Whole Wheat and Millet Banana Bread
I’m the girl that will stone-cold stare a banana into ripeness just so I can make banana bread.
Banana bread is just one of those things this girl has a crush on…. along with boys who open doors for me, handwritten letters, and kitten figurines.
This is how banana bread always starts… after a bowl of stale popcorn for breakfast and hot hot coffee. I’m living right. Obvi.
Two bowls. A whisk. Overripe bananas. Two loaf pans…
You have all this stuff, right?
Banana bread is so simple, so delicious, and it makes my house smell like life success. It makes me feel like I’m living right. It makes me hope I get to be 80 years old making this bread for the people I love. I’ll have wrinkled Grandma hands. I’m into it.
Let’s talk about millet. Millet is a gluten free seed. Yea… a seed.
Millet is used a lot in bird food… but it’s a totally healthy ingredient to throw into non bird related food. There’s calcium, fiber, B vitamins, and it’s easy to digest! It’s a good time food. On the real.
I added raw millet to the banana bread batter. Ps. I should have rinsed it. You should rinse yours. Does it cook completely when baked? Nope!.. and that’s the beauty of it! The millet stays slightly crunchy. It’s like having lots of walnut bits in your bread… without the walnut bits. It’s a really lovely and crunchy addition to this moist and flavorful bread.
Whole Wheat and Millet Banana Bread
makes 2 8×4-inch loaves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
4 medium bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raw millet, rinsed
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8×4 inch loaf pans and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together butter, oil, sugars, and eggs. Beat until thoroughly incorporated. Whisk in the vanilla, buttermilk, and mashed bananas. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together flours, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir in millet. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Carefully pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients. Use a spatula to fold the batter together.
Divide the batter between the two prepared baking pans. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. Banana bread will last, well wrapped at room temperature, for up to five days.
134 Comments Add A Comment
Love this! So pretty and healthy!
Interested in trying the millet! I fed it to my baby boy for months and he gobbled it down. I just found some whole wheat pastry flour — will it make this bread better? Can I use it as an equivalent? I know nothing about it except that it’s “softer.” Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Yum! My fiance’s finches love millet and now I will too. I’ll be making this bread very soon!
To Whom It May Concern (namely, Joy):
I mildly stalked your website for a while. Then I made your brown butter banana strawberry bread. Now I just plain stalk your website. A lot. At work sometimes (read: all the time). This bread looks delicious, and thank you for hopefully not being creeped out by me! Your website is great.
Kind/Warm/Best Regards,
Logan
i just love when you say bits…
I have made few recipes from your blog with 100% success. My family lovess your oatmeal cookie pancakes. Can I substitute whole grain millet flour for whole wheat flour? In general, how do I use whole grain millet flour in muffins/breads ?
i have not baked this bread with ground millet flour, and i don’t know how it absorbs. i would have to play around with it before i could tell you what to do.
I made this bread almost as soon as Joy posted the recipe (and loved it so much I made it again immediately after, and used up all my millet…), but I’m just looking at your comment now. I actually used half white whole-wheat flour and half millet flour, because I happened to have it around. It turned out beautifully! I hope you had success if you tried it, but if you haven’t tried yet, the guideline I usually use if I want to sub in some interesting flour is to keep at least half the flour in the recipe some form of wheat, for the gluten, and then the rest can be something like barley or oat or millet.
I noticed some cinnamon in your picture, but none in the recipe. How much did you use? Also, didn’t see the whole wheat flour in your picture either. My loaves are a bit darker and didn’t rise as high. Is the flour the difference (I added whole wheat)? Just curious. We’re enjoying our warm banana bread right now no matter the differences. Thanks for sharing!
yeesh! i did forget the cinnamon. i added 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. and yes… there is whole wheat flour in the picture. perhaps i measured it under the all purpose flour. i don’t know why they didn’t rise as high. is your baking soda fresh? either way, i’m so glad you’re enjoying the bread!
You are so sweet to get back to me about this comment! Teaspoon of cinnamon noted. Thanks! I have several FB friends that are getting set to try this bread after I shared it on my page. I think you are great!
Just made banana bread yesterday…wish I had waited a few more hours to make this instead! Love, love milett! I eat puffed millet and puffed kamut for breakfast all the time…so lovely and light! Can’t wait to try this out, thank goodness I have raw millet in my cupboard! Does starring at bananas really make them ripen faster? : ) I tried the whole sticking them in the oven thing, didn’t really work, just made the peel black, but the banana was ripe as ever.
This looks like a fun twist on a classic banana bread recipe. Where can I get millet? I can’t wait to try it.
Oh man, I am a banana bread freak. I feel like there are always 10 bananas in my freezer, waiting to be turned into some kind of banana bread! I love your idea of adding millet, what a yummy treat. Will try this one for sure. Thanks for sharing!
i have a bag of millet in the cupboard i bought ages ago for a recipe (that ended up turning out horrendously, else i’d have just made more of that) and have been looking for a way to use it up. this sounds perfect – and even if i don’t like it, now i know i can just feed the rest of the millet to the birds!
(normally i am all about healthy grains – i had lentils and barley for lunch – but for some reason i just can’t get into millet!)
Holy crap this looks amazing. I was just looking thru all your banana bread recipes, and I’m going to try and do the WW oats one tonight. Can’t wait. Banana bread is a late summer/early fall staple for me!
http://www.sweetheartadventures.blogspot.com
Rach
oh wowwww I’ve been craving banana bread so bad lately! haha. Thanks a lot Joy! ;) just kidding. But I love millet too!! I figured it wouldn’t cook super well because it normally takes a while if I’m cooking it for porridge.
This banana bread sounds like magic. Adding millet in sounds like the best idea ever. I love those little seeds. I badly want to try this recipe. I may even add some millet flour. Yummy!
You must have known I have like a thousand brown, perfect-for-banana bread bananas in my freezer!
I adore this site — and you! And I love banana bread too. I have a few in the freezer that were waiting for a special recipe… I think I found it. Thank you Joy!
Millet is so awesome!! When I was travelling/hiking in Nepal we saw it everywhere in the fields, and they sometimes make their local ‘moonshine’, Rakshi, out of millet. Millet’s no lowly bird food there! Since my return, I’ve been trying it out in recipes and it is fantastic–love the crunch! Thanks for the recipe–it looks delish.
Hey Can i use regular milk instead of buttermilk??
The smell of banana bread wafting though the house is divine! I must make some… today! :)
In order to always have bananas on hand, I buy six or so, let them blacken up in my fruit bowl, and stick them in the freezer until the day I impulsively decide to whip up a banana bread recipe. When peeled, the bananas look pretty slug-like and nasty, but they make a mean bread. Trust.
Frozen & thawed bananas are pretty nasty aren’t they?? Probably one of my least favourite things to bake with due to the ick factor. But you’re right—they make wonderful banana bread, and you don’t have to feel bad about throwing out those over-ripe bananas!
I do this too! You’re right, nasty – but awesome. Super ripe is the only way to get that intense banana flavor.
Can you come over to my house and ripen my bananas with your stone cold stare? We have so many green bananas! I love the idea of using full millet. Totally going to try this with gluten-free flour!
you…. inspire me.
You inspire me to cook more.
You inspire me to try healthy alternatives.
You inspire me to buy random/funky/vintage tableware.
Thanks for being you and doing what you do!
I think I have the opposite problem with bananas–they also seem to over ripen before I get to use them! This bread looks delicious, I try to stay away from making things like this because I tend to eat them all in one sitting!
You have no idea how often in my life I’ve eaten popcorn for breakfast. It’s embarrassing but you gotta do what you gotta do when you’re out of breakfast items!
Yum! Such a great idea. Ever since I made the Millet Muffins from Super Natural Every Day (see my post here: http://wholeytreats.blogspot.com/2011/02/millet-muffins.html) I’ve been totally addicted to the crunchiness of millet in baked goods. I even tried adding it to granola this weekend… but it ended up tasting a little bitter, in banana bread though? Perfect!
I often think about me in my 80s, with wrinkled hands smelling of cinnamon, vanilla… And maybe banana bread :-)
Little specks of raw crunchy millet, that sounds wonderful!
I can’t wait to make this! Maybe this weekend if I have a ripened banana by then. I just bought some millet last week! I can’t get the recipe to print though. It just sends a blank page with the recipe title to my printer. Anyone else having issues?
Hi cannot wait to try this. My question is why do you rinse the millet?
I have baked it into other muffins and not rinsed, so just wondering.
Thanks, love you site and recipes!
yuuuum….
definitely trying this recipe out!!
<3Amanda
I love walnuts in banana bread, but I’d be willing to try subbing in some millet. Sounds like an interesting twist!
I love banana bread, I think it’s a great way to eat bananas! Never trie millet though, I should if I find some.
Hello delicious….. :)
http://www.sweetheartadventures.blogspot.com
x
We have millet growing in our front yard. Leftovers from overly picky wild birds.
If anyone thinks that they don’t have a green-thumb, try growing millet (wild bird seed mix)… It grows fast, it’s lush and green, and apparently needs very little water or attention! :)
I’m totally going to have grandma hands too. I loved my grandmother’s hands – they were so soft and wrinkled. And those hands made the best banana bread… she put cranberries in hers, but millet sounds fab – I love the crunch factor!
Perfect recipe for me to try today! The hubster is always telling me to use up the grains and seeds I have in our pantry and now I can put some to good use!
This was delicious!
I have banana’s on the verge of banana bread perfection…
I just took this out of the oven and YUM in a very big way! I didn’t have any millet, so I substitued “Malt-O-Meal” cereal (you can now get it at Target). This is delicious. Thank you, Joy!
i love it!
anywayz, what’s the FONT u used in the picture! so adorable!
In my opinion this looks like a delicious recipe and i think that it is not so difficult so i will try it very soon. I will post again after i will try it, thanks for sharing.
Yum! This looks great. And I love sneaking grains into the hubby’s food.
So, does millet need to be rinsed for the same reasons that quinoa should be rinsed? I haven’t seen millet, though I know of at least two places where I can undoubtedly buy it when I decide to make this.
Oh my goodness. This banana bread knocks my shoes, socks, and toe nail polish off. Uh-mazing.
Thanks so much for this recipe! I just made it and it turned out great (plus it made loads; 12 muffins and a loaf… score!) I love the millet crunch.
Dear Joy,
Not to be all sad and depressing on you…but I made this bread on a Wednesday night, then my niece passed away unexpectedly and we had to jump on a plane…I brought the 2 loaves of this bread with me. During the chaos and sadness of funeral planning we all snacked on this bread for 5 days. It brought us all great comfort, and it remained moist until the end. So, thank you for bringing us some joy in a time of sorrow. Also, thought you might appreciate that my niece’s middle name was “Joy” named after my grandma, so I thought it was very apropos that we ate bread from Joy while celebrating Joy’s life. : )
Thank you,
dagny
hmmm!! this sound right up my street looking forward in trying this recipe :)
I will write you letters if you let me know how! I live in the Bay and love millet and other things birds eat. And I think you’re neat! -Anna
Wondering why this is on the ‘gluten-free section’ page? :( I was looking for a gf banana bread recipe! Obviously, it is not gf with a ‘whole wheat flour’ and a ‘all-purpose flour.’ Sad.
looks like this was just placed in the wrong category. i’ll fix it. sorry!
Joy, thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I had a banana bread recipe which I have used for over 10 years and after baking this I will never use it again. This is the best banana bread I have ever eaten. I do love banana bread like you do, so I will try all of the other banana bread recipes you have and chose my favorite. I have been reading through your blog for long hours for the last few days and have bookmarked so many things to bake already. Thank you :)