Vegan Banana Pumpkin Bread (Easy 1-Bowl Recipe)

This vegan banana pumpkin bread is beautifully moist and naturally sweetened. Made with 6 simple ingredients, this easy one-bowl recipe takes less than 10 minutes to prep, is refined sugar free and has the most beautiful colour!

This easy homemade vegan banana pumpkin bread is tender and moist, with the delicious sweet and wholesome flavour of pumpkin (and a beautiful colour to match).

Using just six ingredients and one bowl, we’ve kept this recipe simple. This pumpkin banana bread takes less than ten minutes to prep and is moist, light and fluffy (no dense or gummy banana bread here)!

Naturally sweetened with banana and unrefined coconut sugar, this banana pumpkin bread makes a wonderful breakfast or snack to be enjoyed by the whole family.

Follow our Success Tips to create a banana pumpkin bread with the perfect texture and great rise, and learn how to avoid the common pitfalls that can result in a banana bread that is crumbly or flat.

This recipe is easy to customise; we show you in the Variations section how to make this pumpkin banana bread gluten free, how to create a silky vegan cream cheese frosting to accompany it and how to incorporate your favourite add-ins such as chocolate chips or pumpkin spice flavours.

Quick Links:

• The written recipe
• Why you’ll love this recipe
• Success tips
• Step-by-step instructions with photos
• Variations
• FAQs
• Other autumnal recipes like this one

What is banana bread and where does it originate?

Banana bread is believed to have originated in the United States during the Great Depression and has since evolved to be a beloved classic, enjoyed worldwide.

Banana bread is a moist, sweet and cake-like loaf that uses overripe bananas, thus avoiding food waste. It can be enjoyed for breakfast, as a snack or dessert.

Pumpkin puree is often used interchangeably with mashed bananas in baking, due to its similar texture, which is what makes it such a wonderful addition to this banana pumpkin bread recipe. The flavour of pumpkin is delicate, with a hint of earthiness and less sweetness than banana, giving this loaf a wonderful Autumnal feel that’s perfect this pumpkin season.

Why you’ll love this Vegan Banana Pumpkin Bread

6 simple ingredients. You can whip up this delicious loaf with just 6 ingredients – pumpkin puree, bananas, coconut sugar, coconut oil, dairy free milk and self raising flour.

10 minutes to prep. To be honest… probably not even that long! Mash the bananas, stir in the other ingredients, pour it into the baking tin and then bake. It’s that straightforward!

It’s beautifully moist. This Vegan Banana Pumpkin Bread is tender, light and fluffy. Coconut oil is wonderful to bake with and produces beautifully moist cakes that are hard to resist.

One-bowl recipe. You need one large mixing bowl, a spoon, a fork and a baking tin to make this recipe. This recipe is simple and quick to make.

Success Tips

Use ripe spotty bananas

Use overripe bananas where the skin is speckled with brown dots for the best flavour. Ripe bananas are sweeter, easier to mash and they will also produce a more flavoursome banana bread. If your bananas are yellow rather than spotty, you can still use them, but avoid using green bananas as they won’t be sweet enough.

Use room temperature ingredients

Make sure your dairy-free milk and coconut oil are at room temperature. Adding cold milk to liquid coconut oil can cause the coconut oil to solidify, which means it won’t mix properly with the other ingredients.

Note: If your milk is refrigerated, you can add it to a saucepan with the coconut oil and warm them together – as soon as the coconut oil has melted into the milk, the liquid is ready to use (just give it 5 minutes to cool first).

Don’t over-mix the batter

This is one of the most important tips! Don’t over-mix or beat the banana bread batter as this can result in a flat cake with a dense texture. Once all of the ingredients are in the bowl, stir just enough to combine the ingredients so that no pockets of dry flour are visible within the mixture.

Once baked, test the cake in several spots

This vegan banana pumpkin bread takes 55-60 minutes to cook. Once the banana bread has been baking for 55 minutes, test it by inserting a skewer or small sharp knife into the cake (all the way to the bottom). If the skewer/knife comes out clean (or with just a few dry crumbs on it), the cake should be cooked. If you see wet batter then give it another 5 minutes of baking time before testing again.

Variations

Chocolate and nuts are popular additions to banana bread. If you’d like to get creative with your vegan pumpkin bread, stir 75g of your chosen addition into the banana bread batter before adding the batter to the baking tin (chocolate chips and pecans work particularly well).

Head to the Variations section below for some more ideas and for details of how to make a gluten free banana bread loaf.

Serving and Storage

Banana bread is at its most scrumptious when freshly baked, but it is still great for a few days after baking. Store it in a cool place in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Alternatively, you can also freeze it by slicing it, wrapping the individual slices in parchment and storing them in a sealed sandwich bag or airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.

How to make this Vegan Banana Pumpkin Bread

Here’s how to make this vegan pumpkin banana bread recipe:

Ingredients

Bananas. Pick ripe bananas, ideally yellow bananas that are speckled with brown dots.  Avoid green bananas, these won’t be sweet or soft enough.

Pumpkin purée. We used canned 100% pumpkin puree (no spices added), for that sweet and earthy pumpkin flavor. You can make homemade pumpkin puree by peeling and deseeding a pumpkin, cutting it into cubes and steaming it for 10-15 minutes until soft.  Then blend it until smooth. You can also substitute the pumpkin puree for butternut squash puree.

Coconut sugar.  You can substitute for soft light brown sugar or dark brown sugar if you prefer. White sugar will also work (caster or granulated), however, you won’t get the same rich caramel flavour in the banana bread.

Coconut oil. Coconut oil helps to create a beautifully moist pumpkin bread.  You’ll need the coconut oil to be in its melted form (clear liquid). Once melted, let it cool for 5 minutes before using it in the batter. We don’t recommend using olive oil for this recipe due to the flavour it imparts but you could try using melted vegan butter or vegetable oil.

Dairy free milk. We usually use unsweetened almond milk in our baking. You can also use soya milk or oat milk.

Self raising flour. If you have only got plain flour (all purpose flour) on hand, then you can use 275g plain flour (all purpose) plus 2.75 tsp baking powder.

Equipment

To make this recipe, you will need:

• One large mixing bowl
• A mixing spoon
• A fork or potato masher
• A 2lb loaf tin (approx 23cm long x 11cm wide x 7cm high / 8” x 4” x 3”) lined with parchment paper

Steps

Make sure to head to the recipe card below for the full recipe and instructions for making this vegan banana pumpkin bread recipe!

STEP 1. Mash the peeled bananas with the back of a fork in a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients (except the flour) to the bowl.

STEP 2. Stir the mixture together.

Tip: If your coconut sugar has lumps in it, rub these out between your fingers before adding the sugar to the bowl.

STEP 3. Add the flour and stir gently until just combined.

Tip: It’s important not to overmix or beat the mixture here because this can result in dense banana bread. Stir it together gently until just combined, with no pockets of dry flour remaining.

STEP 4. Transfer the mixture to a prepared loaf pan and bake, in a preheated oven (170°C fan oven (190°C conventional / 375°F / gas mark 5), for 55-60 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

STEP 5. Let the banana bread cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes before removing it and placing it on a cooling rack.

Variations

There are many variations and additions you can make to this easy vegan banana pumpkin bread recipe! Why not try some of these?

Chocolate Chip Banana Pumpkin Bread

Add 75g of vegan chocolate chips to the banana bread batter, before baking, to create a delicious pumpkin chocolate chip banana bread.

Banana Pumpkin Bread with a Cream Cheese Topping

Top this vegan banana pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting for a delicious dessert or afternoon tea sweet treat.

To make a vegan cream cheese frosting:

• Add 75g vegan block butter (at room temperature) to a medium bowl and beat it with an electric whisk for a minute or so until light and fluffy.
• Add 150g vegan cream cheese to the bowl and beat again.
• Add 250g icing sugar (powdered sugar) and beat for 2 minutes until thick and creamy. Add more icing sugar if you like your frosting to be firmer.

Pecan Pumpkin Pie Spice Banana Bread

For even more autumnal flavour, add 2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/4 tsp dried ground ginger to the mixing bowl at the same time as the flour, along with 50g of roughly chopped pecans.

Once baked and cooled, top your pumpkin spice banana bread with cream cheese frosting and crumbled pecans or pumpkin seeds.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Banana Bread

We have not tested this recipe with gluten-free flour, so please head to these tested recipes instead:

• Fully Loaded Vegan Banana Bread – a gluten free banana bread filled dark chocolate, sultanas and pecans and topped with a nutty pecan crumble.
• Vegan Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread – a ‘better-for-you’ pumpkin bread made with wholesome ingredients such as chickpeas, oat flour and pumpkin.

To make this Pumpkin Banana Bread recipe gluten free, based on our prior experience, we believe replacing 275g self raising flour with 250g of gluten free self raising flour in this recipe may work to create a gluten free loaf.

We’ll update this blog to let you know as soon as we’ve tried it, but please let us know if you try it in the meantime.

FAQs

What size loaf pan should I use?

We recommend using a 2lb loaf tin (approx 23cm long x 11cm wide x 7cm high / 8” x 4” x 3”) for this recipe.

How to prevent my banana bread from being dense or gummy?

The cause of a dense or gummy banana bread is generally over-mixing or beating the batter before it is baked. We’ve developed the recipe for this pumpkin banana bread to yield a cake that is light and moist so just be sure not to over mix the cake batter – mix the wet ingredients together and then gently stir in the flour until just combined (don’t beat).

Another cause of dense or gummy banana bread is underbaking. To make sure your banana bread is properly baked, follow the steps in the next FAQ.

How can I tell if the banana bread is baked?

Once your pumpkin banana bread has been baking for 55 minutes, insert a knife or toothpick into the centre of the loaf and if it comes out clean, your banana bread should be ready. However, if you see some wet batter on the knife, bake for 5 more minutes before testing again.

Can I make this pumpkin banana bread gluten free?

We have not tested this recipe with gluten-free flour, so please head to these tested recipes instead:

• Fully Loaded Vegan Banana Bread – a gluten free banana bread filled dark chocolate, sultanas and pecans and topped with a nutty pecan crumble.
• Vegan Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread – a ‘better-for-you’ pumpkin bread made with wholesome ingredients such as chickpeas, oat flour and unrefined sugar.

To make this Pumpkin Banana Bread recipe gluten free, based on our prior experience, we believe replacing 275g self raising flour with 250g of gluten free self raising flour in this recipe may work to create a gluten free loaf.

We’ll update this blog to let you know as soon as we’ve tried it, but please let us know if you try it in the meantime.

Do you have any other banana bread recipes for us to try?

Yes, we love a banana bread!  Try some of these vegan banana bread recipes:

• 5 Ingredient Banana Bread – a traditional banana bread that is kept super simple but with delicious results (great for making with kids).
• Peanut Butter Banana Bread – for those nut butter lovers!
• Fully Loaded Banana Bread – a gluten free option that is packed full of yummy extras like pecans, sultanas and chocolate.

Loved this vegan banana pumpkin bread? Here are some more delicious autumnal recipes to try:

I hope you LOVE this recipe for vegan banana pumpkin bread! Please share this recipe with someone you think will love it because it’s our goal to encourage as many people as possible to try plant based eating.

Also, don’t forget to tag @aveganvisit on social media when you make this recipe. I absolutely love seeing your re-creations! Enjoy 🙂 x

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The Full Recipe: