Friday, April 18, 2008

Banana Bread Recipe


We like to serve this banana bread warm, fresh from the oven or reheated in a toaster or microwave, with butter.

The caster sugar in this recipe can be replaced with an equal weight of brown sugar (2/3 cup, very firmly packed), if desired. Mash the banana well as large chunks of banana will sink to the bottom of the bread when it is baking.

Serves about 10.

We use a 250ml measuring cup for all of our recipes.

160g (1 1/3 cups) walnut or pecan pieces
85g butter, melted and allowed to cool until lukewarm (if using unsalted butter, add 1/8 teaspoon fine table salt)
300g (2 cups) plain flour
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
168g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
390g (1 1/2 cups) mashed very ripe banana
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
90g (1/3 cup) natural yoghurt (we use a yoghurt with about 3 percent fat)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced).

Place walnuts/pecans on a baking tray and bake for about 3 minutes, until fragrant. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Grease a 1.5 litre capacity loaf pan and line the base and sides of the pan with baking paper. We use a pan that is about 20cm long, 10cm wide (base measurements) and 6.5cm high.

Stir flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugar together in a large bowl.

In a medium bowl, stir or whisk together mashed banana, eggs, vanilla, yoghurt and melted butter. © exclusivelyfood.com.au

Add walnuts to the banana mixture and stir to combine.

Add banana mixture to the bowl with the flour mixture and gently fold ingredients together until just combined. Don't over mix as this can make the banana bread tough. Transfer mixture to prepared pan.

If you are not using a fan-forced oven, adjust the oven rack so that the top section of the banana bread will be in the centre of the oven.

Bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes, until a wooden skewer or thin-bladed knife inserted into the centre of the bread comes out without any batter attached.

Allow banana bread to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cut into slices to serve, or allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Store banana bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two days. Alternatively, wrap whole loaf or individual slices in plastic wrap and store in an airtight container in the freezer. Individually wrapped slices are great for including in lunchboxes.
© www.exclusivelyfood.com.au

Below: Banana bread made with brown sugar.



37 Comments:

Blogger Karolina Beaudet said...

The bread looks delicious!!! I love the idea of adding walnuts to it:)

18/4/08 9:51 pm  
Blogger ♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

I make banana cake with walnuts but this banana bread looks and sounds extra delicious and easy too.

22/4/08 7:47 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tried this yesterday, so yummy! Even my boyfriend who normally doesnt like fruit cakes! :D

23/4/08 9:03 am  
Blogger Ange said...

mmm, am now craving warm banana bread smothered in butter, dont suppose you can send some over?

23/4/08 4:31 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a great recipe and has been a big hit with the family. Absolitely scrumptious both warm and cold.

I made two -- one with walnuts and one with pecans and both are perfect.

30/4/08 8:25 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

can a breadmaker be used to make this?

6/5/08 7:52 am  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

If you are able to bake cakes in your breadmaker, you could try using the cake cycle for this recipe. A standard bread cycle wouldn't be suitable because this bread doesn't contain yeast and shouldn't be kneaded.

11/5/08 11:35 am  
Blogger justine said...

I made this with SR flour instead as I didn't have plain/bicarb on hand, and it still worked out OK. I also over cooked a little but the dark brown crust was yummy. Great recipe. Now my old bananas won't end up in the bin...

14/5/08 4:49 pm  
Blogger Piccolapapi said...

Hi Amanda and Debbie,

This may probably sound weird but is it possible to substitute the yoghurt for buttermilk?

23/5/08 6:20 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

Hi Clara,

We haven't tried using buttermilk in place of the yoghurt, so we aren't sure how well it would work. If you do try it, please let us know how your banana bread turns out.

23/5/08 7:26 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I made this the other day and it was so nice!

I didn't have any walnuts/pecans so I had to leave them out, but it still turned out great. :)

Your recipes always work SO well.

24/5/08 10:55 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My banana bread turned out very wet, almost the consistency of a cake that did not rise. Could it be because I used slightly more banana, about 415g, than called for?

7/6/08 7:46 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

It does seem like a small change, but if you didn't make any other changes to the recipe, then the extra banana probably caused the problem.

12/6/08 5:59 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've made the banana bread twice, carefully following your receipe. However my bread turned out kind of crumbly and it took longer than the 1 hour and 5 minutes, an extra 15 minutes and than when I poked the skew in, batter still came out. My oven is fan forced. Please tell me how I can improve this in the future?!

11/7/08 1:33 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

When you sliced the cooled banana bread, was the centre wet, crumbly or just right?

15/7/08 9:05 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The bread turned out good, but it had a slight alkaline taste to it. I was wondering whether this may be due to the bicarbonate of soda or perhaps the walnuts (I followed measurements)? If the former, could I use self-raising flour instead and just omit the bicarb?
Thanks.

4/8/08 1:41 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

Did you use all of your walnuts in the bread? If any remaining walnuts tasted fine, then they probably weren't the problem. You could try reducing the amount of bicarbonate of soda to 1/2 teaspoon, or omitting it and using self-raising flour instead of plain.

9/8/08 2:10 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is awesome.. I made it the other day for the 2nd time.. followed your instructions to the latter.. no problems at all..!

very nice banana bread and keep the recipes going!

16/8/08 12:24 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The recipes on this site never fail. It was really yummy!!! I was very impressed!

26/8/08 7:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi - I really love your site. Provides me some 'Aussie tastes of home' - as I live in Hong Kong. Thanks so much for sharing.

I notice you have 2 banana bread recipes - how would you compare both of them? I would value some idea of which one I should choose... thanks again.

Thanks
Li

3/9/08 12:06 am  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

Hi Li,

The banana, date and pecan loaf has a softer, more cakey texture than the banana bread.

3/9/08 3:18 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi

Are you able to use vegetable oil instead of butter in this recipe?

Cheers

Emma

12/2/09 11:01 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If I was to make this without walnuts, would I need to change anything else?

12/2/09 12:22 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

FYI in regard to my previous comment and using the only ingredients I had in the house:

I used grapeseed oil instead of butter; wholemeal self raising flour and ommitted bicarb of soda; used 120g pecans and skim milk yoghurt. It was ready in around 45 mins or so - tastes great!

Emma

12/2/09 3:45 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

To the person who asked about omitting the walnuts: If you omit the nuts, you won't need to make any other changes to the recipe.

12/2/09 5:19 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi there, but is there something wrong with the measurements? It says 160g of walnuts is 1 1/3 cups? Which measurements do I follow then? It also said 300g of plain flour (2cups). If I remember correctly, each cup is equivalent to 250g?

24/2/09 2:51 pm  
Blogger Amanda and Debbie said...

One Australian cup holds 250ml. The weight of 1 cup of an ingredient will depend on how dense the ingredient is. Just as a bag filled with rocks is heavier than an identical bag filled with feathers, 1 cup of mashed banana weighs more than 1 cup of walnuts. Use the cup measurements if you don't have accurate kitchen scales.

24/2/09 3:18 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fantastic recipe! I used self raising wholemeal flour and still put a bit of bicarbonate soda in and it came out perfectly. I love your website and have tried lots of your recipes. They are wonderful. Please keep them coming :-)

10/6/09 1:39 pm  
Anonymous spots68 said...

the very best fruit bread recipe. I've used tinned blueberries, apple and strawberry, banana and blackberries as a substitute in this recipe and it always comes out fantastic.

We always bake 3 loaves at a time as the first one evaporates within 1/2 hour!

2/9/09 2:15 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

I have made it yesterday, it took exactly 1h05min to bake and it is delicious, not too sweet, moist and yummy. Gets me eating nuts as I don't like raw walnuts and they are so healthy :)). Thank you again for a great recipe.

1/4/10 9:31 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great recipe! I made it again today and as before, it has been a huge hit. It is the nicest banana bread I've had -- better than in coffee shops.

3/4/10 4:49 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

I've made this recipe a few times with milk instead of yoghurt. It still turns out really well and a hit with visitors and work mates...

17/7/10 3:42 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was just wondering if I can substitute self-raising flour in a bread recipe that needs yeast, if I do, do I still have to add the yeast?

3/12/10 3:11 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just finished slicing it up, and it's so delicious and yummy! My dad said the pecans made it heaps better :) I've only eaten banana bread a few times, but I will never buy them again. I promised my friends from school that I would bring some for them, so better save a few slices before the family eats it up! Thanks for such a divine recipe!

28/8/11 5:12 pm  
Blogger Holly said...

Hi Amanda and Debbie,

Wonderful recipe! I just made it using brown sugar and I substituted wholemeal flour in place of plain flour. Unfortunately I omitted the nuts because Mum and Dad aren't too fond of cakes and breads with nuts, but I also added 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice. It's very delicious but I think next time I'll actually put 1 tsp of both spices, maybe some grated nutmeg and I'll definitely include the nuts!

Thanks for sharing!

15/12/11 5:02 pm  
Blogger kindraspirit said...

I'd really like to make this so my baby can eat it. Can I just cut The sugar right down without changing anything else?

31/12/11 11:16 am  
Blogger Angel said...

Great recipe! Followed your instructions and baking time. Perfect!

28/9/13 12:59 pm  

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