Back to Basics Banana Bread

I grew up eating the best tasting bananas in the world from the smallest thumb sized senorita bananas to the giant purple red lacatan (also known as Morado) variety. You could say, I have a high standard for bananas so I wasn’t very impressed with the banana breads and cakes that was on offer. For some reason, the cakes had a plasticky smell and the banana breads were oily and had a fake banana taste, so for a long time I steered clear of these goodies. Not this back to basics Banana Bread.

It wasn’t after my children in were in school, when I got roped in to bring banana bread for a school stall that I found out bananas in cakes wasn’t so bad after all. Freshly made banana nut breads were out of this world delicious and tasted like the bananas I remember from when I was growing up.

The following recipe for banana bread came about after countless of sacrificial banana breads baked, resulting a banana bread that would be good enough for a banana connoisseur like myself. And the secret was, you put in a LOT of bananas. Duh! It is quite easy to make you don’t even need a mixer for this.

So what makes the back to basics banana bread? It’s one you make yourself, so that you can put the things you like in it. You like nuts? Add a handful of nuts. You like chocolate? Then add a handful of chocolate chips. The base recipe here with heaps of bananas is the best starting point to the best banana bread.

This is great to eat warm and straight from the oven. You know when you’ve made a great banana bread, is when take it out of the oven and your whole kitchen smells heavenly. Equally good for breakfast toasted and slathered with butter or peanut butter. Best of all, it keeps well. Can be sliced and wrapped individually for freezing and toasted straight from the freezer.

What you need for Banana Bread

• Bananas- You need 5 medium sized fully ripened bananas for this recipe to get the full banana taste. The variety available in Australia is Cavendish and that’s what I use. You can substitute for any other type of sweet bananas.
• Pantry Staples- Self Raising Flour, OR plain flour plus baking soda and baking powder, vanilla essence, brown sugar, eggs , yoghurt
• Optional Extra – toasted coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans makes a great addition, so is a handful of chocolate chips, white or dark , squirt of honey

Let’s make it…nothing could be simpler

• Mash the bananas in a bowl.
• Sift together pinch of salt, flour (and baking powder and baking soda if using plain flour ) into a bowl.
• In a separate bowl, whisk oil, beaten eggs, yoghurt vanilla and mashed bananas.
• ‘Fold in the flour to the banana mix. Do not over mix.
• Stir in optional add ons like nuts or chocolate chips you’re using
• Pour batter into a lined loaf pan. Top with reserved sliced banana. Sprinkle with sugar. Squirt a bit of honey on top of the sliced banana topping, optional.
• Bake at 160°C for 60 minutes or until done.

Banana Bread

Recipe by Lola Adele

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: DessertCuisine: GlobalDifficulty: Easy

Servings

10

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

Moist And Loaded Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 2/3 cup vegetable oil

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 eggs beaten

• 1/3 cup Greek yoghurt

• 5 medium bananas, 4 mashed with a fork, reserve 1 for topping

• 1 3/4 cups plain flour or self raising flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda (omit if using self raising flour)

• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder(omit if using self raising flour)

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• Pinch of salt

• 1/2 coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans, optional

• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped dark or white chocolate , optional

Directions

• Preheat oven to 160 °C/320F. Spray a 10×4 inch loaf pan with cooking oil and line with baking paper.
• In a bowl, whisk together oil, eggs,brown sugar and vanilla until well combined. Stir in yoghurt and mashed bananas.
• Sift baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour into a bowl and use a spatula to fold this into the egg/oil mixture in step 2 until just combined. Add nuts/chocolate if using. Do not over mix.
• Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth the top with a spatula and place reserved sliced banana on top. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of caster sugar.
• Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until the banana bread is done. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Notes

• To freeze, slice and wrap with cling wrap. Will keep for 3 days in room temperature. If using as a batter for muffins, reduce cooking time to 15 minutes.