Best Banana Bread Recipe - End of the Fork (2024)

Use ripe brown bananas to make this super moist banana bread. Its easy to make, full of flavour and your home will smell delicious!

This recipe makes a soft fluffy banana bread with a crispy exterior, rich flavour and a tender crumb.

It is difficult to know what teenagers will eat – sometimes bananas last barely a few hours in the fruit bowl and other times they are barely noticed and ignored till they turn brown and on their way to turning mushy.

That’s when I rescue them and bring back something that looks more appealing like this delicious banana bread, guaranteed to make your kitchen smell delicious!

Banana bread is great on its own, toasted with butter for breakfast, with coffee, in lunch-boxes… anytime!

If you are keen on the fresh flavour bananas bring to a dessert, try our other recipes using ripe bananas such as our popular banana bread with zucchini, and this tangy banana cake made with yogurt.

You may also like to try banana muffins for an easy portable breakfast, our healthy no sugar banana oatmeal cookies or our just-like-cookies banana blondie bars.

Click the subscribe button above to get more recipes like this to your inbox.

Helpful tips

• Use soft over-ripe bananas as they are sweeter, have a stronger flavour, and impartmore moisture. Yellow bananas will result in a less sweet and drier cake! To quickly ripen bananas, place in the freezer for a couple of hours. Note: bananas turn black when chilled or frozen. Leave them out on the kitchen counter to thaw before using.
• Brown sugar adds richness,a lovely caramel colour and great flavour, but if you have run out use white sugar.
• To check to see if the banana bread is done insert a clean skewer into the bread and if it comes out clean it is ready.

Recipe Variations

At some stage you may want to create different versions of this banana bread so here are a few tried and tested ideas:

chocolate – mix in a cup (170g) of milk, dark or white chocolate chips to the batter before baking.

nuts – add a handful of crushed roasted glazed nuts to the batter before baking.

glaze – drizzle with a generous amount of lemon icing and leave for a few minutes to dry before slicing.

frosting – covering with generous amounts of cream cheese frosting and your guests will love you for it!

Instruction notes

1. Select 4 to 5 of your brownest bananas and mash them well. Very ripe bananas have more flavour and are sweeter.
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. (Sifting loosens up the flour and helps mix up the ingredients).
3. In another mixing bowl cream the butter and sugars till creamy and smooth. Then stir in the beaten eggs, vanilla and mashed banana.
4. Fold the flour into the egg mixture till just incorporated (gentle folding). Over-mixing releases too much gluten and it will make the loaf tough and very dense.
5. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan and bake for 55-65 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. You may need to cover the cake with parchment paper to prevent the top browning too much.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Slice and serve as is, or cover with a layer of this delicious cream cheese frosting or a lemon Icing.

Your questions answered

How to store banana bread

Banana bread can be stored in an airtight box the fridge for up to 3 days. It also freezes well, wrap in parchment paper or plastic film to freeze.

Freeze your bananas

If you love banana desserts, a great way to make sure you always have some on hand is to freeze them!

Or if your bananas aren’t ripe enough for cooking, freeze them!

Note: banana skin darkens when frozen however this does not affect their flavour.

You can freeze them with their peels on but then you will need to let them thaw before peeling. A quicker way is to peel them first and freeze them whole or sliced.

Tip: Bananas will last longer in the freezer if they are peeled first.

How to freeze bananas

1. Chop bananas into large chunks and partially freeze them on a tray before transferring them to a freezer bag to keep in the freezer.
2. Defrost the bananas in the fridge overnight or leave them out on the counter for a few hours before you are ready to use them.

Are you looking for more banana recipes? Check out these mini banana cupcakes and banana crumb muffins.

I’d love to know how thisbanana breadturns out for you, let me know in the comments below and do leave a star rating.

Instagram – I love seeing your creations, so post a picture tagging @endofthefork and hashtag #endofthefork

You may also like …

📋 Recipe

Update notes: This post was originally published on Sept 15th, 2017, but was republished with tips, and FAQ’s and new images in May, 2021.