Banana Bread Recipe (VIDEO) (2024)

FAQs

Can you put too much banana in banana bread? ›

Fight the urge to use more banana than called for in your recipe. Using too much banana could make your bread heavy and damp in the center, causing it to appear undercooked and unappealing. If you have bananas leftover, you can always freeze them for later use.

Cool Correctly Before Storing

Let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely. If it is not cooled properly, there will be trapped moisture, which can make your banana bread soggy and can also invite bacteria growth, she says.

They need to be soft enough that they can seamlessly blend into the quick bread batter, leaving small pockets, rather than large chunks, of banana behind. And then there's the flavor.

Baking soda: Baking soda acts as a leavener, which means it helps the banana bread rise. Salt: A pinch of salt enhances the overall flavor, but it won't make the loaf taste salty.\

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.

If they smell off, that's another good indicator that they are no longer okay to use. Rotten bananas will often have a fermented or alcohol-like smell. While it's okay if the banana peel is dark brown or even black, if the inside is too, then the fruit is beyond ripe and now on its way to rotten.

Using too much flour makes for an extra crumbly bread.

If you're tapping your measuring cup to level out flour as you measure, or you're pushing down the piled-up powder, you'll end up using too much of it. I packed my flour for this loaf, and what I got was a crumbly cake with a dry crust all around.

Bananas with Mostly Yellow Peels and Brown Spots are my sweet spot. The bananas are ripe enough to offer good sweetness and moisture without being overwhelming.

Over mixing the batter

Some gluten is essential but, the more you mix, the longer those gluten strands become. Mix even slightly too much and you wind up with a banana bread that's tough and gummy rather than soft and tender. It's easy enough to avoid this error with a little careful attention.

The reason is as you mix, the gluten begins to develop, and when too much development happens, you can end up with a dense, chewy loaf rather than the soft and delicious banana bread you were hoping for.

What happens if I add too much baking soda to my banana bread? ›

Too much baking soda will result in a soapy taste with a coarse, open crumb.

*The chlorophyll in sunflower seeds may react with baking soda, causing the center of the bread to turn a green color when cool. This is completely harmless! To help keep bread from turning green, you can reduce baking soda by half, or a splash of lemon juice in the batter may also help.

In the oven, the outside begins to cook much faster than the inside; the crack is from the inner batter rising and releasing steam through the semi-cooked outer batter.

Using a lot of bananas adds excess moisture, and there are two ways to get rid of it. You could either add more flour or increase the baking time. Add a tablespoon of extra flour at a time into the batter and give it a good whisk until its consistency starts to look right: thick but runny enough to fall off a spoon.

But for a healthy person, "it would be impossible to overdose on bananas," says Collins. "You would probably need around 400 bananas a day to build up the kind of potassium levels that would cause your heart to stop beating... Bananas are not dangerous - and in fact they are, and always have been, very good for you."

Fill the pan until it's two-thirds full, and if there is any remaining batter, fill up a muffin tin. This ensures you get a beautifully risen loaf instead of a potentially flat loaf in a 9×5. Now that you know the importance of pan sizes, it's time to make a loaf of the Best-Ever Banana Bread!

Traditional banana breads are made with ingredients such as white flour, sugar, and oil. As such, this dish is often high in calories, carbs, and added sugar.