Name: Banana Gingerbread with Molasses
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 1
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 100g ( 7 ¼ Tablespoons) unsalted butter; 2 medium ripe bananas; 1 large egg; 150g (¾ cup) granulated sugar; 115g (⅓ cup) unsulphured or blackstrap molasses; 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract; 225g (1 ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons) all-purpose flour; 1 ⅓ tsp ground ginger; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; ⅓ tsp ground nutmeg; ¼ tsp ground cloves; 1 tsp baking soda; 1 tsp baking powder; ¼ tsp salt; 240g (1 cup) boiled water

Jump to Recipe

Thick and moist with rich flavor, this banana gingerbread is full of warming gingerbread spices, bananas, and molasses. Serve it fresh or toasted, and spread with butter.

An easy banana bread recipe is always a hit, but sometimes a change to a classic is nice. This spiced banana bread is a gingerbread banana loaf combination.

It contains the sweetness of classic banana bread, combined with the warming spiciness of a moist old-fashioned gingerbread loaf.

Banana bread with gingerbread flavor

This is a quick bread because the batter can be mixed up in less than 10 minutes!

However baking time takes a little longer. It's baked in a loaf tin, which, because of its restricted size, means this banana gingerbread does take its time to cook right through.

It has the taste and texture of banana bread but it's also spicy and moist thanks to deep molasses, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The perfect bread to bake over the winter holidays and it makes sure the house smells great. to enjoy with a hot cup of tea or your morning coffee.

The ingredients

This simple banana bread recipe includes the classic moist banana bread ingredients, plus a few spices and rich dark molasses.

The ingredients are listed in the recipe card below but here is a run-through of them with a few extra details.

Bananas - Mashed bananas are an obvious must-have in a banana gingerbread loaf. Overripe bananas are best. They provide natural sweetness and flavor to the recipe as well as add moisture to the bread.
White sugar - or you can use brown sugar for extra molasses flavor.
Melted butter - Flavor and moisture.
Eggs - The egg provides some of the structure.
Vanilla - Always a good idea.
Spices - a teaspoon ground ginger and a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves give the warming gingerbread touch.
Molasses - Unsulphered or blackstrap molasses. This gives the rich dark color to the gingerbread banana bread as well as adds moisture.
Flour - an all-purpose flour is the base of the loaf.
Baking soda and baking powder - The rising agents needed to make a moist yet fluffy loaf.
Salt - a flavor enhancer
Boiled water - Adding hot water to the batter creates a more moist loaf.

Yield

This makes one loaf of banana gingerbread.

Equipment

You'll need a 9x 5-inch loaf pan (23 x 16cm.) You can use a slightly smaller one for a ginger banana bread loaf.

The method

Melt the butter and set it aside. In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas well, then stir in the melted butter. Add in the sugar, vanilla, egg, and molasses and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, spices, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until no clumps remain.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold them together with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined.

Pour over boiled water and stir it together carefully until combined into a pourable cake batter.

There will be lumps from the mashed banana and that's okay!

Pour the batter into a lined loaf tin and bake in a preheated oven for approximately 50 minutes until the center of the bread is cooked through. The cook times will depend on the loaf tin used and your oven.

Remove the banana gingerbread loaf from the pan and allow it to cool on a baking rack for 10 minutes before slicing.

Serving

This delicious loaf cake stays fresh at room temperature for up to 3 days. It can also be wrapped tightly and frozen for up to three months.

Additions and substitutions

Banana bread is a great recipe that can easily be adapted to suit your tastes. Texture can be added with seeds and nuts, flavors can be changed with spices and fruits. Sugars and flours can be switched up too.

Texture- Walnuts, pecans, or almonds can be chopped and added to the batter. In case of nut allergies, seeds can be added instead. Pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds give a great crunch to the moist bread.
Stir in finely chopped candied ginger for extra spice.
Swap the spices with 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.
Spices, fruits, chocolate - This gingerbread banana bread is already full of spices, but these can be changed too. Cardamom and all-spice can be added, or orange zest too. Dark chocolate chips are a delicious addition too, especially when the bread is still warm and the chocolate has melted.
½ the all-purpose flour in this recipe can be switched to wholemeal flour for a healthier touch.

Related recipes

Want more sweet bread recipes? Try this cinnamon glazed apple bread or these delicious brioche cinnamon rolls.

Homemade cultured butter is another great thing to try to make and spread on your loaves.

This recipe is written using grams as the main measurement.

If you don't have a scale US* cup equivalents are also included, however, using a kitchen scale to measure grams will give the best and most consistent results.*US cup sizes are smaller than metric cup sizes.