Easy Delicious Banana Bread Recipe

Today at CrispyBake’s Kitchen we’re making some easy delicious banana bread. So let’s get started.

First off, set your oven to 350.

Take a look at your bananas. They should be spotted and dark and really fragrant. If they’re on the yellow side with some green, you’re going to want to bake these to make them perfectly ripe for this recipe. Pop them onto a baking tray 350 for about 10 minutes until they’re blackened and wait for them to cool and you’re good to go. These bananas look great so I will be using them just as is.

Preparing Dry Ingredients

In a medium bowl, we’re going to get our dry ingredients together:

one and three-quarter cups or 210 grams of all-purpose flour
a teaspoon of baking soda
a teaspoon of salt
half a teaspoon of cinnamon

Really, the only secret to this recipe is using the right amount of flour. If you add too much, it’s going to be dry and ready. If you don’t add enough, it’ll be like too moist and dense from the bananas. So use a scale and if you’re using a scoop, go ahead and fluff your flour up, sprinkle it into your measuring cup and level it off. That way, it won’t be overpacked.

The right amount of salt in any dessert recipe is so important. It really helps you taste what the ingredients are and not just have duller, flatter sweet notes.

You can use any warming spices you love. Today, I’m sticking with half a teaspoon of cinnamon, but you could add pumpkin, pie spice, some cardamom, allspice, nutmeg, ginger. For another delicious dessert infused with delightful flavors, consider our easy baked apples with pecans and warm spices. Really, it’s the works.

We’re going to give this a whisk. Our scale’s done. Just mix it up so it’s nice and combined. You really want to distribute everything nice and evenly. You can whisk and mix as much as you want right now, like forever and ever and ever, but once you’re adding the dry to the wet, you can only mix it until it is just combined. That’ll give you a really nice, like perfect crumb. If you overmix your batter, it’ll be gummy and dense and just not pleasant.

Wet Ingredients List

Set that aside and now we’re going to get our wet ingredients together.

For this recipe, you’ll be using:

three very ripe bananas
half a cup of room temperature butter (113 grams)
three quarters of a cup of sugar (165 grams)
two large room temperature eggs
One teaspoon of vanilla

The riper your bananas are, the more flavor they’re going to have, and while they might be unpleasant for eating bananas, the ones that are like almost rotten, like I want to throw these away, those are perfect for banana bread. Give these a mash. I personally like having little chunks of banana here and there, but if you don’t enjoy that texture, just mash, mash, mash until it’s basically a banana smoothie. By the way, these are medium-sized bananas. If you have giant bananas or those little tiny ones, you’ll want about 430 grams of banana, so you can get your scale out and measure it up. This recipe is really forgiving, though, so you could have a little bit more or a little bit less banana and it’ll still be delicious with a lovely texture.

Your butter should be nice and soft, so a finger can just plow through it really easily. The butter is nice and bendy and it’ll cream really well. If it’s a cold day and your butter’s too hard, just microwave it at half power in 10 second bursts.

You could use light brown, dark brown, or even granulated sugar. I’m using light brown today. It gives you a really lovely caramel flavor. When measuring, pack your measuring cup really well. I like to crumble it into the bowl just because there could be some big lumps that are hanging around. That might be hard for your mixer to mix in.

Mixing Instructions

1. Into the bowl of my stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, add the half cup of room temperature butter. If you have any questions about how room temperature it is, just give it a quick cream.

2. Add the sugar. Mix this up for three minutes on high until it is light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl down as needed.

3. After about three minutes, crack two large room temperature eggs in, always into a small bowl to check for shells. You are definitely going to want to scrape your bowl down in between each of these eggs and after. If you’re using a hand mixer, you can just rake the mixer along the bowl and basically scrape it down. Add the second egg. One more scrape down.

4. Add one teaspoon of vanilla.

5. Add the mashed bananas in. Just plop those in.

Today I have a request for some plain banana bread. But if you want to spice things up a little bit with additions, you could add up to a cup of chopped walnuts or pecans. You could add half a cup of chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, and if you enjoy loaves with rich cocoa flavor, you might also like our easy homemade chocolate bread recipe. Even some dried fruit will be a nice addition to this. Make sure you toast the nuts if you’re going to use them because that really amplifies the flavor.

Our last step is just to fold the dry ingredients in. Plop those in and you’re going to mix on low until it is almost combined and then finish it off by hand. This is the crucial step where if you over mix, you’ll have a gummy denser batter because you’re activating the gluten in the flour. So it’s the only part you have to be careful of for this full proof recipe. Flour goes in. And now mix on low until it’s almost combined. One, two, three, four, and five. If you look inside the bowl, it looks a little crazy right now. Like there’s definitely tons of streaks of flour, but that’s okay because we’ll finish it off with our spatula. Just like when you make whipped cream, it’s always a good idea to finish a batter off by hand so things don’t get over mixed. You have ultimate control. Just use your spatula to scrape the bowl down and fold it in. You’ll notice there is much less flour at the bottom of your bowl. Mix until the flour just disappears and then you’re ready to plop this into your prepared pan.

Baking and Serving

You can grab a nine by five or one pound loaf pan. Give it a spray and just for added ease, I have a little parchment paper cradle. This just lets you lift out your banana bread and it also keeps the edges from browning as much, at least the edges in the paper. Transfer your batter to your prepared pan and then we’re just going to give it a smooth. Smooth the top out so it bakes nice and evenly. If you want, you get a little sprinkle of sugar on top for some added sweetness and sparkle.

My banana bread is ready to go into the oven 350 for 50 to 60 minutes or until a skewer in the center comes out clean.

Allow your banana bread to cool and then you’re going to remove it. Give your banana bread a slice and just like that, it’s ready to enjoy. So soft. So moist and soft on the inside and it’s perfectly sweet with tons of banana flavor.

Storage Tips

Your banana bread will be good for three days in an airtight container at room temperature or five days in the fridge and conversely, you could also freeze this for up to three months. Just thaw it out before enjoying.

I hope you get a chance to make this delicious recipe and if you like my recipes check out my Dessert Recipes.

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