Christmas Banana Bread With Cinnamon

Christmas banana bread with cinnamon is packed with overripe bananas, crunchy walnuts, and sweet dried cranberries. This festive treat will fill your kitchen with an irresistible aroma. Baked in charming mini loaf pans, it also makes for a perfect edible gift.

Do you have a Christmas party coming up? If you are looking for an easy and delicious dessert to make, look no further. This Christmas spiced banana bread is festive, comfy, and perfect for the holiday season.

Jump to:

• Christmas banana bread recipe
• Ingredients
• How to make Christmas banana bread
• Expert Tips
• Recipe variations
• Storing and freezing
• Banana bread wrapping ideas
• Recipe FAQ
• Love Christmas desserts? Try these next!
• Recipe card
• Comments

Don't sweat over a fancy cake! This simple banana Christmas loaf will become a new tradition in your home. It is also great as a gift if you want to give something special to your neighbor or teacher at this time of the year.

Scroll down for free printable banana bread gift tags.

Christmas banana bread recipe

• This Christmas banana bread recipe is so easy to make: it takes about 20 minutes of hands-on time; the rest is baking.

• Bananas make a cake moist and sweet, so everyone will enjoy eating it too.

• It is one of the best mini loaf recipes for Christmas. Full of warm spices, this cinnamon banana bread just smells and tastes like Christmas.

• Baked as mini loaves, this quick bread makes a special treat, a Christmas morning favorite, and an afternoon snack.

Ingredients

For ingredients and detailed instructions, refer to the recipe card below.

• Butter: The recipe calls for unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. You can also substitute butter for ½ cup + 2 teaspoons or 120 g of vegetable oil if you prefer.

• Brown sugar: Use golden brown sugar or replace it with light brown muscovado sugar. You can use white sugar (granulated or caster sugar) too.

• Large eggs: Make sure they are at room temperature.

• Flour: The recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but you can use a mix with whole-wheat pastry flour.

• Baking powder: This banana bread is made without baking soda, but baking powder is used instead as a leavening agent.

• Spices: Use a combination of ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and ground cloves.

• Bananas: The key to the perfect homemade banana bread is overripe bananas with black spots all over. You can use frozen bananas with a potent flavor too.

• Cinnamon chips bring an exceptional festive touch to this holiday banana bread. You can substitute them for sweet chocolate chips or butterscotch chips if desired.

• Dried cranberries give the sliced banana loaf a beautiful color. Replace them with halved maraschino cherries if desired.

• Chopped walnuts: Adding walnuts to banana bread is common, but feel free to replace them with pecans.

• Dark rum brings a fruity note to banana bread. Replace it with cognac, brandy, or apple juice if you serve the bread to kids.

• Almond flour is used to make a streusel on top of the bread. Substitute it with hazelnut flour if desired.

• Icing sugar: Make it yourself with a coffee grinder or use powdered sugar instead.

How to make Christmas banana bread

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Butter and flour porcelain mini loaf pans (9 oz. each).

Step 2: To make the bread batter, use an electric mixer to beat softened butter and brown sugar in a large bowl for about 5 minutes (photo 1).

Step 3: Add eggs (at room temperature), dry ingredients (all-purpose flour sifted with baking powder, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves), and delicately mix with a rubber spatula.

Step 4: Using a fork or a potato masher, mash bananas and fold the banana mixture into the principal preparation.

Step 5: Add cinnamon chips, whole or chopped cranberries, and chopped walnuts, and gently mix. Pour dark rum and mix with a spatula just until combined, but don't over-mix (photo 2).

Step 6: Pour the batter into the four prepared loaf pans, smooth it out, and refrigerate while making the streusel (photo 3).

Step 7: To make the streusel topping, in a separate large mixing bowl, mix all-purpose flour, almond flour, icing (powdered) sugar, and chilled salted butter cut into small pieces (photo 4).

Pro tip: Work with your hands to obtain the crumbly dough resembling wet sand.

Step 8. Take the loaf pans from the fridge and sprinkle streusel on top of the batter (photo 5).

Step 9. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. The sweet bread is ready when a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean (photo 6).

Step 10. Take the bread loaves from the oven and cool them in the tins on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes.

Step 11. Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan to carefully remove the bread from each baking pan. Or leave the bread in small pans to present it in such a way.

To serve, sprinkle the top of the holiday bread with icing (powdered) sugar.

Expert Tips

1. Do not over-mix the bread batter once you add mashed bananas. Instead, gently mix just to combine.
2. Watch out for the baking time. Check the loaf for doneness: a toothpick, a long, sharp knife, or a bamboo skewer inserted in the center of the bread should come out clean.
3. Use the same recipe to make a regular loaf in a nonstick bread pan (instead of a mini loaf pan). Bake it for 90 minutes.
4. Make sure to cool the bread before slicing and wrapping.

Recipe variations

Plain banana bread is delicious, but the Christmas banana loaf is the best.

Still, what mix-ins could you add to improve the already perfect flavor of the bread? Or are there any suggestions on how to increase its nutritional value?

• Chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans), sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit (raisins, cherries, etc.), and chocolate chips (dark, milk, white) are delicious additions.

Combine 2 to 3 of them to your liking. Just make sure not to exceed ¾ cup of all mix-ins.

• First, you don't want the batter to overflow during baking.
• Second, you want your banana bread to rise.

• The easy way to make it without sugar is to follow the recipe for No-sugar-added Banana Bread but add warm spices and unsweetened chocolate chips.

• You can also play with streusel topping, making it crispier if desired.

• You can turn this Christmas banana loaf into a banana bread bundt cake. With the vast variety of bundt cake pans from Nordic Ware, you can choose any to use.

Storing and freezing

Cover your banana bread with plastic wrap and store it at room temperature for two days or in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Can you freeze banana bread? Well-wrapped banana bread can be frozen for 2 to 3 months and then thawed at room temperature. You can freeze a whole loaf or slices wrapped individually.

Banana bread wrapping ideas

When it comes to making your loved ones happy, gift packaging always has the right words to say it. However, bringing a little creativity and dignity to your gift is essential.

Wrapping a loaf of banana bread doesn't present much difficulty. First, you need to let the bread cool down completely before wrapping it up. This step is essential; otherwise, the excess moisture will be entrapped between the wrapper and the bread loaf.

Then you need to choose if you give your baked bread in a ceramic or aluminum loaf pan (it was baked in) or present a loaf itself.

And finally, the gift wrapping begins. Use parchment paper, kraft paper, tissue paper... The choice of banana bread wrapping ideas is wide!

• Wrap your loaf with a strip of white or brown parchment and tie it with a baker's twine, ribbon, burlap twine, or woolen thread.
• Bring some festivity to a simple parchment paper by using decorative edged scissors to cut along the edges of the parchment.
• To bring an elegant and refined touch, add a couple of tiny jingle bells, a slice of dried orange, or a sprig of greenery, or tie a pink satin ribbon with a large bow.
• Or wrap your loaf in a piece of wax paper first and then cover it with a printable bread wrapper. The wax paper will protect the bread from sticking to the paper-based packaging.
• The simplest way to banana bread presentation is to wrap it with plastic film, place it in a large cellophane bag, and tie it with a ribbon.
• Finally, what is the finishing touch to any self-respecting gift package? A gift tag! I even created one for you.

Download The Printable Banana Bread Gift Tags >>

Download the PDF, print it on white or kraft cardstock, and cut the labeled tags with scissors or a paper trimmer.

Make a small hole with a paper punch and attach the tag to your Xmas banana bread. Now your gift is complete!

More FREE printables are part of our Baking Like a Chef Club. 

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Recipe FAQ

Love Christmas desserts? Try these next!

I hope you enjoy this festive twist on the classic banana bread recipe. Enjoy other holiday recipes on the blog.

Want more delicious and beautiful recipes? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram for my latest updates. If you make this recipe, please leave a star rating on the recipe card and comment below!

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Recipe card

The nutritional information has been calculated using an online recipe nutrition calculator such as Verywellfit.com and is intended for informational purposes only. These figures should be used as a general guideline and not be construed as a guarantee.