Ina Garten’s Banana Bread (Easy Recipe) (2024)

FAQs

Why are older bananas better for banana bread? ›

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.

You Over-Mix the Batter

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.

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.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case with bananas (per Allrecipes). If you add more bananas than the recipe calls for, you could be left with a loaf that you probably won't want to eat or serve to anyone else. However, you could also get exactly what you wanted — a more flavorful, still edible loaf (via Insider).

In my experience, using bananas with a dark brown or even black peel for banana bread is ideal, as long as the inside isn't rotten. Key takeaway: As long as your bananas aren't starting to get moldy, infested with fruit flies or beginning to rot they aren't too ripe for baking banana bread.

The texture of a baked banana may be a bit softer than that of one naturally ripened but the taste and caramelized sweetness will be amazing. Preheat your oven to 300ºF, as a low and slow oven ensures the interior of the banana bakes before the outside gets too dark and mushy.

If so, I would dump out all the flour, remeasure and then add in the correct amount, subtracting a little bit (say a half teaspoon) for the flour you couldn't remove that stuck to the other ingredients. Was it before you baked it?

Let it cool for 10 minutes — this helps the loaf solidify and makes it easier to remove from the pan. Remove from pan and cool another 10 minutes. Grasping the parchment paper sling, lift the loaf out of the pan and place on the cooling rack. Cool for another 10 minutes before slicing.

Baking soda works best in conjunction with an acidic ingredient. In the case of banana bread, this may be buttermilk, brown sugar, molasses or the bananas themselves. Recipes generally include just enough baking soda to balance the acidity in the batter.

As a general rule, you can use either baking soda OR baking powder in banana bread – both ingredients will make your banana bread rise. While baking soda will react with acidic ingredients in the batter to raise your bread, baking powder can leaven banana bread without the addition of acidic ingredients.

What to avoid in baking powder? ›

Aluminum-free baking powders work just as well as brands made with aluminum compounds. If you have a keen palate that is highly sensitive to metallic flavors or if you wish to limit your ingestion of aluminum, choose an aluminum-free powder.

2 bananas: 1-1/3 cups chopped | 1 cup mashed. 3 bananas: 2 cups chopped | 1-1/2 cups mashed. 4 bananas: 2-2/3 cups chopped | 2 cups mashed.

You may find banana bread delicious, but conventional banana breads tend to be high in added sugar, refined carbs, and calories. Thus, it's best to enjoy banana bread occasionally as part of a balanced, nutrient-dense diet.

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.

With one sneaky shortcut, yellow bananas — yes, yellow! — can make great banana bread. Everyone knows you need ripe bananas to make banana bread — the browner, the better. But rules were meant to be broken, and our newest banana bread recipe does just that.

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.

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.