Banana Bread
A ‘not-so-sweet’-option of the popular and easy cake
Cake
Keywords Bananas, Snack, Banana Bread
There’s one cake that I would eat at almost any occasion without feeling guilty - banana bread.
From hiking trips via Lacrosse matches and house parties to mining operations and stressful project work, banana bread always is a great snack. Especially when it is not so sweet and with the right amount of crispiness as in this recipe. After further optimizing it step by step and measuring the ingredients, now the time has come to finally share it with you.
Content
What makes it special
Flavor and key ingredients
What to watch out for
Recipe - My best version
Different variations
What makes it special
In general
From my experience, banana bread is not only ony of my favorites, but pretty much everyone likes it. At least I cannot remember anyone who said “I don’t like banana bread” or even worse “I didn’t like your banana bread”. Hence my hyopthesis: If you want to bake something easy that almost everyone likes, make a banana bread.
It doesn’t even need much preparation or costly / difficult to find ingredients. So when you have bought too many bananas, why not just try baking with them? Even for beginners it’s a great start into baking. Personally, banana bread is the first cake that i have been baking independently and in my opinion it’s a great base to start with.
In addition, it really seems to me that banana bread generally makes people happy. Always when I’m sharing some - and I always bake in order to share - people really appreciate it no matter the situation. As I love making people happy, I will thus continue to bake and share my banana bread.
For me personally
I already wrote above that banana bread was the first cake that I baked alone. I know that it’s not really clear whether it’s actually a cake or a bread, but in Germany we consider it a cake so I will continue calling it that way ;-)
Anyways, the first time I baked banana bread was in Norway back in 2017 where I ended up with too many old bananas. As I prefer to eat yellow bananas, I had to do something else with the overripe bananas and figured that I might give baking a shot and it turned out that it was a great decision.
I can’t remember for sure whether it was the very first banana bread that I baked, but I have one very positive memory about banana bread “saving some friends and me” that I want to share with you:
On our road trip to the famous Trolltunga rock in Norway we carried all the food we needed for staying overnight on the mountain - incl. a banana bread. We had aimed to hike the 14km and 800m incline to Trolltunga in the afternoon in order to get there just before sunset to set up our tent. Having varying fitness levels and backpack sizes in our group, we shared the weight and effort as evenly and fairly as possible: 3 guys with small backpacks and another friend and me with the 5-person-tent (not lightweight), a single-use-BBQ for making burgers at the top for dinner and some big sleeping bags.
As most of the incline is right at the beginning, we have been pushing hard to stay on track for making it to Trolltunga before the sunset. After this most difficult part we were not only out of breath, but also already quite a bit out of energy. Luckily, I had brought the banana bread, though, and we could reload our energy with a delicious snack for the remaining 10km. In the end we made it just before dark to our camping area, enjoyed some burgers and got up before sunrise when we had the the rock formation pretty much to ourselves - before the crowds came in starting at 9am.
We all agreed that the banana bread gave us all the required energy and had certainly helped us to reach our destination in time. Thus, I always think back to our great roadtrip and hike when I bake banana bread and propose to you:
Bring a banana bread on your next hiking trip. You will be very happy to have this delicious and energy-rich snack with you.
Our little group (4/5 friends) hiking to Trolltunga. Notice the different backpack-sizes and me with the biggest load at the very right (Photo by Tobi Brue)
The famous Trolltunga (troll tongue) rock formation in Norway during sunrise (photo by Julius Steddin)
Flavor and key ingredients
Bananda bread stands out due to its natural sweetness and being just a little bit fluffy and moist besides the often very high density. Adding a little crispiness for example with almond flakes or another special ingredient will give an extra kick and help distinguish your version from all the other banana breads out there.
I like to make sure that the bananas themselves never come up short as the name already suggests. In my opinion,they should be the main ingredient as they are not only the main source of flavor, but also add most of the mass. Bananas make up about 60% of the version that I’m baking.
Besides the bananas, only some kind of flour and baking powder need to be added as ingredients from my experience. Eggs and butter help creating the right consistency, but there are also vegan versions to substitute these two ingredients.
What to watch out for
There are four key factors that I pay attention to as I had some problems when not sticking to these simple rules
Use ripe bananas - Otherwise there will be little natural sweetness and mashing them won’t lead to a moist mixture (press the bananas lightly a few hours before baking while still unpeeled to make them get softer and ripe faster)
Do not use too much sugar or margarine - Otherwise it gets to sweet or fat. The flavor should mostly come from the ingredients themselves
Do not use a too shallow or too deep loaf pan / casserole - Either the cake will be turning too dry or burning already on the outside while not completely baked on the inside (Try to get a dough height in the loaf pan of approx. 4-8cm)
Use circulating air and a grid - Otherwise the heat is less evenly distributed and the cake may be burning at the top or bottom
Recipe - My best version
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 50-60 minutes
Total Time 80 minutes
Servings 1 loaf (approx. 1kg)
Ingredients
900g overripe bananas (600g without peel /
about 7 medium-sized bananas)
65g butter
50g brown sugar
2 eggs
225g all-purpose flour
35g almond flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 knife tip nutmeg
Instructions (Illustrations below)
Peel and mash the bananas until it’s a homogenic mass. In case they’re not overripe yet, let them stay for a bit and they will become sweeter
Preheat the oven to 175°C air circulation
Lightly grease a 8cm*20cm loaf pan (or any type of cake pan with an area of approx. 200cm² and a height of 6-10cm)
Combine flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar, salt, nutmeg and almond flakes
Cut the butter in small pieces and combine with the brown sugar. Blend well with a mixer or food processor
First add the eggs and then the mashed bananas to the butter-sugar-mixture and blend well each time
Pour the banana-mixture over the flour-mixture and stir enough to moisten so that no dry flour remains
Pour the batter into the loaf pan (make sure the mixture has a height of at least 4cm - otherwise the bread turns out dry)
Place the loaf pan on a roast in the middle rack of the pre-heated oven and bake for approx. 50-60 min.
When baking for the first time, check regularly after 40min as some ovens have a stronger/weaker heat convection
Insert a toothpick or knive in the center of the loaf. When it comes out clean the banana bread is ready
Loosen the sides of the bread from the pan with a wooden knive or similar and turn onto a wire rack to take out the cake. Immediately turn back to the normal orientation in order to not press down the topside that nicely rose in the oven
Bananas are overripe when thy’re turning brown (They only turned as brown on the picture due to some time in the fridge, though). Usually I buy them a bit more than a week before baking
Usually I prepare the different ingredient types before mixing them all together: Mash the bananas, whisk the eggs, combine butter with brown sugar and combine the dry goods
As I recently bought a blender, it is now my favorite option to mix butter, sugar and the eggs
The mixture should be well blended before continuing
In order to receive a very smooth dough, I also like to blend the mashed bananas - The almond flakes will add some crispiness to the cake
Bake the bread for about 50-60min at 175°C for the perfect level of brown color and slightly crispy crust (And yes, I like to bake 2 breads at the same time as I only bake for sharing anyways)
Different Variations
There are hundreds of different banana bread recipes out there and almost each of them is a little bit different. In case you’r enot happy with my version, want to give it a personal touch or are missing some ingredients, just experiment a little.
For example, you could
Go vegan by replacing butter and eggs (I’m pretty sure there are very good substitutes and great recipes, but I haven’t tried yet)
Use a different type of flour or sweeteners, I guess oat flour would suit very well, too
Add a special ingredient of your choice, e.g. chocolate or different nuts
The process may also be adapted to your personal circumstances. For example, in the beginning I didn’t have any type of blender in Norway and mixed everything by hand with a fork. Any type of hand blender and smoothie maker may also work though. Maybe mix butter, sugar and eggs together directly in order to reduce the butter sticking in one corner and not being blended.
In the end it is only important that you’re both happy with the final result and having spend some time baking, though :)
Inspired by
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/20144/banana-banana-bread/