This banana bread recipe is very straightforward and easy. The only thing that might might be a little strange is the buttermilk; most people don’t tend to have that on hand and don’t really want to but a whole container for just a 1/2 cup in a recipe. The alternative is to make the banana bread with sour milk. Not hard, you just add a tablespoon of vinegar to your measuring cup, then fill the rest of the way with milk and let it curdle for a few minutes. But more on the sour milk in a minute!
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I do read your comments, dear readers! The wonderful part about this recipe is that it’s flexible. Add some cinnamon, a handful of cranberries (my mother loves to do this), chocolate chips, or whatever else excites you. You can actually split this into two smaller loaves if you like; I just think it’s best baked in one giant loaf. We’ve made it in cake pans and as muffins and mini muffins, too. Go crazy! But be sure to adjust the baking time if you change the pan size.
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Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour20 minutes
Amazingly moist and full of flavor banana bread! There is a way around buying a whole quart of buttermilk for one use in this recipe. Pour a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into a measuring cup then fill up to the half-cup mark before starting the recipe. The vinegar sours the milk, and is a great substitution for buttermilk.
Ingredients
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste (buy it here)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer; add eggs and mix well. Add sour milk (or buttermilk), vanilla and bananas to mixture. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and blend well. Bake in 1 loaf pan (I like this one!) for 70 minutes.
Adjust your time down if you're baking in small pans. The smaller the pan, the shorter the cook time. Muffins in this recipe take about 25 minutes. I suggest checking your bread every 5 minutes after 25 minutes to see if a toothpick comes out clean if you aren't using a standard loaf pan. Once the toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, the bread is done!
After you’ve got your bread baked and cooled, it’s time to decorate them up for gift-giving! See how I used some cellophane bags and stamps to make perfect little gifts below!
If you love this banana bread, my ZUCCHINI BREAD (click here)is another must-try!
There are so many different loaf pan varieties out there; and lots with pretty print on the sides for whatever holiday you’re gift giving at! You’ll just want to bake your bread in a container the recipient doesn’t feel like they have to return. I made that mistake once–sending little mini loaves out into the world in pretty little porcelain loaf pans. Every one of them came back!
I like to slip the loaf pans into a cellophane bag and add a little tag to them. With a pretty loaf pan, the decorating the gift part is easy!
For my tag, I really just had a lot of fun going through my box of scrapbook punches. You don’t have to take all these steps; leaving out one or two details won’t deter from your pretty package!
Cut two 1×4 pieces of cardstock. Punch one edge with an edge puncher; punch the other with a hole puncher. Punch or cut a heart out of your choice of colors of cardstock, and punch a hole near the middle of the heart.
Layer the two 1×4 pieces of stock on top of each other and add the heart, lining up all the holes. String through with baker’s twine.
Use your Expressionery.com stamp to put your name on the 1×4 paper, then tie around the neck of your cello bag. It’s the perfect little decoration for a loving little gift!
Don’t forget to pin the banana bread recipe for later!
Thank you toExpressionery.com for sponsoring this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and I adore the high quality of their products!
Ripe bananas are not only softer and easier to mash and blend into a batter, but they are also sweeter, which is why baking recipes specifically call for ripe bananas in ingredient lists. As the bananas ripen, the fruit converts starches to sugars, making them sweeter and more flavorful.
For soft and tender banana bread, gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry — don't overmix! The more you stir, the more gluten will develop. The result will be a tough, rubbery banana bread. Simply stir until moist, and then do no more.
Adding more eggs makes for a spongy, less flavorful banana bread. Doubling the number of eggs I was using resulted in a spongy cake with a moist texture.
If you use too much flour, you'll end up with really dry banana bread, and If you don't use enough flour, your banana bread will be way too wet. The secret lies in how you measure the flour. The scoop out of the bag method could be packing way too much flour.
Indeed, there is such a thing as a banana that's too far gone even for baking. That's why you should know just which levels of banana ripeness are actually good to use for banana bread. Visual checks can be tricky. Bananas can go from yellow with brown spots to totally black and still be okay to eat and use for baking.
Let the bananas ripen (and overripen) at room temperature. Depending on the weather, this could take a few days, or up to a week. The best bananas for banana bread aren't yellow; they're black. Or they're at least streaked with black/brown, with just the barest hint of green at the stem.
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
I've since done a number of tests myself and adding a whole egg to a super strong dough with a little oil and honey has become my favourite! A pillowy soft loaf the will blow your mind and oven! Eggs in dough usually produces an extra open and delicate crumb and the bread comes with an extra rise.
Banana. Use ripe bananas to add moisture. One mashed banana can replace one egg in cakes and pancakes. Since it will add a bit of flavor, make sure that it's compatible with the other ingredients of the recipe.
Most cake mixes call for two to three eggs. Just one more egg will add extra moisture, fat, and a little protein, which means the cake will be softer and less likely to overbake and dry out in the oven.
Though it is called banana bread,it is not actually a bread . It is more of a cakey loaf made by the addition of soda bi carbonate as a leavening agent. The is no requirement of developing gluten in these kind of loaves and so even all purpose flour with a low content of gluten is good enough.
If you are using regular milk, you would normally use baking powder. Banana bread normally calls for sour milk, sour cream or buttermilk; all of these are acidic, so in this case what you need is baking soda.
Short Answer: The alkaline environment of a batter with baking soda results in discoloration of the pulp fibers. Short Answer: The alkaline environment of a batter with baking soda results in discoloration of the pulp fibers.
The starch present in the overripe bananas gets converted into free sugar, due to which they are easily digested. By eating them, the body also gets instant energy.
A banana that is perfectly ripe for eating is not at the same stage in its ripening process as one that is perfect for making into a banana cake. For baking, you need the sweetness that comes from an overripe banana – this means it will be very yellow with a few brown spots and feel soft.
A fully ripe banana is the most nutritious stage to eat, as the fruit has had time to develop and convert its starches into sugars, making the fruit sweeter and easier to digest.
According to a research article published in the Global Journal of Nutrition & Food Science in 2022, this starch-to-sugar conversion is responsible for softening the fruit and increasing its sweetness as it ripens.
Introduction: My name is Van Hayes, I am a thankful, friendly, smiling, calm, powerful, fine, enthusiastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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