You don't need to be an experienced baker to fill your home with the fantastic smells of freshly baked banana bread. It's quick, easy and healthy too.
Banana bread is one of those classic home made items that even the most beginner of baker can have success at. Not overly sweet, but still moist and delicious. Banana bread isn't usually used as a typical bread (as in sandwiches or grilled cheese) but more as a dessert-like baked good.
I recently made some banana bread from scratch with my almost-3-year old daughter and it was a huge success. She loved stirring the ingredients and loved eating the warm treat afterwards.
Easy Banana Bread
This is the recipe I use at home, which comes in handy when the last few bananas get overly ripe. I use whole wheat flour for my own baking, but this can be made with regular all-purpose flour for a lighter/sweeter bread.
- 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 ripe bananas)
- 1/3 cup margarine
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ cup milk
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
Beat margarine and sugar together in a small bowl until fluffy. Stir in mashed bananas and eggs. In a larger mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Pour in banana mixture, and then milk. Mix together until well blended and combined.
Pour batter into your loaf pan and bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes clean. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, then turn your banana bread out of the pan to cool completely.
You can alter this recipe to suit your own tastes by adding chopped nuts or chocolate chips (about ½ to ¾ cup).
Another Easy Banana Bread
- 4 mashed bananas
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ cups of flour
Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 8x4 inch loaf pan.
Mix butter and bananas together, and then stir in sugar, egg and vanilla. Sift together the flour and baking soda, then mix into the liquid mixture. Stir until you have a well blended batter. Pour into your loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour. Cool and remove from pan.
If you have any leftover banana bread to store, it can be kept in the fridge for several days. A quick heat-up in the microwave will bring it back to fresh-from-the-oven status. Or you can freeze the remaining loaf, and thaw when you want to serve. You can either thaw with the microwave, or just leave the frozen banana bread in the fridge for a day or two.
