Banana Bread
A plain banana bread built around overripe bananas. Full method, ripeness guide, and nutrition breakdown.
This is the fourth thing I have ever baked. The first three were a potato bun, a Finnish blueberry pie, and a Swedish kladdkaka.
Banana bread kept turning up in front of me for weeks, so I bought bananas and left them on the counter until the skins went black. It also covers something the other two did not. The pie forgave everything and the kladdkaka punished a long bake, so both of them ran on the oven. This one runs on the fruit. Ripe bananas give you a sweet, wet loaf, and underripe ones give you a bready one at the same oven setting.
Why Banana Bread
Banana bread uses fruit that has gone too far to eat. As a banana ripens the starch converts to sugar and the flesh softens, so the fruit sweetens the loaf and keeps it wet without more sugar or butter doing that job.
What Each Part Does
| Element | Role |
|---|---|
| Overripe bananas | Sugar, moisture, and most of the flavour |
| Bicarbonate of soda | Reacts with the acid in the bananas and yoghurt for lift |
| Light brown sugar | Molasses content deepens the flavour and holds water |
| Greek yoghurt | Adds acid and fat, keeps the crumb soft |
| Long, low bake | Cooks a deep loaf through without burning the crust |
| Full cooling | Sets the crumb and stops the centre going gummy |
How It Comes Together
flowchart TD
A[Mash bananas, leave lumps] --> F[Stir banana into the wet bowl]
B[Whisk flour, bicarb, baking powder, salt] --> G[Fold dry into wet, stop early]
C[Cream butter and brown sugar] --> D[Beat in eggs, vanilla, yoghurt]
D --> F
F --> G
G --> H[Into lined 2lb tin]
H --> I{Bake 55 to 65 min at 160C fan}
I -->|Skewer has a few moist crumbs| J[Out of the oven]
I -->|Skewer has wet batter| K[10 more minutes, retest]
K --> I
J --> L[15 min in the tin, then wire rack]
L --> M[Cool 1 hour before slicing]
Banana Ripeness
How far gone the bananas are changes the loaf more than anything else in the method.
| Skin | Result |
|---|---|
| Yellow with green tips | Starchy and barely sweet, bready loaf |
| Even yellow | Mild flavour, needs more added sugar to carry it |
| Yellow with brown freckles | Usable, decent sweetness |
| Mostly brown or black, soft inside | The correct one, sweetest and strongest flavour |
A black skin is fine. Flesh that smells fermented or has gone grey is not, so throw those out.
Ripening bananas in an hour
If the bananas are still yellow, put them unpeeled on a lined tray and bake at 150°C fan for 15 to 20 minutes until the skins go black and shiny. Cool them completely, then peel and mash. The skins split and leak, so line the tray properly.
The Tin
I bought a Silverwood 2lb Loaf Pan with Rounded Corners, MPN 40712.
I would not have guessed I would ever spend £30 on a tin to bake in, and here we are.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Material | Anodised aluminium, uncoated |
| Capacity | 2lb (900g), British Standard size |
| External size | 10.75 x 5.5 x 3in |
| Made in | Birmingham, England |
| Price | £27.30 inc VAT |
| Delivery | £6.95 |
| Total | £35.64 |
The rounded corners version releases a wet cake batter more cleanly than the Vpan, which tapers and suits a crusty tin loaf instead.
Anodised aluminium has no non-stick coating on it, so there is nothing to peel or blister, and the tin will not warp or rust. The light silver surface also browns slower than a dark coated tin, which is what this recipe needs over an hour in the oven. The trade-off is that a bare tin sticks more for the first few bakes and builds a patina as it goes.
Preparing an uncoated tin
Wash it in warm soapy water and dry it fully before the first use. Grease the inside with softened butter, right into the corners, then line the base and the two long sides with one strip of baking paper. Hand wash only, no dishwasher, and dry it straight away rather than leaving it on the rack.
Ingredients (10 slices)
| Ingredient | Brand / Source | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Overripe bananas, peeled | Any, three medium | 300g |
| Plain flour | Waitrose Organic | 250g |
| Bicarbonate of soda | Any | 1 tsp (~5g) |
| Baking powder | Any | ½ tsp (~2g) |
| Salt | Any | ½ tsp |
| Unsalted butter, softened | Yeo Valley or Kerrygold | 115g |
| Light brown soft sugar | Billington’s | 150g |
| Large eggs | Notting Hill Farmers Market | 2 |
| Greek yoghurt, full fat | Yeo Valley | 60g |
| Vanilla extract | Nielsen-Massey | 2 tsp |
Optional add-ins
| Ingredient | Brand / Source | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Walnut halves, roughly chopped | Waitrose | 75g |
| Dark chocolate, 70%, chopped | Menier or Green & Black’s | 100g |
Neither went in on the first bake. I wanted to taste what the bananas and the muscovado do on their own before adding anything that competes with them, and a plain loaf is also the one that tells you whether the method worked. The second bake gets the chocolate.
Chop a 100g bar into rough pieces rather than buying chips, because chips hold their shape and pieces melt into seams through the crumb. Toss them in a tablespoon taken out of the weighed flour so they grip the batter instead of sinking to the base. They go in at Step 8, once no dry flour is left but before the batter reaches the tin, so the folds that spread them through the loaf are the last few folds the batter gets. Hold a dozen pieces back and press them into the top after levelling it.
Use plain flour, not self-raising. The bicarbonate of soda and baking powder here are measured against the acid in the bananas and the yoghurt, and self-raising adds more leavening on top of that.
Softened butter means an hour at room temperature. It should dent when pressed and hold its shape. Melted butter creams flat and gives a dense loaf.
Soured cream, crème fraîche, plain natural yoghurt or buttermilk all stand in for the Greek yoghurt at the same weight. Use natural or plain, never flavoured, since vanilla or fruit yoghurt adds sugar the recipe has not accounted for.
Fine salt, not flakes. It goes into the dry bowl and has to spread through the whole loaf, and a coarse flake sits in the batter as a crystal and gives you a salty patch in one slice and nothing in the next.
Softening butter in a hurry
Cut the 115g into 1cm cubes and spread them on a plate, and they are ready in 15 to 20 minutes. Grating the block on the coarse side of a box grater straight from the fridge gets there in about 5. For a hands off version, fill a bowl with boiling water, tip it out after two minutes, dry it and put it upside down over the cubes. Never the microwave, because butter goes from solid to melted in a couple of seconds and melted butter will not cream.
Method
Weigh everything out before you start mixing. Once the dry bowl meets the wet bowl the bicarbonate of soda is already reacting, and stopping to weigh flour at that point costs you lift. Working order is butter out to soften, everything else weighed into bowls, tin greased and lined, oven on, then mix.
The 150g of muscovado stays out of the dry bowl. It goes in with the butter, because the sugar crystals cutting into the fat is what makes the air pockets.
Step 1, Preheat and prep
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan or 180°C conventional. There is no penalty for preheating early, since the oven cycles the element to hold temperature once it gets there.
Grease the 2lb (900g) loaf tin with about 10g of butter, taken off the block separately from the 115g in the recipe. Rub it over the base, up all four sides and into the corners with a folded square of kitchen paper until the inside looks slightly wet. Fridge-cold butter is fine for this.
Then line the tin with one strip of baking paper, about 30cm by 12cm, running along the base and up the two long sides. Leave a few centimetres overhanging each edge so you can lift the loaf out. The short ends stay bare and greased. Bare anodised aluminium has no coating on it and grips a wet batter, so the paper is doing real work on the first few bakes.
Step 2, Mash the bananas
Mash 300g of peeled banana in a bowl with a fork. That is peeled weight, so you need about 450 to 500g of whole fruit to get there. Stop while some lumps remain.
Why lumps stay in
A fully smooth purée spreads evenly and gives one flat note of banana through the whole loaf. Lumps survive the bake as soft pockets of fruit, which is where the flavour concentrates.
Step 3, Mix the dry ingredients
Whisk 250g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, ½ tsp baking powder and ½ tsp salt together in a second bowl for about 30 seconds. Use a balloon whisk rather than a spoon, and lift as you go instead of dragging it round in a circle. The bicarbonate clumps, and a clump that survives into the batter leaves a soapy patch in the finished loaf.
Stop when the bowl is one even colour with no white specks. No sugar goes in here.
Step 4, Cream the butter and sugar
Put the softened butter and the 150g light brown sugar in your biggest bowl. Start the electric whisk on low for 10 seconds so the sugar stays in the bowl, then take it to medium for two minutes. Move the whisk around rather than holding it in one spot, and stop twice to scrape the sides and the bottom curve down with a spatula. By hand with a wooden spoon it is four to five minutes.
The mixture goes lighter, fluffier and noticeably bigger. Muscovado does not go pale the way white sugar does, so judge it on texture and volume. It should hold a soft peak when you lift the whisk out.
Butter that stays in lumps is still too cold, so leave it another 10 minutes. Butter that looks greasy and separated has gone too warm, so chill the bowl for 10 minutes and start again.
Step 5, Add the eggs, vanilla, and yoghurt
Keep the electric whisk on medium. First egg in, 20 to 30 seconds until it disappears and the mixture looks smooth, then scrape the sides down. Second egg in, another 20 to 30 seconds. One at a time because the fat only takes on so much liquid at once, and both together tends to split it.
Add the 2 tsp vanilla and the 60g yoghurt and give it 10 to 15 seconds on low. The mixture may look curdled or grainy here, which happens when the eggs are colder than the butter. Carry on, the flour brings it back together.
The whisk goes in the sink after this step.
Step 6, Add the bananas
Stir the mashed banana into the wet bowl with a spatula. Do not use the whisk from here on.
Step 7, Fold in the dry ingredients
Tip the whole dry bowl into the wet bowl at once. Fold rather than stir. Cut the spatula straight down through the centre to the bottom of the bowl, drag it along the base towards you, sweep up the near side and lift the mixture over the top, then turn the bowl a quarter turn. Down, along, up, over, turn. That is one fold and it takes about a second.
Ten to fifteen folds does it. Stop the moment no dry flour is visible, and check the bottom curve of the bowl before you call it done, because dry flour hides there. The batter should look thick, slightly rough and streaky rather than smooth.
Do not overmix
Every extra fold develops gluten. Banana bread batter that has been beaten smooth bakes tough and rubbery with tunnels through the crumb. A slightly rough batter is correct.
Step 8, Fill the tin
Fold in the walnuts or chocolate now if you are using them, keeping a few back for the top. Scrape the batter into the lined tin and level the surface with the back of a spoon. Scatter the reserved add-ins over the top.
Step 9, Bake
Middle shelf. Give the tin one firm tap on the counter first to knock out the big air pockets, then in it goes.
Bake for 55 to 65 minutes. Open the door at 40 minutes and look at the colour. Opening it is safe by then, since the structure has set and the risk of a temperature drop collapsing anything sits in the first 20 minutes. Deep golden brown means close the door and leave it. Very dark brown or black at the edges means laying a sheet of foil loosely across the rim, not tucked under the tin, for the rest of the bake.
First skewer test at 55 minutes, pushed into the deepest part of the centre. A few moist crumbs or a clean skewer both mean it is done. Wet batter means another 10 minutes.
Step 10, Rest
Rest the loaf in the tin for 15 minutes, which is long enough for it to firm up and move without breaking. Then lift it straight up by the two paper overhangs and put it on a wire rack. Peel the paper down off the long sides so it is not wrapped against the loaf, and leave the base paper underneath until you slice.
It comes out of the tin at 15 minutes and not later. The tin holds heat and steam against the sides, and the crust there stays damp for as long as it sits in there.
Then leave it on the rack, uncovered, for at least an hour. Covering it traps steam and the top goes tacky within 20 minutes. A hot loaf also tears under the knife and the centre reads as raw while the steam is still in it.
How to Tell If It Came Out Right
The skewer goes into the middle of the loaf, at the deepest point, and what comes out on it tells you what to do next.
| Skewer comes out with | What to do |
|---|---|
| A few moist crumbs sticking to it | Take it out, this is done |
| Wet batter coating it | Give it 10 more minutes and retest |
| Completely dry and clean | Take it out now, this is done and any longer dries it |
| Clean at the edge, wet in the middle | Foil over the top, 10 more minutes |
A finished loaf has a domed top with a split running along the middle, a dark brown crust, and sides that pull away from the paper. The split is correct. It happens because the crust sets before the centre finishes rising.
Slice it with a long serrated bread knife rather than a chef’s knife. A straight blade compresses the crumb and a serrated one saws through the crust cleanly. Cut the end off first, then take 2cm slices with a long back and forth stroke and no downward pressure, wiping the blade if the banana sticks to it.
The loaf cut into 2cm slices with a serrated knife, showing the split along the top and the crumb underneath.
A tunnel through the middle means overmixing. A wet line along the base means it needed longer. An even crumb with small holes means it came out right.
First Bake
| Detail | Result |
|---|---|
| Date | 3 September 2026 |
| In the oven | 20:12, 160°C fan, middle shelf |
| Colour at 40 minutes | Deep golden brown, no foil needed |
| First skewer test | 55 minutes, came out clean |
| Out of the oven | 21:07 |
| Out of the tin | 21:22 |
| Sliced | 22:22 |
| Verdict | Ranks bottom of the three bakes so far |
Observations
The recipe is simple and that part holds up. Two bowls, a fold, an hour in the oven, and the method never gets difficult.
Out of the oven it was underwhelming. Fresh banana bread is soft and sweet and not much else, and against the kladdkaka and the blueberry pie it ranks bottom of the three.
Toasted the next day it was a different thing. Cut face down in the cast iron skillet with butter, the sugar caramelises on the face and you get a crisp shell against a soft middle. That version was better than fresh, and it is how the rest of the loaf got eaten.
The overripe fruit is the other cost. The bananas have to go black before they are any use, which is a wait of several days on the counter, and the fruit flies that came with them hung around the kitchen for days after the loaf was out of the oven. The oven ripening method removes the wait. It does not remove the flies if the fruit is already sitting out.
Second bake gets the chocolate in it.
Storage
| Method | Time |
|---|---|
| Airtight tin, room temperature | 3 days |
| Fridge, wrapped | 5 days, drier crumb |
| Freezer, sliced and wrapped individually | 3 months |
Cool the loaf completely before it goes into anything sealed, which takes about three hours rather than the hour it needs to be sliceable. Warm bread traps its own steam, the steam condenses on the lid and drips back onto the crust, and the top goes tacky overnight.
Keep it whole rather than slicing it up. Every cut face is a surface losing moisture, so a fully sliced loaf dries out several times faster than one with two exposed ends. Stand the loaf cut face down on a plate inside the container and the exposed crumb sits against a flat surface instead of the air.
The freezer is the opposite. Slice the whole loaf, wrap each slice individually, and freeze. Nothing dries out at that temperature and you take out one slice rather than thawing the lot. A slice thaws at room temperature in about half an hour, or goes into the pan from frozen at a lower heat for three minutes a side.
Skip the fridge. Cold speeds up the staling reaction in the starch, so a refrigerated loaf goes dry faster than one sitting on the counter.
Toasting a Slice
Day two banana bread toasts better than a fresh slice does. The cut face has dried slightly, so it browns instead of steaming, and the sugar from the muscovado and the banana caramelises straight on the surface. Fresh out of the oven the face is too wet for any of that to happen.
A dry frying pan with butter is the method. Cast iron holds its heat, so the slice does not drop the pan temperature when it goes in, and the face browns evenly. Stainless works at a lower setting with more watching, because it has hot spots over the burner and browns the butter faster.
- Heat the pan on medium for three or four minutes.
- Add about 10g of butter and wait for it to stop foaming.
- Slice in cut face down, pressed flat with the spatula for a second so the whole face makes contact.
- Check the colour at 60 seconds. Deep brown across the face means flip it.
- Give the second side about a minute, since the pan is hotter by then.
Eat it straight off the pan. It softens again within a few minutes of sitting on a plate.
The caramelised face comes up out of the foaming butter after a minute in the cast iron pan.
The pan runs hotter than you think
Cast iron keeps enough heat to finish a slice with the burner off. Two minutes a side is the outer limit, not the target, and a domed cut face burns at the high point while the rest stays pale. First attempt here came out black in patches at two minutes.
A closing toastie grill does not work for this. The plates compress the crumb rather than crisping it, and melted sugar runs into the ridges.
Salted butter, cream cheese, Greek yoghurt with honey, or peanut butter all go on top. Warm with vanilla ice cream turns it into a pudding.
Nutrition, Per Slice (10 slices, plain loaf)
| Macro | Amount |
|---|---|
| Calories | ~285 kcal |
| Protein | ~4.5g |
| Carbohydrates | ~41g |
| Fat | ~11g |
| Fibre | ~1.5g |
| Sugar | ~19g |
With Add-ins
| Add-in | Additional kcal per slice | Additional fat |
|---|---|---|
| 75g walnuts across the loaf | ~49 kcal | ~5g |
| 100g dark chocolate across the loaf | ~55 kcal | ~3.5g |
| 10g butter on a warm slice | ~74 kcal | ~8g |
Per slice this runs lighter than the pie at ~350 kcal and the kladdkaka at ~360 kcal, mostly because the bananas replace butter and sugar rather than adding to them.
Summary
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Source | Standard method, built around overripe fruit |
| Adapted for | UK ingredients (Waitrose + Notting Hill Farmers Market) |
| Tin size | Silverwood 2lb (900g) anodised aluminium loaf pan |
| Bake time | 55 to 65 minutes at 160°C fan |
| Yield | 10 slices |
| Calories per slice | ~285 kcal |
| Best served with | Butter on a warm slice, or plain |
The method runs one bowl wet, one bowl dry, fold, and an hour in the oven. Most of the sugar and the flavour comes out of the bananas, so black skins do more here than technique.
The loaf is better toasted than fresh.
Documented September 2026.