Banana bread recipe! Do you want to know the banana bread recipe? Cakes made from mashed bananas are known as banana bread. Although certain recipes call for yeast, fast breads are frequently moist and sweet. Since overripe bananas were still expensive to buy during the Great Depression, some culinary historians believe banana bread was a result of that era. Others think the modern banana bread was created in corporate kitchens to sell flour and baking soda products.
As baking soda and baking powder were mass produced and made readily available in grocery stores in the 1930s, banana bread recipes started to appear in well-known cookbooks across North America.
Banana bread can be used for a variety of purposes, such as a quick grab-and-go snack, a simple last-minute gift, or a contribution to breakfast potlucks. Given that it doesn’t require time-consuming kneading or yeast for rising, it is referred to as a quick bread. Check out the banana bread ingredients, how to keep banana bread fresh on the kitchen counter, the usual errors when making banana bread, and more in this article.
Table of Contents
Banana bread ingredients
The following is the list of banana bread ingredients
- three to four ripe bananas (peeled & mashed)
- 4 tablespoons of melted butter (unsalted or salted, whichever you prefer)
- Baking soda, 1 teaspoon
- Salt, half a teaspoon (Optional)
- 3/4 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup and 1 cup, depending on how sweet you like your food).
- 2 tiny eggs, broken and beat, or 1 large egg
- Vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon
- two cups of regular flour
How to make banana bread
Check out the instructions below for the banana bread preparation process:
1. Set the temperature of your oven to 350°F (175°C) and butter or spray baking spray into a loaf pan.
2. Using a fork or a masher, mash ripe bananas in a big basin until they are perfectly smooth. If using cooking or vegetable oil, be careful not to use too much when you stir the melted butter into the mashed bananas. Instead, I like to use melted butter since it gives my banana bread a lot more moisture.
3. Combine a teeny-tiny amount of salt and baking soda. Add sugar, beaten egg, and vanilla essence after stirring. Add the flour after thoroughly stirring.
4. Fill the loaf pan you have prepared with the batter. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about one hour, or until a toothpick or other test object inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. You should re-bake the banana bread in the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes if the tester or toothpick comes out moist.
5. Take the food out of the oven and let it cool in the pan for a while. When ready to serve, take the banana bread out of the pan and let it cool fully.
Your tasty banana bread can be cut into slices and served.
How to keep banana bread fre nosh on the kitchen counter
Banana bread that has just been cooked and will be consumed shortly or the following day can be kept on the counter at room temperature.
Cool: Ensure that the loaf has fully cooled. Warm bread shouldn’t be sealed because doing so will make it soggy.
Bread can be wrapped in plastic wrap or placed in an airtight container after it has cooled. If placing in a container, be sure to line the bottom with a paper towel to help absorb any extra moisture.
Bread can be kept out on the counter for three to four days.
If you won’t be eating it within three days, avoid putting it in the fridge because the cold air may dry up the bread.
What’s the shelf life of banana bread?
Banana bread has a four-day shelf life when kept at room temperature on the counter and a four-month shelf life when frozen.
Banana bread freezer techniques
Make careful to freeze the bread if you won’t be eating it in 3–4 days. Making an extra loaf of banana bread for storage is always a good idea because it freezes incredibly nicely.
Slices, quarter loaves, and entire loaves of bread can all be frozen.
Check to see that the bread has fully cooled. The bread should be thoroughly covered in plastic wrap.
Wrap: You have two options for storing the wrapped bread: either wrap it in aluminum foil or a freezer-safe container or freezer bag. This will lessen the risk of freezer burn. Make sure the freezer bag is empty of any air.
For a period of up to 4 months, freeze. Advice: Be sure to label the container with the date.
Why is my banana bread so stale and dense?
When it comes making banana bread, moisture is essential, and the flour to banana ratio is crucial. Using too much flour will result in dry bread. Insufficient usage will result in too-wet bread.
Other Ingredients for Banana Bread
For a smooth texture and seductive butter flavor, use softened butter.
Brown Sugar: For this recipe, just use brown sugar. I explain why brown sugar produces soft, moist cookies in the headnotes for this recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Banana bread also benefits from the enchantment of brown sugar. It also enhances the flavor beautifully.
Eggs: Eggs give breads, doughs, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and other baked goods their stability and structure as well as a delicate texture. For this, you’ll need two huge eggs.
Yogurt or Sour Cream: Yogurt or sour cream give this banana bread even more moisture. (In most baking recipes, the two terms are interchangeable.)
Usual errors when making banana bread.
You’ll still want to steer clear of a few traps when making banana bread. Avoid making these typical banana bread errors to ensure that nothing stands between you and your delicious banana bread.
1. The batter is overmixed.
Avoid overmixing as you carefully fold the wet ingredients into the dry for moist, delicate banana bread. The development of gluten will increase as you stir more. The outcome will be rubbery, hard banana bread. Just whisk until the mixture is wet, and stop. In conclusion: Work less, get nicer bread.
2. You are measuring flour incorrectly.
When it comes making banana bread, moisture is essential, and the flour to banana ratio is crucial. Using too much flour will result in dry bread. Insufficient usage will result in too-wet bread. Actually, how you measure the flour is the key. Using a scoop straight from the bag could result in significantly too much flour being placed in your measuring cup. Instead, using the “spoon and level” technique by spooning flour into a measuring cup and removing any excess with a flat-edged knife or straight edge.
3. You make use of underripe bananas.
If you’ve ever attempted to mash green bananas, you are aware how unpleasant it is. For this reason, only extremely ripe bananas should be used to prepare banana bread. Overripe bananas are not only simpler to mash, but they also add additional moisture, sweetness, and taste to the bread. How far along is too ripe? Anything from bananas with spots to complete black is fair game. If all you have are almost ripe bananas and you need to prepare banana bread right away, roast them.
4. You fail to verify that it has been completed.
Avoid the error of cutting into your banana bread only to find that the core is still raw. Place a skewer in the center while it’s still baking. It is prepared if the skewer emerges clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Put the bread back in the oven for around 5 minutes, then check it again if any raw batter is still sticking to the skewer.
5. You don’t let it cool down.
After the bread comes out of the oven, you should take it out of the pan quickly. The bottom will grow more soggy the longer it rests in the pan. Before transferring the bread to an airtight container or wrapping it in plastic wrap, let it cool completely on a cooling rack. Mold develops as a result of moisture on warm bread that has been wrapped in plastic wrap. Additionally, cooling the bread strengthens its structure and produces cleaner slices. You can always reheat your slice of bread in the oven if you enjoy eating warm bread (and who doesn’t?).
6. Too much banana is used.
Resist the impulse to add more bananas than your recipe calls for. When you use too much banana, your bread may get heavy and moist in the middle, making it seem underdone and unpleasant. You can always freeze extra bananas to use at a later time.
RECOMMENDED:
Is plastic wrap or foil preferable when securing banana bread?
Aluminum foil tends to wrinkle and look a little too freshly removed from the freezer, while plastic wrap will turn exceptionally moist fast breads (pumpkin, banana) sticky. Here, waxed paper or parchment are the best bets.
When baking, should you cover the banana bread?
Bake the batter for 60–65 minutes after pouring it into the prepared baking pan. After 30 minutes, loosely cover the bread with aluminum foil to help prevent the top and sides from becoming overly browned.
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