A Tasty Banana Bread Recipe

I’ve been trying to get this banana bread recipe right ever since I tried a piece of banana bread at one of my local cafe’s years ago. Their bread was not too sweet, extremely moist and just generally tasted amazing. I think I have finally gotten the recipe right. This banana bread recipe is so good it doesn’t need icing.

The Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 large ripe bananas 
• 375g all-purpose flour
• 5g baking powder
• 4g baking soda
• 3g ground cinnamon
• 3g salt
• 50g crushed walnuts
• 50g chia seeds
• 170g unsalted butter softened to room temperature
• 200g granulated sugar
• 100g packed light or dark brown sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 360ml buttermilk, at room temperature.

Equipment

1. 1 large mixing bowl
2. 1 small mixing bowl
3. Spatula
4. Whisk
5. Hand mixer or stand mixer
6. Loaf tin or muffin tray
7. Drying racks
8. Oven or Air Fryer or Toaster Oven

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 175C or 160C for the air fryer or toaster oven.
2. Mash the bananas with a fork in a small bowl and set aside
3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together. Set aside.
4. Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until smooth and creamy, this will take about a minute.
5. Add both sugars and beat on high speed for 2 minutes until creamed together. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed
6. Add the eggs and the vanilla. Beat on medium-high speed until combined, 
7. Beat in the mashed bananas. 
8. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl as needed. 
9. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the buttermilk and mixing each addition just until incorporated.
10. Fold the walnuts into the mixture.
11. Pour the batter into your lightly greased loaf tin or muffin trays.
12. Place on the middle rack in your oven.
13. Cooking time will vary depending on which option you use. For my loaf tin, it takes about 35-40 mins to cook. For the muffins, it’s about 17-22 minutes. After 15 minutes I check the internal of the muffins with a wood skewer, it should be dry if it isn’t checked again in a couple of minutes.
    If using a toaster oven, rotate the bread 180 degrees after 10 minutes.
14. When the skewer is dry its time to remove the bread/muffins to cool. I leave them in the container for about 15 minutes before removing it.
15. Leave to cool on the drying racks.

Notes

• Make sure the butter is actually at room temperature if it doesn’t step 3 becomes difficult.
• Your bananas should be very ripe, if they aren’t you can microwave them for about 45 seconds to soften them up. Let them completely cool to room temperature before adding it to the mixture
• If you have bananas that are about to go bad, throw them in the freezer, then defrost them overnight in the fridge, they’ll provide a nice sweet kick to your bread.
• If you’re using a toaster oven its a good idea to pre-test your actual temperature.
• If you can’t get hold of buttermilk you can make it by adding acid (lemon or distilled white vinegar) to your milk. For this banana bread recipe I used pistachio milk because that’s what I had on hand and added 45ml of white vinegar to the 360ml of mil.
• If you have a small oven, your top might brown quickly, add some loose aluminium foil on top once its brown enough.
• You can freeze the finished product. Then you can defrost overnight in the fridge. Put in in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to freshen it up and they taste great.
• For the bread loaf slices, you can put this in a toaster to brown the sides before adding some whipped butter to it.
• To make this vegan, you can replace the butter and eggs with your usual vegan replacements. My buttermilk uses pistachio or almond milk.

So there it is, my tasty, moist banana bread recipe.