easy banana bread recipe – walnuts optional
There’s nothing like a slice of delicious banana bread with a cup of coffee in the morning. This banana bread is so moist and flavorful you, like my husband, will be craving it all the time. Seriously! Luckily this recipe is simple to make and only requires one “secret” ingredient. My husband seriously loves this banana bread so I tend to make it pretty often.
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve pretty much nailed this recipe. The bad news is I’ve pretty much eaten my weight in banana bread thus ruining my new year’s resolution. Win some/lose some, right?
Ingredients
- 1 stick of butter, melted (1/2 cup)
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup of banana yogurt or plain yogurt*
- 3 very ripe bananas, mashed (The riper the banana, the sweeter the bread)
*The banana yogurt gives the banana bread an extra hint of sweet banana flavor but it also provides a moist element to the cake. I normally mix in a Chobani single-serve cup of yogurt and skip using a measuring cup! You can also substitute in plain yogurt, greek yogurt, banana-on-bottom yogurt, or buttermilk.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Grease or spray a 9 inch loaf pan to use later.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.
- Add in the eggs one and a time and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
- Sprinkle the flour, baking soda and salt over the butter mixture and stir to mix until JUST combined. Be careful not to over-mix, just enough to make a uniform dough!*
- Fold in the bananas and banana-flavored yogurt.
- Pour batter into prepared pan (from step #2) and bake 60 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
- The cake is done when a cake tester (I use a wooden skewer) comes out clean. Cool until warm before serving.
*Alton Brown taught me that over-mixing will strengthen the gluten thus creating a VERY tough and chewy banana bread.
If you want to do more baking, check out my Chocolate Swiss Cake Roll recipe. Needing a savory fix? Test out the Best Mac and Cheese recipe. Check out other tasty recipes here!
