I think my obsession with banana bread is well known on this blog. I have more banana bread recipes than any other kind of recipe, and I have no plans on stopping. This Apricot Almond Banana Bread is a fantastic addition to my ever-increasing list.
Let’s get fruity and a bit nutty!
I have packed this banana bread with a load of fruit, 3 large sweet ripe bananas and plenty of sweet squidgy semi-dried apricots. I prefer to use semi-dried apricots for this bread as they are a little more fleshy than fully dried ones. But if you are finding them hard to come by, dried ones will still make a lovely loaf.
Semi-dried ones will help to make each bite sweet, tender and moist. To add yet another dimension to this banana bread I used ground almonds or almond flour if you prefer and a dash of almond extract. The almond flavour is subtle and leaves you with a lovely almondy aftertaste.
If you happen to have a nut allergy then there is still no reason you can’t enjoy this banana bread. Simply replace the almond flour with regular plain / all-purpose flour and use vanilla extract instead of almond extract. So while it technically won’t be apricot almond banana bread, you will still have a wonderful apricot banana bread.
A little butter & oil.
I have used a combination of butter and oil in this apricot almond banana bread. Butter gives us a richer flavour and a more tender crumb. Oil helps to keep this bread moist for days, not that it is going to last that long, I barely made it past day 2 as I just couldn’t stop eating this banana bread. It’s definitely in my top three ever banana breads.
This makes a lovely breakfast treat, a wonderful mid-morning snack or an amazing afternoon treat. With or without a little extra butter is completely up to you.
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Sweet Delicious Apricot Almond Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 125 grams plain/all-purpose flour (1 cup)
- 50 grams almond flour (1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large ripe bananas - mashed
- 50 grams unsalted butter - melted (1/4 cup)
- 60 millilitres vegetable oil (1/4 cup)
- 150 grams dark brown sugar (3/4 cup - packed)
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 130 grams semi-dried apricots - chopped (1/2 cup or 16 whole ones)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 and either line or lightly grease a 2lb loaf tin, and place to one side.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the plain/all-purpose flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt then place it aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add in the mashed bananas and mix them with the melted butter and oil.
- Then add the sugar, egg and almond extract and mix until smooth.
- Pour in the dry ingredients and with a gentle hand fold them in together.
- Then fold in the chopped semi-dried apricots and transfer the batter into your prepared loaf tin.
- Place the loaf tin into your hot oven in the centre.
- I have a very slow oven so it took an hour to bake through but check on your loaf at the 50-minute mark. An inserted pick should come out clean, or with only a few crumbs on it.
- Once baked through, leave your loaf to cool for 5 minutes in the tin. Then gently turn it out onto a wire rack to fully cool down.
- This loaf can be kept in a cool environment in an airtight tin for 5 days. This loaf also freezes well, either freeze it as a whole or cut it up into slices and freeze the individual slices.
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Love banana bread! This looks great — so moist and full of goodies. Thanks!
Thank you, John 🙂
This sounds great, really like the idea of the apricots in with the banana bread!
Thank you, Caroline 🙂
this is the moistest!! I love the interesting flavor of apricots but I’ve never added them to banana bread–must do!
Thanks, Grace, apricots go really well with banana. I hope you manage to try it out sometime 🙂
This recipes comes at perfect timing as we have a surplus of bananas. We are all about getting fruity and nutty with this delicious breakfast bread!
Thank you, banana bread is a great way to use up overripe bananas.
Fruity and nutty works for me! And the apricots this year are amazing – do you suppose fresh would work?
Hi David, I think fresh would be fine if they were chopped up quite small.
I love my banana bread loaded with fruit too. This looks really moist..almost like X’mas fruit bread. Very yummy!
It would be perfect for Christmas Angie, thank you 🙂