Classic Banana Bread
Put your overripe bananas to good use and make a loaf of banana bread. We love this bread's moist texture and simple flavor. Banana bread should form a crack down the center as it bakes--a sign the baking soda is doing its job. Serve toasted with a smear of cream cheese, greek yogurt, or peanut and top with mixed nuts, if desired. You can even customize your bread with a crunchy streusal topping that the kids will love.
How to Make It
Step 1
Preheat oven to 350°.
Step 2
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
Step 3
Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.
Step 4
Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
Step 5
Kid-Friendly Upgrades:
Upgrade 1
Marble it. Stir 1 cup batter and 1/2 cup melted semisweet chocolate chips together in a small bowl. Spoon plain batter into pan, alternating with dollops of chocolate-chip batter. Drag a knife through batter to swirl. Bake as directed.
Upgrade 2
Berry it. Fold 1 cup fresh blueberries into batter. Bake as directed.
Upgrade 3
French-toast it. Cut bread into 3/4-inch slices. Toast until slightly crisp on both sides. Whisk together 2 eggs, 2 Tbsp. milk, ground cinnamon and nutmeg to taste as well as a pinch of salt in a shallow bowl. Dip bread in mixture, let excess drip off, then fry, turning once, in a nonstick skillet lightly coated with vegetable oil over medium-high heat.
Upgrade 4
Chocolate-chip it. Fold 1 cup dark chocolate chips into batter. Bake as directed.
Upgrade 5
Streusel it. Combine 2 Tbsp. rolled oats, 2 Tbsp. flour, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. butter, melted, and 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg in a medium bowl. Divide batter among 12 paper-lined muffin cups. Top with streusel. Bake at 350°F until done, about 25 minutes.
Chef's Notes
This versatile bread is the perfect on-the-go breakfast, gift for a host, or holiday gift. When would it not be welcome? Top it with whatever you like, and even throw some additional ingredients like chocolate chips. It's the bread that everyone can get behind.
Also appeared in: All You, June, 2015
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How long did you bake the muffins/ mini bread and what temp. ??
Hello did you try to bake this is in the bread making machine ?..robert
Don't rely on just the time given. Use a cake tester. Ovens vary greatly in temperature, so yours could be slightly cooler and thus take longer to bake. Banana bread loaves normally take about an hour to bake, but once or twice it's taken me about an hour and 15 minutes.
Did not know low-fat dary was unhealthy....why is it unhealthy??? Perhaps more sugar or salt to replace fat???
dolama's Review
Followed the advice of others and added 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1/2 brown sugar 1/2 reg sugar. Oh...also added walnuts. Excellent!
beverleyj's Review
Excellent banana bread. I doubled recipe and made 18 large muffins and 2 mini loaves. Six muffins plain, 6 with mini chocolate chips, 6 with chopped pecans, 1 mini loaf plain and one mini loaf marbled chocolate by melting some chocolate and a bit of butter in the microwave, put on top of batter in loaf pan and swirl through with a knife before baking. All turned out Excellent and hubby thought so too. I will be making this recipe again.
arpeckham's Review
This is the only recipe I have used for banana bread for years. It has great flavor and my family loves it.
Bluesfanmyr- It's 'gall', and this recipe is not tagged 'healthy'. Not wanting to use the specific items listed doesn't need to stop you from making this again though with substitutions. You could use coconut sugar and wheat flour in place of part or all of the white, or try coconut or blanched almond flour.
I personally don't use low-fat dairy because I believe it unhealthy, so I use full-fat vanilla yogurt. I've added organic, fair trade bitter-sweet chocolate chips before- my kids love that. A time or two when I was running low on butter I replaced it with organic extra virgin coconut oil which was also good.
uninspired's Review
Best banana bread ever. I wasn't sure I wanted to make a healthy banana bread that my kids wouldn't eat. This bread got rave reviews and no one noticed the lower fat and calories. I'll be making this one again.
BlairLouise's Review
Added a heap of cinnamon and cooked into muffin tins for 25mins at 175 degrees and turned out perfect!!! Delicious.
So moist
We love this recipe. I have been making it for years. With super ripe bananas you can cut the sugar down to 3/4. I used whole wheat pastry flour. This time I added 1 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries and made muffins. Amazing blueberry muffins so extremely moist. -- Oh, I sub greek yogurt too and add cinnamon.
