Jump to Ingredients – Jump to Method – Jump to Printable Version

Banana bread was the first quick bread that I ever tried to bake (back in ’09). In fact the image here is of that very first loaf. Beautiful isn’t it? Whether you are making your first quick bread or you are an experienced baker this banana bread recipe will make you very happy. Quick breads that include fruit (especially bananas) are some of the easiest baked items to make. They give the recipe an incredible amount of slack because the fruit behaves like a sort of glue that simply holds together whatever else you throw at it. Therefor if this or that ingredient isn’t measured exactly, it probably wont make much of a difference. So if you are new to the world of baking, banana bread is a perfect place to start. All that aside I want to stress that this recipe just happens to produce the BEST banana bread that I have ever tasted. I never really had a thing for banana bread until I started making it. Now, when I get into the mood to make something sweet this is one of the first things that pop into my head. It is so moist and fresh tasting. It’s impossible to describe. You’ll just have to make it to understand!

This recipe makes one 8×4 inch loaf that will provide around 8 to 10 servings. Now, though the recipe specifies an 8×4 loaf pan you may choose to bake it in a round or square cake pan, different sized loaf pans or some other form. This is perfectly ok, only you will have to monitor the bread’s doneness as the size and shape of the pan will affect cooking time.

-Ingredients-

3 Large Bananas

Use your judgment. I could have mashed them up and measured exactly how much I used in a measuring cup, but the truth is that I’m sure I’ve never used the exact same amount of banana twice and it always comes out superb. So don’t worry about any exact measurement here. Just use about 3 large or 4 medium to small sized bananas. The really important thing is for the bananas to be very very overripe! I mean so overripe that you would normally consider them a lost cause. I would stress that they must have a black skin but since I overripen bananas a lot (because I make this recipe a lot) I’ve discovered that depending on the time of year, and at times, the specific bananas themselves, the colour of the skin is not always an indication of how ripe the bananas are. The bananas in the picture, for instance, are severely overripe but the skin is not very black. Trust me the bananas inside were just about to start liquefying. This is a great time to use them for the recipe. Don’t worry about the bananas getting too overripe and being dangerous to eat. They are safe for far longer than most people think. The only time I will not use them is if I pick up the banana and hold it up from the bottom, and it cannot remain erect and therefor droops because the banana inside is truly liquefied. Anything before that is acceptable. Also smell the banana. Once it starts becoming moist from overripening it will start developing alcohol. You do not want to use it when it has a strong alcohol odor (though a little bit is ok) so use the bananas before this happens. Also keep in mind that you can peel overripened bananas and store them in the freezer to be used at your convenience so there is no need to time it out perfectly. When you are ready to bake the bread just defrost them and off you go.

1 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour

Be sure to measure the flour properly.

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

Light or dark according to your preference. I usually prefer darker brown sugar. You can choose to substitute one full cup of white sugar if you like. The resulting banana bread will still be incredible. When measuring brown sugar always pack it into the measuring cup tightly, then level off the measuring cup with a straight edge.

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/3 cup of Unsalted Butter (plus extra for greasing pan)

1 Egg

Large or extra large will work perfectly

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Always use real stuff if you can. Alternatively a little dark rum can be used in place of the vanilla for an interesting flavour.

pinch of Salt

I am using fine grain sea salt. A pinch will measure approximately a quarter teaspoon.

Optional:

You can add up to 1 cup of just about any accent ingredient you like. This can be nuts, chocolate chunks, pieces of fruit, or whatever else you can come up with and it will usually not affect any thing about the recipe or method. In the picture at the beginning of this post you can see an example of a plain loaf of banana bread with no additions. Today however I am going to add chocolate chips, my favourite addition!

1 cup Chocolate Chips

As stated you may leave this ingredient out or replace or combine it with another accent ingredient, and you may use less than a cup, but I would not use much more than a cup of accent ingredients.

-Method-

Preheat your oven (with the rack in the lower 3rd) to 350 F and brush a 4×8 loaf pan with melted butter. I also like to add a piece of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan. Doing this ensures that the finished bread will not stick! I butter the entire pan, place the parchment, then butter the other side of the parchment. It is important to do these things before making your batter because you want to pour the batter and begin to bake the moment the batter is all mixed together.

Peel the bananas and put them into a large mixing bowl. Mash them very well until most, if not all chunks are gone and they are like a thick liquid.

Pour 1/3 cup of warm melted butter, 3/4 cups of brown sugar, beaten egg, and 1 tsp vanilla into the bananas.

Stir all ingredients well.

Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of baking soda and a pinch of salt over the mixture and stir very well again. This step is very important to be sure that the baking soda is evenly distributed into the batter. Once you add the flour your will not want to mix very much and therefor if you add the flour and baking soda at the same time you will be sure to get clumps of baking soda in your final bread. Trust me, they don’t taste good!

Add 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour to the bowl and stir quickly to combine with the rest of the batter, JUST until incorporated. It is desirable to still see bits of flour here and there. This is the nature of quick bread batters.

If you are adding an extra ingredient then only mix in the flour a very little bit and stop before you would normally stop. At this point add in your extra ingredients. Give it a quick stir JUST until everything is roughly incorporated.

Immediately pour the batter into your buttered loaf pan and put in into the hot oven right away.

Bake for about one hour. Begin to test for doneness about 50 minutes into baking. The best way to test it is to place a toothpick into the place where the loaf has split as it rose. This is going to be the last place to finish baking.

The loaf is done when the toothpick comes out dry with only a few crumbs on it like in the picture (it will not be perfectly clean unless you have overcooked it). If it comes out with any signs of batter on it then it needs more time.

Allow the loaf to cool inside the pan for about 30 minutes, then remove and place onto a dish. It can be eaten immediately, while still warm or allowed to cool and can remain at room temperature for 3 to 4 days. It keeps well in the refrigerator for about a week and also stores very well in the freezer. I often slice the loaf and wrap individual portions and keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Here is the finished loaf from today’s endeavor.

and with a WAY TOO BIG (just the way I like it) Slice taken off of it.

Here is an image of the very first chocolate chip banana bread loaf I ever made.I used white sugar for this one. You can see the difference in colour. Still tasted GREAT though!

-Printable Version-