Sweet, zesty, and moist Paleo Cranberry Orange Banana Bread recipe! This grain-free quick bread recipe is sweetened with bananas and pure maple syrup.
This bread is delightfully flavorful, healthy, and comes together quickly in your blender.
Did I ever tell you my favorite coffee shop eat when I was a kid was the classic cranberry orange muffin? It’s true! I, hands down, would always choose a cranberry orange muffin over a donut or pastry. It blew my mom’s mind, lemme tell you.
Well, in the spirit of my undying love for the cranberry orange combination, I went ahead and made us a grain-free, dairy-free paleo cranberry orange bread, sweetened almost entirely with bananas!
This zesty, tangy, moist cranberry orange bread is sure to please the whole family, and it has already become a staple in my household.
If you’ve tried my Paleo Banana Bread, you already get the concept behind this cranberry orange bread. I used that recipe as my base for this one, and simply added a ton of orange zest, dried cranberries, and toasted hazelnuts.
Let’s talk flavor. This bread is bursting with cranberry-orange flavor to the extent that you can barely detect it’s even a banana bread. It does have a very subtle banana bread undertone, but the primary flavor you get out of it is that zing of cranberry-orange. Before making the recipe, I was concerned the cranberry-orange and the banana bread would clash, but alas, the flavor combinations work famously together.
Per usual, this Paleo Cranberry Orange Bread recipe is made using your blender, making the preparation of this bread super quick and simple.
I used juice-sweetened dried cranberries for this bread, which is always my preference over sugar-sweetened. The juice sweetened has such a nice tang and is (obvi) lower in sugar than its sugar-sweetened counterpart. If your local grocery store doesn’t carry juice-sweetened cranberries in its bulk bins, Steve’s PaleoGoods is a great option, which you can buy on Amazon.
Because I’m a sucker for that nutty crunch, I added toasted hazelnuts to this bread (which I found in the baking aisle at one of the grocery stores here in Reno).
You can use any nut you’d like, or go nut-less. In addition to putting hazelnuts inside the actual bread, I topped the batter with more hazelnuts and shredded coconut before popping it in the oven.
That topping is SO good that after shooting the recipe, not only did I eat two pieces of the actual bread, but I ate all the tops off of each slice. Insert embarrassed-face emoji here.
My intuition tells me you guys are going to ask me this, so I figured I’d address the question right here: Can I make this banana bread using coconut flour? YES! Please do. Rather than using almond flour, you can follow my Coconut Flour Banana Bread recipe and simply add the orange zest, dried cranberries and hazelnuts as normal.
You can get creative with your add-ins by playing with different types of dried fruit and nuts (dried blueberries with some poppy seeds sounds like a heavenly loaf to me!).
In essence, using that original Paleo Banana Bread recipe as the foundation for all your quickbreads is pretty brilliant if you ask me! Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Banana Bread? Don’t mind if you do! 😉
Get that loaf!
Paleo Cranberry Orange Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas mashed (1 cup)
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups finely ground almond flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 2/3 cup toasted hazelnuts + more for topping
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9" x 5" baking pan with parchment paper.
- Add the first 8 ingredients (bananas through sea salt) to a blender and blend until smooth. Toss the dried cranberries and hazelnuts in 2 teaspoons almond flour so that they don't sink to the bottom of the loaf while baking. Fold the dried cranberries and hazelnuts into the banana bread batter.
- Transfer batter to the prepared loaf pan and smooth into an even layer. Top with more hazelnuts and unsweetened shredded coconut. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until bread begins turning golden-brown around the edges. Turn off the oven and leave bread in the hot oven another 5 minutes.
- Remove banana bread from the oven and allow it to sit at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving.
Hi I’m new to a low carb diet. Just wondered what I would need to do to this recipe to reduce the carb count? Thanks
Hi Joanne,
This particular recipe would be difficult to make low-carb, as the bananas add the bulk of the carbs – they serve as a sweetener, moisture, and binding agent for the recipe. They could be replaced with mashed sweet potato, but you’d end up with the same carb issue. You could replace the pure maple syrup with a liquid or powdered zero-sugar sweetener, which would help a bit in the carb/sugar department.
What this means is the whole recipe would need to be reformulated to omit the bananas, so you’d need to play with the portion of almond flour and then add some liquid (like coconut milk or avocado oil) to compensate for the bananas. Off the top of my head, if I were to test it, I would take out the bananas, add another cup of almond flour, 1/2 cup full-fat canned coconut milk and 1/2 cup powdered sugar alcohol sweetener. I’d see where that landed me and then go from there.
I will let you know if I re-test the recipe without bananas or pure maple syrup! Feel free to test it out and swing back around to let me know what you did! 😀
Hi! Can I substitute flax eggs for the eggs?
Can I use fresh (frozen) cranberries instead of dried? Would I need to modify anything? Add more maple syrup or some coconut sugar to make up for the sweetness lost from dried cranberries, which are typically sweetened?
Hi Annie, You may need to add more flour too if you use frozen cranberries, as they will add moisture during the baking process. I think your idea sounds great, though! Can’t wait to hear how it turns out!
Can I use coconut flour instead of almond flour?
Hi Darlene! You certainly can! I actually mentioned that in the post, because I figured multiple people would have that question. You’ll need to follow this recipe: https://www.theroastedroot.net/coconut-flour-banana-bread-paleo/ and add the same measurements of orange zest (1 TBL), dried cranberries (1/2 cup), and hazelnuts (2/3 cup). Follow the baking instructions in the Coconut Flour Banana Bread recipe, and you’ll be all set! 🙂 Enjoy!