How to make moist banana bread
A good slice of banana bread is a thing of wonder: moist, beautifully scented with warming spices, sweet but not overly so (lest it creep too far into cake territory), and full of fruit flavor. A type of quick bread — named so because of its use of a chemical leavener, such as baking powder, instead of yeast, that allows it to be baked immediately once mixed — the batter is unfussy and comes together in a matter of minutes.
Despite the recipe’s simplicity, things can still easily go awry. Here are three keys to keep in mind to bake moist, beautiful loaves of banana bread.
The bananas
No surprise here: The most important factor in making great banana bread is the bananas themselves. It’s vital that they are very ripe — well past the point where I assume most people would want to eat them out of hand. This means the peel should be more black than yellow, if not fully black, which indicates that the fruit is wonderfully sweet, soft and aromatic. In addition to the sugar content, less-ripe bananas have less moisture to add to the batter, which could result in a dry loaf.
The flavorings
While you can bake good banana bread flavored only by bananas, you can step it up by adding in your favorite extracts and spices. A splash of vanilla extract is a common choice, but other options include almond for a note of nuttiness, chocolate for all the cocoa lovers of the world or coconut for a tropical vibe, just to name a few.
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When it comes to spices, I love the combination of cinnamon, cardamom and clove, but any warming spice, such as allspice, nutmeg, ginger or star anise, would work just as well. Or go outside the traditional baking-spice category with your favorite ground peppercorns. Your spice cabinet is your oyster.
Share this articleShareFor even more flavor, fun and texture, fold chocolate, nuts or seeds into the batter. But with all of these options, I recommend practicing restraint so that your add-ins don’t overwhelm the banana flavor, which should be the star of the show.
The baking
The last key to guarantee moist banana bread is to avoid baking it for too long. With baking recipes in general, it’s a good habit to start checking for doneness about 10 to 20 percent sooner than a recipe states. Why? Every oven is different, with some running hotter than others, and while the times listed in recipes are what the recipe developer experienced and offered as a guide for you at home, audio and visual cues should be the be-all and end-all for deciding when a dish is ready to come out of the oven. (To help you get in the habit, I list 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes as the bake time in my accompanying recipe, even though I’ve always needed the longer end of that range for it to be done.)
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