Banana Bread Recipe - Love and Lemons (2024)

FAQs

When not to use bananas for bread? ›

Mold on bananas is fuzzy white, gray, or greenish—it looks a lot like mold on bread. If a banana smells rotten or fermented or is leaking fluid, it's time to say goodbye. If the fruit inside, not just the peel, is black, that's a sign that your banana is too far gone to safely eat.

Cool completely on rack. Wrap and store at room temperature overnight before slicing. (We know it's hard to wait, but your bread will be more evenly moist and less crumbly if you let it sit overnight.)

Banana bread recipes typically ask you to use overripe bananas so that they're easier to mush. This means it's tempting to toss all your bananas into the mix when you're ready to bake, to avoid food waste. But if you add too much of the fruit into your batter, your bread could turn out mushy, heavy, and wet.

You'll want to be sure it's well wrapped to avoid having it soak in any odors from your fridge or dry out. Again, wrapping it in plastic wrap or in an airtight container or bag will help, especially if you're able to avoid exposing the banana bread surface to air. Banana bread can last for up to a week in the fridge.

These bananas may be a bit too ripe for your cereal, but they're just beginning to come into their own for banana bread. Let the bananas ripen (and overripen) at room temperature. Depending on the weather, this could take a few days, or up to a week. The best bananas for banana bread aren't yellow; they're black.

Using too much butter makes for a heavier cake with less banana flavor. Using double the amount of butter that the recipe called for left me with a loaf that was dry on the outside and moist on the inside.

Metal pans are better heat conductors than glass pans, meaning the food inside cooks more evenly. Most baking recipes for cakes, muffins, cupcakes, coffee cake, banana bread, and brownies call for metal bakeware.

You Over-Mix the Batter

For soft and tender banana bread, gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry — don't overmix! The more you stir, the more gluten will develop. The result will be a tough, rubbery banana bread. Simply stir until moist, and then do no more.

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.

Brown, overripe bananas are sweeter because in the ripening process the starches in the banana are converted to sugar. You can even use super-soft, black bananas that have a really strong smell and are oozy inside. As long as they're not moldy, there's no such thing as too-ripe bananas for banana bread.

What happens if you put too many eggs in banana bread? ›

Using too few eggs will make your desserts dense, but using too many will make them rubbery. The explanation for this lies in the fact that eggs are made up of protein. As Fine Cooking explains, when the protein in eggs combines with the protein in flour, they produce the overall structure of the baked good.

Wrapped well and stored at room temperature, banana bread will last about five days. If stored in the fridge, it should last a full week. A frozen loaf of banana bread will last up to a year in the freezer, wrapped well with storage wrap and aluminum foil.

Banana bread should always be kept in plastic wrap, tin foil, or an airtight container to keep it from drying out or going bad quickly. You can extend the life of your banana bread up to about a week by refrigerating it. It needs to be wrapped tightly.

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.

Appearance: Check for any visible mold or dark spots on the skin of the banana. If the skin has turned entirely brown or black, it indicates that the banana is overripe and may have started to spoil. Texture: Ripe bananas should be soft and easy to peel, but they shouldn't be mushy or have a slimy texture.

Patients with kidney problems, migraines, or latex allergies should avoid eating bananas. Bananas contain high levels of potassium, which can be harmful for individuals with impaired kidney function. The natural sugar in bananas can trigger migraines in some people.

That's right. Baking can turn your firm bananas into a warm mush of sweetened banana pulp ready for your baking needs. According to Food52, low and slow is the way to go, with the sweet spot for the best texture and banana flavor being at 300 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the peel is almost black.