Banana Bread

5 from 2 votes

The most delicious banana bread ever! Super moist, packed with banana flavor and so easy to make. This will become your go-to banana bread!

Prep Time15

Cook Time1

Course: Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine: American

Diet: Vegetarian

Servings:

Calories: 317kcal

Author: Alison

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and spray a 9x5 loaf pan with non-stick spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside.
Sift all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix together.
Add the butter to a microwave safe bowl and microwave until melted. Mash the bananas and measure them properly, and then add the mashed banana to the melted butter along with the eggs and vanilla and mash everything together until well mixed.
Add the wet ingredients in with the dry and mix it into a thick batter.
Add the walnuts if using and fold them into the batter.
Transfer the batter to your prepared loaf pan and smooth down the top with the back of a spoon.
Add a few more chopped walnuts to the top of the banana bread.
Place into the oven to bake for 60 minutes. You can bring it out at the 40 minute mark and tent with foil to prevent it over-browning. Tenting with foil is just placing the foil over the top in a tent shape so that it doesn't press down on the banana bread from the top. Place it back into the oven for the remaining 20 minutes. It's cooked when a toothpick inserted into the center of the banana bread comes out clean.
Let it cool in the pan for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before slicing and serving.

We used lightly salted butter but unsalted butter is also fine to use.
The bananas need to be really ripe and very spotty for the most delicious results in this recipe. Make sure you measure the mashed banana as we all may have differing ideas about what a 'large' banana is. The most accurate way to measure this is going to be using the cup measure (1 and ¾ cups) or weighing it on a food scale (393g).
Walnuts are optional. You can leave them out or replace them with chopped pecans or chocolate chips!
Cooking times can vary due to differing ovens as well as varying moisture content in the bananas.
Tenting with foil may not be necessary, it depends on your oven. If you see signs of over-browning then tenting with foil is the way to prevent this. If you don't tent it with foil and your loaf does get over-browned on top it won't usually have any impact on flavor, it only affects the look of your banana bread.
To adapt this recipe to make muffins, simply spray a muffin tray with non-stick spray and divide the batter evenly between the muffin partitions. Bake for 25 minutes.
This banana bread stays fresh at room temperature for 3-4 days or in the fridge for up to 7 days.
Recipe adapted from The Kitchn.