I am so glad many of you got to enjoy them. It brings me so much joy when you reach out.

I have some new thanksgiving recipes coming at you in a few weeks! One is going to be stuffing with ground turkey that is baked in a pie pumpkin! YUM YUM YUM! I have the whole week off for Thanksgiving, so there will be a good time for blogging and kitchen messes! I am so looking forward to the break. Only three weeks to go! 🦃

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Chai Spiced Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed

• 2 eggs

• 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled

• 1/3 cup coconut sugar

• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups whole wheat flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 3/4 teaspoon cardamom

• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

• 3/4 teaspoon allspice

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper.*

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together bananas, eggs, coconut oil, and coconut sugar.

3. Add almond milk, and mix until evenly combined.

4. In a separate medium mixing bowl, stir together wheat flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, allspice, and salt.

5. Gradually add dry mixture to banana mixture. Stir until evenly combined.

6. If desired, hand fold walnuts and chocolate chips into batter.

7. Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

8. Let cool completely and store in a sealed container in the fridge.

*I used to grease and line my pans with Crisco and flour. However, I recently changed to parchment paper. It makes less of a mess and allows me to pull the loaf right out of the pan to cool! But the old Crisco and flour method will still work just as well.