Banana Bread with Freshly Milled Flour Your Family Will Love

Freshly milled banana bread is sweet enough to be a dessert and healthy enough to start your morning with an egg, glass of milk, and maybe a couple of bacon slices for a well-rounded and nutrient dense breakfast option. Using freshly milled flour takes this banana bread from dead to alive! Read on to learn how to make this lightly sweetened quick banana bread recipe that your family will love.

Freshly Milled Banana Bread Ingredients

2 tbsp avocado oil

1 egg

1/4 c. milk

3 medium overly ripe bananas

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. freshly milled flour (soft white berries are preferred)

1/2 c. sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

Optional add-ins into freshly milled banana bread

Chocolate Chips- 1/2 cup

Chopped nuts- walnuts and pecans are great choices- 1/2 cup

Raisins- 1/3 cup

Add-ins are completely optional for your freshly milled banana bread. Our family prefers to add in chocolate chips because we love chocolate and they take this bread into more of the sweet treat category for an easy, homemade dessert any day of the week.

Whenever you use these add-ins, know that chocolate gives this banana bread a little more sweet. Chopped nuts add a crunch. Raisins give this bread more chewiness.

Instructions

First, start the oven to preheat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Next, in a standing mixer, begin by adding all of the wet ingredients: oil, egg, vanilla, and milk, and mix together using the paddle attachment. Alternatively, this banana bread recipe can also be made with a mixing bowl and hand-held mixer and the same instructions.

Then add in the 3 overly ripe bananas. Break the bananas a part into smaller chunks before adding to the bowl. Mix with the paddle for 1 minute.

Next, mill your wheat berries until you have 2 cups’ worth of flour (approximately 1 1/3 cup of soft wheat berries to yield 2 cups of freshly milled flour).

Now add the dry ingredients to the bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt. Mix together well.

Then grease a bread loaf pan (1.5 qt loaf pan will work great).

Next up, pour the bread batter into the bread pan. Place the pan in the preheated oven to bake for 35-40 minutes.

After about 35 minutes of baking, perform the toothpick test. You will know the banana bread is done when a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the bread. If more time is needed, allow five more minutes of baking before performing the toothpick test again.

Finally, this freshly milled banana bread is best served thickly buttered and with a glass of milk, making it a wonderful, wholesome breakfast option for your family.

Can I use frozen bananas for this freshly milled banana bread recipe?

Indeed you can use frozen bananas for this quick bread recipe!

When a cluster of bananas start to get spots, I will put them in the freezer for smoothies or this freshly milled banana bread recipe later.

Additionally, you may use frozen banana chunks. I have not personally tried this version of frozen bananas but I can estimate you will need about 1-1.5 cups of frozen banana chunks to make the “3 medium bananas” needed.

How to use whole frozen bananas in this recipe:

To use whole frozen bananas in this recipe, simply take the bananas out of the freezer and place them in a bowl of warm water for about 10 minutes.

Frozen whole bananas do not need a lot of time to thaw.

Then use a knife to make a cut in the black/brown banana skin to remove the banana flesh. Place the banana in the mixing bowl and the banana skins in the compost.

Lastly, it is okay if some of the banana is still frozen. I have not discovered any issues with partially frozen banana in this recipe yet.

What is the best grain for freshly milled quick bread?

The best grain to use is soft wheat berries.

Soft wheat berries are low in gluten and are perfect for creating a soft crumb that is needed for pancakes, muffins, quick breads like this freshly milled banana bread, cookies, and biscuits… to name a few.

I’ve found using a hard wheat berry may result in a very dense quick bread.

Do I need to sift the freshly milled flour?

You do not need to sift out the bran from the freshly milled flour to make this quick bread recipe.

The bran is the outer skin of the wheat berry and it contains loads of fiber and vitamins, some of which are antioxidants, too. For this reason alone, I’m not a fan of sifting the bran out of my freshly milled flour.

Also, the bran is small with sharp edges that will cut the gluten which will cause your bread not to rise well. If making a plain homemade sandwich bread or sourdough bread, you may find that sifting out the bran will help the formation of those breads or using a hard wheat berry to be a better option.

For quick breads like freshly milled banana bread, you’ll find keeping the bran is fine.

Notes about freshly milled flour

• the texture will be different in your final baked product than with plain all-purpose bagged flour
• if using soft wheat berries, use 2/3 cup of wheat berries to make 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 oz wheat berries = 1 oz flour

I’m more of an “eye ball” it measurer and anything more than I need, I add it into my flour jar on the counter. We use a lot of flour for from scratching cooking and baking in our home so it will get used likely the same day.

Can I just use regular flour for this recipe?

Yes, you can just use regular bagged flour for this recipe.

I have tested this banana bread recipe using organic all-purpose flour from Azure Standard and the results were decent. Not bad, just not as good as freshly milled.

We prefer freshly milled wheat berries in our from scratch kitchen as we opt for nutrient-dense foods as often as possible, especially when making a sweet treat. I’ve got to get those nutrients in where we can!

Additionally, switching to freshly milled flour in sweet treats like quick banana bread recipes is a great way to transition your family from white flour to freshly milled. The flour change isn’t as noticeable as in a plain sandwich bread recipe.

Why is bagged flour a “dead food”?

Back in the day, tabletop grain mills were not a thing but they were often times only a mile or so away. Grist mills were where you took your grains to be milled fresh daily.

Freshly milled wheat berries retain the most of their nutrients when used as close to milling as possible. If you cannot use the freshly milled flour immediately, it’s best to freeze the freshly milled flour.

Bagged flour on the grocery store shelves were milled months ago! Consequently, most “whole wheat” flours are bitter because they’ve turned rancid already from the deterioration of fatty acids in the flour.

Evidently there is a lot more to learn about freshly milled grains that I didn’t know! Read more from someone who has done more research into freshly milled flour vs. bagged store flour than I have here and here.

More homemade freshly baked recipes

Freshly milled sourdough pancakes

The perfect chocolate chip cookies

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

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Hand-held mixer

Standing Mixer

1.5 qt bread pan

Soft Wheat Berries

Grain mill attachment for Kitchen Aid

Nutrimill Harvest Grain Mill

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