Banana Bread
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This banana bread recipe bakes up light and tender, with rich banana flavor and a crisp, golden crust.
If you prefer your banana bread light and tender rather than heavy and dense, this banana bread recipe is for you. Creaming the butter and sugar gives the loaf an almost cake-like crumb, while very ripe bananas provide plenty of banana flavor and moisture. The outside bakes up beautifully golden with a crisp crust that’s especially good against the soft interior.
You can add walnuts or pecans or chocolate chips if you like—see the recipe card notes for the details. And if your bananas aren’t quite ripe enough, I’ve included an easy trick for getting them ready to bake with. If you have leftovers, try a slice lightly toasted; it’s one of my favorite ways to eat it, and it brings that crisp crust right back.
“I feel like I’ve tried every banana bread recipe on the internet and none even comes CLOSE to this one. Usually banana bread is too dense or too sweet for me, and this one is just right.”
What You’ll Need To Make Banana Bread
- All-purpose flour: Spoon it into the measuring cup and level it off rather than scooping directly from the bag; too much flour can make the bread dry and heavy.
- Baking soda and baking powder: Work together to give the banana bread plenty of lift and a light, tender crumb.
- Unsalted butter: Make sure it’s softened so it creams properly with the sugar, incorporating air into the batter and helping create that light texture.
- Very ripe bananas: Provide moisture, natural sweetness, and plenty of banana flavor—the riper, the better. Look for bananas that are heavily spotted or even fully brown. If yours aren’t quite ripe enough, bake them in their peels at 300°F for 15 to 20 minutes, until soft and blackened. Extra-ripe bananas also freeze well; see my post how to freeze bananas for baking for details on freezing and thawing.)
- Fresh lemon juice: Provides acidity to react with the baking soda and help the bread rise; you won’t taste lemon in the finished loaf.
- Vanilla extract: Rounds out and enhances the banana flavor.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
How To Make Banana Bread
Mix the dry ingredients: Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. This distributes the leaveners evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly.
Cream the butter and sugar: Beat the softened butter and sugar until noticeably lighter in color and fluffy. This step incorporates air into the batter and helps give the banana bread its light, tender crumb.
Add the eggs and bananas: Beat in the eggs, followed by the mashed bananas, lemon juice, and vanilla. The mixture may look a little curdled or separated at this point—don’t worry; that’s normal.
Finish the batter: Add the dry ingredients and mix just until no streaks of flour remain. Avoid overmixing, which can make the bread heavier and tougher. If you’re adding nuts or chocolate chips, gently fold them in now.
Bake: Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. The bread is done when it’s nicely golden and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it cool briefly in the pan, then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.
Variations
If you’re in the mood to mix it up, try marbled banana bread, chocolate banana bread, banana coconut bread, or chai-spiced banana bread.
Video Tutorial
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Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas, from 2 to 3 large bananas
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, from 1 lemon
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter and flour a 9 x 5-inch (23 x 13-cm) metal loaf pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the mashed bananas, lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix well. It will look a little curdled at this point; that’s okay.
- Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just incorporated. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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This banana bread is incredible and one of my favourite things to bake. It’s so easy to throw together and so delicious. I find it’s great to share too, loaves are always easier to cut than rounds, and it’s always very popular whenever I take it anywhere. I like my banana bread loaded with goodies so I add chocolate chips and/or chopped walnuts and/or raisins, whatever I’m in the mood for, about a cup total. I’ve cooked this in at least 4 different ovens in 2 different countries and I always have to add 5-10 mins to the cooking time (usually 50-55 mins for me), but it comes out perfectly every time. Thanks for this winner, Jenn. I’d give it more than 5 stars, if I could!
This recipe is a keeper. Added some cinnamon and baked for only 50 minutes in glass dish.
Why don’t you use sour cream in this recipe when you do in the others?
Thanks, love all your recipes!
Edie
Hi Edie, I developed this recipe a long time ago so I don’t remember the reason I didn’t use sour cream in this one but I promise it works. 🙂
Moist and can really taste it’s banana as many recipies only use one banana . Will def add to our favourites!
This is my new favorite banana bread mother recipe. I doubled this recipe using the kitchen scale measures, subbing flavorful coconut oil for the butter for a lactose-intolerant friend. I also couldn’t resist subbing most of the volume (not weight) of the sugar for maple syrup, as I wanted a slightly more wholesome version. I even substituted 100g almond flour for the regular flour. The mixture was more liquid, thanks to the maple syrup, but the loaf was a wonderful texture, springy and light instead of dense and muffin-like. It is really a banana-bread, not muffin, recipe, much lighter and more delicate than the more stodgy (yet satisfying!) banana muffins I am used to making. When you use the batter in the muffin tins they don’t dome like muffins (that might also be because of the more liquid dough I used), but they make nice short mini cakes that kids like holding. Oh and of course I added chocolate chips—for the kids (that is my excuse, anyways!).
I’ve made this recipe twice. Both times it is raw in the middle even though the tester came out clean. The end slice was dry. If I bake it longer, the bread will be very dry around the edges. Any insight on what might be wrong? The oven thermometer said the temp was ok. Thanks.
Sorry you’ve had a problem with this (twice)! Are you using a glass pan? Are you making any adjustments to the recipe?
The best banana bread recipe for me, tried it out 3 times already and worked very well every time! I cut up a small banana and put in on top of the batter for extra ”banananess” before baking.
Love this recipe because it’s buttery! It’s simple and doesn’t have diet ingredients like apple sauce. When I want low-cal, I’ll go elsewhere lol I too have trouble with the top being completely baked through because I use a glass pan, but I read on another recipe here to lower temperature and bake longer. I baked at 325 for an hour.
My search for THEE Banana Bread recipe is over! Lemon juice is the secret in this one! For those having problems with under done-ness with baking: add-ins(I do walnuts & chocolate chips, myself) will stretch your batter. You’ll end doing two loaves. Fill your pan ONLY HALF WAY up (I noticed in her photo & after my last loaf was a hard shell on the outside & doughy in the middle) Then the 40 min bake time works perfectly. I tried going towards 45 mins because i didn’t preheat & both loaves ended up a little dry.
Loved it!!