Banana Bread
A moist American quick bread made by mashing ripe bananas and stirring everything in one bowl. No mixer needed — just a fork, a pan, and an oven — and it's the easiest way to turn browning bananas into something delicious.
Ingredients
- Ripe bananas · about 350g, the spottier the better3
- Flour · about 190g1.5 cups
- Sugar · brown sugar for extra moisture0.75 cup
- Eggs2
- Melted butter · or oil0.33 cup
- Baking soda1 tsp
- Salt0.5 tsp
- Vanilla extract1 tsp
- Cinnamon · optional0.5 tsp
- Walnuts or chocolate chips · optional0.5 cup
Steps
- ⏲ 10 min
Heat the oven to 175C and line or butter a loaf pan.
- ⏲ 2 min
Mash the bananas in a bowl with a fork — a few lumps are fine.
- ⏲ 2 min
Stir in the melted butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until combined.
- ⏲ 1 min 30 sec
Sift in the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and fold just until no flour shows — overmixing makes it tough.
- ⏲ 1 min
Fold in the walnuts or chocolate chips and pour into the loaf pan.
- ⏲ 55 min
Bake 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
Variations
- Chocolate chip: Fold in plenty of chocolate chips.
- Nutty: Add walnuts or pecans for crunch.
- Gluten-free: Use a gluten-free flour blend.
- Muffins: Divide into a muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes.
Tips
- The spottier the bananas, the sweeter and more fragrant — perfect for using up overripe ones.
- Fold gently; overmixing builds gluten and makes it gummy.
- Brown sugar keeps it moister with a caramel note.
- If the top browns too fast, tent with foil and keep baking.
More detail and the reasons why (4)
- This is the muffin method, and that is the whole difference from a butter cake. Wet and dry are mixed separately and then combined in a few strokes, and the butter is melted — so it coats flour rather than holding air. Pound Cake is the opposite loaf: solid butter creamed until the air beaten into it is the only leavening. Same shape, opposite method, which is why one is stirred as little as possible and the other as long as possible.
- Why the spottier banana. Ripening turns starch into sugar, so it is sweeter without more sugar; the pectin holding the cells breaks down, so it mashes smooth instead of lumpy; and the aroma esters that read as "banana" only appear late. An underripe banana gives you a loaf that is starchy, lumpy and faintly green-tasting.
- The rise is chemical and the clock starts at the bowl. Bicarbonate of soda needs an acid to react with, and here it is the banana itself, plus the molasses in brown sugar if you use it. That reaction begins the moment they meet, which is the real reason for mixing quickly and baking at once — the same constraint Irish Soda Bread is built around.
- Tenting is a sugar problem, not an oven problem. A batter this sweet and this wet browns long before the centre has set, so the foil buys the middle the time it needs without turning the heat down and drying the loaf (what your oven is doing).
The basics behind this dish
- Eggs: Coagulation Temperatures and What They DecideWhite sets at 62°C, yolk at 68°C. Those two numbers explain scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, steamed custard and crème anglaise all at once.
- Why Sauces Split: Emulsions and Pan SaucesA cream sauce breaking and a carbonara scrambling are the same failure. Temperature and emulsifiers — plus how to bring a split sauce back.
- Knife Skills: Grip, Cuts, and Why Size MattersHow you hold the knife matters more than how fast you cut. The pinch grip, the claw hand, and why uniform size is a cooking decision rather than a cosmetic one.
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