A moist and delicious banana bread made with a touch of butter, cinnamon and brown sugar and of course, yummy bananas. Use super ripe bananas to get the most flavor. The perfect snack or treat for your family, as a gift, or to eat all by yourself.
Hey there! Before you scroll, there’s lot’s of important stuff in the post!…including the FAQ section, which may answer any questions you might have about this recipe. Enjoy!
Let’s talk about some of the ingredients in this banana bread:
Mashed Bananas: You’ll use about 3 medium sized bananas (1 cup) in this recipe. Try to get them super ripe, but not rotten. Those give you the most flavor.
Cinnamon: There’s just a touch of cinnamon in this recipe. Just enough to give it a hint of spice.
Granulated & Brown Sugar: You’ll use both granulated sugar and brown sugar in this recipe. I really like the addition of brown sugar as I think it adds a bit of flavor and richness to the bread.
Vegetable Oil & Melted Butter: I’ve got both vegetable oil and butter in this recipe. The vegetable oil will add moistness and the butter will as well, but will also add a warm buttery flavor to it.
Nuts or Chocolate Chips: I didn’t add these to the one I baked, but feel free to add walnuts, or pecans or mini chocolate chips to your banana bread.
Mixing method for this bread:
Quick breads are one of the easiest types of breads (or cake really) that you could make. You don’t need a ton of ingredients and they’re easy to mix up.
You’ll simply just add the dry ingredients to a bowl, mix and set aside. Then add the liquid ingredients to another bowl, mix and then add it to the dry ingredients.
There are a couple things you want to do first though in this recipe. You’ll want to add the small amount of vinegar or lemon juice to the milk so it can sit and you’ll want to go ahead and melt your butter.
Don’t worry though, I go through all that in the recipe card below.
Tips and FAQs for Making the Moist Delicious Banana Bread:
You’ll mash up three bananas for this bread. Just use medium sized bananas.
They will give the most flavor to your bread.
You can put your bananas in a paper bag and close it up and your bananas will ripen a bit faster. Check on them every day though.
Yes, you can use frozen bananas for this bread. You can freeze bananas by adding them into a freezer bag. You can peel them or leave them in the peels when you freeze them. Defrost them before using them. The bananas will be very mushy, but that’s fine.
If you don’t have brown sugar, you can just use granulated sugar in place of it, but the brown sugar gives it a good deeper flavor.
If you absolutely can’t get unsalted butter, use salted, but omit the other salt listed in the recipe.
You don’t want the melted butter to be super hot when you add it to your batter.
You could also use buttermilk instead of adding the vinegar or lemon juice to the milk.
Just make sure you cover it very well with plastic wrap. This bread will keep for several days covered out of the fridge. Place in the fridge after a couple days to prolong it’s freshness.
Yes, just wrap it well with plastic wrap and then foil. It will last for about a month frozen. To defrost it, set it out on your counter, but leave it in the wrappings until it’s fully defrosted.
That’s just the nature of a quick bread or a sweet bread. It’s okay and you didn’t do anything wrong.
This type of bread is called quick bread and it doesn’t require yeast. The leavening agents in this type of bread are usually baking soda or baking powder (sometimes both) in addition to eggs.
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Supplies & Tools Used for this Bread:
- Large glass mixing bowl (similar)
- Measuring spoon set (similar)
- Hamburger masher (for mashing the bananas)
- Rubber spatulas
- Loaf pan
- Cooling racks
Ok let’s get to the recipe!
Note About Recipe Measurements: I write recipes using volume (cups) measurements because here in the U.S., this is what people are more familiar with and I don’t want anyone to feel intimidated when baking. For metric/weight measurements, click the ‘metric’ button under the ingredients in the recipe card below. The weights are converted by a program, not me, and it’s just a best guess. I can’t guarantee that weighing the ingredients will produce the exact same results, since I test recipes using volume measurements.
Recipe
Moist & Delicious Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium very ripe bananas)
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup melted unsalted butter (½ stick of butter – make sure the butter is not hot when added)
- ⅓ cup milk (mixed with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar)
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- ⅔ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 9" loaf pan with non-stick spray and set aside. (See notes if you don't have a large loaf pan)
- Mix the ⅓ cup of milk with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar and let sit while you mix up the batter. (You could also use buttermilk and omit the lemon juice or vinegar)
- Take a half a stick of butter (¼ cup) and melt it in a small bowl and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk well and set aside.
- In another bowl, mash the bananas, then add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, melted butter (make sure that it's not super hot), the milk that was mixed with lemon juice or white vinegar, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix well with a whisk.
- Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and mix well with a spoon. Do not over-mix. Only mix until all the ingredients are well incorporated. It's okay to leave a few small lumps in it.
- Pour the batter into the sprayed loaf pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 1 hour, 5 minutes for dark coated pans and about 1 hour plus 15-20 minutes for lighter or disposable pans. A toothpick inserted into the center will come out with a few moist crumbs on it or clean, but no liquid batter on it.
- Cool the bread in the pan on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes, then turn the bread loaf out of the pan and let cool completely on the rack.
- Once cool, wrap with plastic wrap and let sit overnight before serving. (This last step is optional, but it allow the flavors to intensify.)
Notes
Nutrition
How to Share
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Robin
Can you just use 1/3 cup of buttermilk instead of the milk with vinegar?
Kara Jane
Yes you can! It’s actually better if you can do that, but lots of people don’t’ have access to that, so either works.
Robin
Thank you Kara! After I asked the question here, I went back to see if you had covered it in the blog and sure enough you had! So sorry! I need to read better next time!!!
Your recipes are amazing!!!
Kara Jane
No worries Robin! Happy to help and thanks so much!
Robin
Thank you!
Davida Insaidoo
I think this is an excellent recipe and I shall definitely try it out.
I have loads from your website.
Thanks for sharing.
Wishing you all the best for the new year.
Davida Insaidoo
Kara Jane
Thanks so much. 🙂
ellen
Easily the best ever. I was a little intimidated by all the ingredients (I am not a baker). I had them all so I went for it. I am very glad a did. It came out amazing. Thanks Jane. I might even go crazy and try to make a cake with your recipe one day. Think I will start with cupcakes though.
Kara Jane
Yay!!! So glad you liked this one so much. If you can make this, I know you can make a scratch cake too! 🙂
Ashlee
Followed this recipe to a T…. took a little longer to bake but maybe I had larger bananas. Absolutely delicious! I think this is one of the best banana breads I’ve ever had. The recipe is definitely a keeper!
Kara Jane
Wow! What a wonderful review…thank you! I’m so glad you loved it 🙂
Tara
LOVE this banana bread! I was looking for a basic, moist banana bread with just the right amount of sweet and this was exactly it! Followed exactly (which I normally estimate but decided to be good lol.) it came out perfect! Thanks!
Kara Jane
Hey Tara, I’m so glad you loved it! Thanks for the amazing review…so good to know it turned out perfectly! 🙂
Darlene
Just made this recipe and it’s the best one I’ve ever made and I’ve tried a lot of recipes. It’s moist, the outside is not burnt or overly brown looking and it’s not gummy. Great recipe, thanks for sharing.
Kara Jane
Oh that’s great to hear! I’m so glad you loved it…Thank you for the wonderful review 🙂