Makes 1 loaf
Prep 10 min
Bake 55–65 min
Total ~75 min
Level Very easy
Banana bread exists because of the bananas you let go too far. When a banana turns black-brown and the skin has softened to paper, it has crossed from snack territory into baking territory — the starches have converted to sugar, the flavour has intensified dramatically, and it is far too good to throw away. Three of them, mashed into a batter, give you a loaf that tastes of banana in a way that fresh bananas never quite achieve.
This is a quick bread, which means no yeast, no rising, no kneading. You mix, pour, bake. The danger is exactly the same as with pancakes: overmixing develops gluten and makes the loaf dense and tough. Fold the wet into the dry until just combined. A few lumps is correct. Then leave the oven alone.
Ingredients
3 large very ripe bananas (~300g peeled)
200 g plain flour
150 g dark brown sugar
90 g unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
60 ml soured cream or yoghurt
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp fine salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
The blacker the better. Bananas that look ruined are ideal. A banana that is entirely black and soft — that you would never eat raw — is at peak sweetness and flavour for baking. If your bananas are only spotty yellow, the bread will be less sweet and less intensely banana-flavoured. If you need to speed up ripening, leave unpeeled bananas in a 150°C oven for 20 minutes until the skins turn black.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease a 900g (2lb) loaf tin and line the bottom with a strip of baking paper.
Mash the bananas thoroughly. In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until almost smooth — a few small lumps are fine and add texture. Stir in the melted butter, brown sugar, eggs, soured cream, and vanilla until combined.
Add dry ingredients and fold. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon directly into the wet mixture. Fold with a spatula using large slow strokes until just combined — no more than 12–15 folds. The batter will look slightly lumpy and rough. Stop here. Pour into the prepared tin.
Bake 55–65 minutes. Bake until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs — no wet batter. The top should be deeply golden-brown and cracked along the centre. Start checking at 55 minutes. If the top is browning too fast, cover loosely with foil for the last 15 minutes.
Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then on a rack. The loaf needs time to firm up before slicing — cutting too early gives you a gummy, collapsed interior. Cool completely for the best texture, though it is irresistible warm with butter.
🍫Chocolate chip version: Fold 100g of dark chocolate chips or roughly chopped dark chocolate into the batter at the very end. The chocolate melts into pockets throughout the loaf. Add a tablespoon of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients for even more chocolate depth.
🌰Walnut version: Fold in 100g of roughly chopped toasted walnuts. Scatter a few halves on top before baking. The bitterness of the walnut against the sweet banana is one of the classic flavour combinations in baking.
❄️Freeze ripe bananas. When bananas go black before you are ready to bake, peel them and freeze in a bag. They thaw in 30 minutes at room temperature and work perfectly for banana bread — in fact, freezing and thawing makes them even more liquid and intensely flavoured than fresh over-ripe ones.
The utilitarian classic
Banana bread is perhaps the most practical recipe in home baking — it transforms something you were about to throw away into something people ask for the recipe of. It keeps for 4–5 days wrapped at room temperature and freezes perfectly in slices. Make it once and it becomes a reflex: bananas going black, oven goes on.
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