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This Healthier Pumpkin Banana Bread is generously spiced and is made using applesauce and spelt flour, and then spread with an addicting Maple Caramel Cream Cheese Icing.
This is the most moist quick bread that I have ever had. No contest. It has all the powerhouses of moistness: brown sugar, buttermilk, pumpkin and banana!
It is a healthier version of the best pumpkin bread and pumpkin coffee cake!
Aaaannnd then there is obviously the Maple Caramel Icing to completely separate this bread from Healthy. A silky, decadent maple cream cheese frosting made with my Maple Caramel Sauce.
Pure pumpkin maple bliss.
{Little sigh of pleasure}
The bread is ridiculously addictive and delicious even unadorned with frosting. It is incredibly moist and bursting with pumpkin and spices! I ate an entire mini-loaf by myself the first night. BAD.
But oh so good.
This pumpkin bread is packed full of Fall spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and, yes, mace. Don’t forget the mace! It’s my secret ingredient that I shared in my post about Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I used mostly spelt flour in place of all-purpose flour in this recipe, but if you can’t find it, using 100% all-purpose flour will be just as wonderful.
Healthier Banana Pumpkin Bread with Maple Caramel Icing
Ingredients
For the Bread:
- 2 cups spelt flour
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground mace
- 3 medium very ripe bananas
- 16 oz pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling
- 1 cup applesauce no sugar added
- 2 tablespoons canola oil
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- 2 cups dark brown sugar packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 eggs lightly beaten
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 4 ounces cold cream cheese no whipped, no low-fat
- ¼ cup unsalted butter cold but still firm
- pinch kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar sifted
- 1/3 cup Maple Caramel Sauce Recipe Here
Instructions
For the Pumpkin Banana Bread:
- Pre-heat the oven to 350° and butter and sugar (or flour) 2: 9 inch x 5 inch x 3 inch loaf pans or 6 mini pans.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, powder, salt and all the spices; set aside.
- In a separate bowl {if you are using an immersion blender like me} or in the pitcher of a blender, add the bananas and process until smooth. Next add the pumpkin, applesauce and oil; process until smooth. Add the buttermilk, and process to incorporate. Add the brown and granulated sugar and process until smooth. Last add the eggs and process until incorporated.
- If you are using a blender, pour the mixture into a mixing bowl. Add half the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and gently fold to incorporate. Repeat with the remaining flour mixture. Fold until very few lumps remain.
- Pour into your prepared baking pans. The batter should fill about 2/3 of the pan. It will rise! If you find yourself with extra batter, pour into muffin tins or into another small loaf pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 40-75 minutes. The baking time varies greatly by the pan that you choose. Start peaking at 45 minutes. When the bread no longer jiggles in the center, test with a toothpick. It should come out clean or with very few crumbs clinging to it. Cool 20 minute in the pan and then turn them out to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Make the Frosting:
- Using a hand mixer, beat cream cheese, butter, salt and cinnamon on medium speed until smooth and creamy, approximately 2-3 minutes.
- Gradually add the powdered sugar, mixing until smooth and creamy. Slowly pour the caramel into the frosting in gradual increments until the frosting is a spreadable consistency and achieves the maple flavor you desire. My maple caramel was a bit runny so I added full amount but then added some more powdered sugar to thicken it back up. You can adjust to your liking.
- Frost cool loaves with an offset spatula. The frosting will keep best in the refrigerator but it will also keep for several days at room temperature.
These are all looking soo good… love the cream cheese frosting for your banana bread.
Thanks, Ella!
Wow LIndsey,, this pumpkin banana bread looks gorgeous! I am totally mesmerized by that maple icing – it sounds to DIE for! and they’re healthy too? They’re just perfect!
Weeeelll…the bread is healthier but the frosting is 100% decadence! lol
Couldn’t get past the title and the first pic with that out-of-this-world maple caramel icing! Brown sugar goes so beautifully in banana bread, I bet this bread is divine!
Haha! I just couldn’t bear to cut down on the brown sugar…it seemed such a shame 🙂
It really does look fabulously moist and that maple icing is making me drool!
Thanks, Christin!
This bread looks fantastic, Lindsey! I have yet to make pumpkin bread this year, so I can’t wait to try it out with some bananas. And your icing looks crazy good! Love the maple flavor. Pinned!
Thanks! Oh the icing! I’m lucky any got on the bread!
This bread look so amazing, Lindsey, and that icing is killing me! Hey, at least there’s nutrition in it with the spelt flour, pumpkin, and applesauce. I’m sold, and consider it pinned. 🙂
Haha! Thanks for the pin, Marcie!
Ahh that looks incredible! love those thick slice! Pinned!
Who wants thin slices? No one.
Saying that Maple Caramel Icing is addicting is putting it mildly! I think I could eat myself out of a tub of that stuff! Seriously!!! And loving all the spices in your pumpkin/banana bread – this must have smelt heavenly! If I changed the all-purpose flour to rice flour, this would be totally gluten free!!!
I know, right?! It was trouble. Is trouble…there is still a little in the fridge that I am hiding from my husband. Shh, don’t tell!
Does rice flour bake up the gluten flours? I’ll have to try that out!
It’s not as “fluffy” as regular flour, but it seems to work ok for us- in scones/muffins/cakes so far.
Now -what’s this about you having leftovers of this loaf???? Am coming over!! 🙂
I’ll give it a go! I have left overs in my my freezer just for you! 🙂