After coming home from a weekend vacation I was greeted by a bunch of rotten bananas (in the words of Athena, my 8 year old). More commonly known by the rest of us as super ripe, at their prime, ready to bake bananas. Perhaps most normal people wouldn’t find this exciting – I was totally ecstatic.
Banana bread it would be. All my usual banana bread recipes call for 2-3 bananas. I decided I was going to use all five bananas in one pop – there would be no marathon baking festivities on this day.
So I found a recipe with great reviews using five bananas and a stick of butter – sounds right up my alley. As all quick breads go, dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another and stir until just combined. Do not over mix – I can never stress that enough. Quick breads are pretty much fool proof – the only way to mess them up is to over mix or majorly over bake – so don’t do either. Spoon the batter in your greased loaf pan and sprinkle with some crushed walnuts. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean – your looking at 60 -70 minutes. I pulled mine out of the oven at 65 minutes, but it should have been left in for a few extra minutes.
That’s it. Easy, delicious bread loaded with banana flavor. Rest assured, the five bananas in this bread make it super moist and perfectly dense.
So go ahead and buy a bunch of bananas and put them away just for this recipe. It’ll probably be quite sometime (next vacation, perhaps) until I have 5 overripe bananas in my house again…I look forward to it.
Thanks for reading and Happy Baking : )
-Amanda-
Recipe adapted from Shelley Albeluhn at allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/banana-banana-bread/Detail.aspx
- 2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ cup butter, at room temp
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 5 large bananas, extra ripe
- 1 tablespoon crushed walnuts, optional
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Grease/spray a loaf pan.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In another bowl, mash bananas. A fork works wonderfully.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.
- Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.
- Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just till combined. Do not over mix.
- Pour/spoon batter into prepared loaf pan.
- Sprinkle walnuts on top of batter.
- Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.
- Let bread rest in loaf pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool.
- Enjoy : )
- Recipe adapted from Shelley Albeluhn @ allrecipes.com
YUM! I love banana bread! Gotta make some soon. 🙂 Looks delicious!
Thanks Trish! I’m constantly playing around with quick breads – it’s as close as I can come to freestyle baking : )
Likely a dumb bachelor mistake but… at what point do you do something with the butter/sugar you creamed? 🙂
I had 3 bowls (arguably 4 for whisking eggs, but let’s assume not).
1) my solids
2) mashed bananas+eggs
3) creamed sugar
I make (1), (2), (3), put (2) in (1), bake, and … use (3) for icing?? Sorry in advance if this is (probably) obvious.
Hi! You know what…you’re right…this is a little confusing.
It’s written as:
In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
In another bowl, mash bananas. A fork works wonderfully.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar.
Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.
Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just till combined. Do not over mix.
Sooooo…it’s:
1) Flour/dry ingredients
2) small bowl – mash bananas
3) creamed butter/sugar
Then add bowl 2 and (whole) eggs into bowl 3. Mix. Then bowl 3 into bowl 1.
Perhaps it would be less confusing if I just listed ingredients as “5 bananas, mashed” and skipped the whole bowl 2 confusion.
Or did I just make it more confusing. Lol.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I think I can help demystify the confusion 😀
Generally, you want to cream together butter and sugar, then add the eggs to the creamed mixture and stir without breaking the emulsion.
Then add your bananas to the creamed mixture and stir.
Now you have 2 bowls, one wet, one dry.
Add wet to dry and combine.
Hope this helps 😀
I didn’t think it was confusing. You were clear about not over-mixing after the flour was in the batter & other important details. I got everything mixed in, one way or another & it came out great. Thanks!
I just made this “5 banana banana bread”… It is the best banana bread I’ve ever made.ive’ve warmed it with a little butter …DELISH…and tonight I’ll have a piece with a little vanilla ice cream…YUM !!! I’ll definatly be making this again and again…thank you
Yay! So glad you enjoyed it! Sounds delicious with some vanilla ice cream! Thanks so much for stopping by Marianne – Happy Baking ♥
hi there,
how much is 2 cups of flour in g? I used the conversion 1 = 340 x 2 and it seemed too much for the mixture so it was a waste! sorry novice baker here…
1 cup of all-purpose flour is approximately 120 grams. So you would use about 240 grams of flour in this recipe.
Sorry for the mix-up – hope this helps for next time 🙂
This is my family’s favorite banana bread recipe! I make it in a bundt pan and bake for 40 minutes. Delish!
So glad you enjoyed it! I bet it’s wonderful in a bundt pan – I’ll have to try it soon!
Thanks for stopping by Holly 🙂
I used the recipe…totally didn’t find the instructions until after I grew impatient and just did what I thought sounded right from the rest of the story. (Apparently I was scrolling right past them on my phone). My very “whatever” process was throwing everything powdery in one bowl, and the rest in another. Turned on the mixer for the wet stuff, fork mixed the dry stuff, and then slowly poured dry stuff into the mixing bowl. Followed the recipe to a T. Royally deviated from the process…lol
Anyway, the house smells good. We’ll see what’s what in about 20 more minutes.
Hi Glenn!
I’m sure the bread turned out well! The only thing you can do to mess up the mixing process of a quick bread is overmixing. There’s plenty of room for freestyling 🙂
Hope you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks for stopping by!
We were also faced with very ripe bananas – 5 !
Followed your recipe, swapping out all purpose flour for gluten free plain flour and baking soda for gluten free baking powder and put in a round 9″ cake tin, baked for 60 mins.
OMGoodness, we cut it into one inch strips and smear of butter, absolutely delicious, even my one lad who hates bananas tried it and said yum yum more please.
Thank you, definite hit and only 1/4 left !
I’m already being asked when am I making it again.
Wonderful! So glad to hear you all enjoyed the recipe and love hearing that your gluten-free version turned out scrumptious!
Thanks for stopping by Chelle 🙂
How were you able to swap baking soda and baking powder? They are totally different ingredients that do completely opposite things…
I had an impulse purchase of an 18 mini loaf pan the other day for 10 bucks, I’m using your recipe as a base ( Added and subtracted a little here and there) I was only able to fill 14 of the pans about half full which should be ok but I’d like to fill the darn thing. I might have to write a seven banana recipe. The last recipe I tried only got me to 1 dozen but was fantastic. I cannot give it a rating quite yet it’s almost done but I guess you’re supposed to let it cool
I’m wondering how the omission of baking powder still works with this recipe. Not that I’m doubting the recipe because I’ve made it five times and it is the best banana bread I have ever made, so thank you for the recipe.
I’m living with my in-laws for a season and found the freezer half full of old bananas. I’m gluten free, so I adapted the recipe just a bit. I have made 4 batches of muffins and mini-muffins and they only last a few days. Everyone loves them! And I cleaned out the freezer! Thanks. This was exactly what I was looking for.
This is so good. I looked for something to do with my bananas that always seem to go bad fast and I ran across this recipe. Thanks it’s great.
Absolutely the BEST evet banana bread! Recipe is perfect as is or easy enough to play around with. And its a fun recipe to make with and for kids. I’ve even added flax and/or other seeds/nuts. Thank you for your baking brilliance!