The Best Banana Bread Recipe

There's something about certain smells that instantly transport you back to moments in time. Sam and I moved into our house a a few years ago in June. It's about a mile up the road from my grandparents' house, where my sister and I spent countless summer days. I'm not sure if it's the wild violets, the huge patches of clover, the type of grass we have... maybe a combination of it all. Whatever it is, all I have to do is stand in our backyard and close my eyes, take a breath, and I'm instantly a mile and 20 years away and it's July, summer break, and I'm sitting on the bench under the tree with my grandma.

The same thing happens to me with the smell of ripe bananas. My grandparents always seemed to have a bunch of ripe bananas sitting in their kitchen, and all it takes is one waft of overripe bananas waiting to be made into bread and I'm back sitting at the kitchen table playing board games with my grandma and sister, with my grandpa sitting a few feet away in his recliner in the living room, scouring the paper for grocery deals and coupons (he was the original extreme couponer).

Couple that nostalgia factor with the fact that this banana bread recipe is simply perfect, and we've got a winner.

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The Best Banana Bread Recipe
by Twirlerica

Time: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
Makes 1 Loaf

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 overripe bananas
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350 ̊. Butter a 9x5x3” loaf pan.

Cream sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then add vanilla.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Add the bananas to the butter mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing by hand just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 55-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, then remove bread from pan and cool completely before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature for 3-5 days.

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The Details

Need a little more info? Let's break it down into detail.

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Remember when I ripped apart my pantry? Well, I found four opened bags of walnuts.

Four. Opened. Bags. Of. Walnuts.

I made this recipe without nuts the time I took the photos because I didn't think I had any. Lol. It's great either way, though.

An important note: both the butter and eggs need to be at room temperature. If the butter is at room temperature and you add cold eggs to it, the butter will turn into chunks that may hold onto ingredients, giving you pockets of egg yolk or dry flour once you slice into the bread. Mixing everything at room temp will yield a nice smooth batter, with everything evenly distributed.

For equipment, I always use a nonstick loaf pan, but a glass bread pan will work just fine as well. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer if you'd like, but I usually just mix this recipe by hand. The only part you'll want to use a mixer for anyway is for creaming the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Everything else will be done by hand to prevent overmixing the batter.

Wait to make this recipe until your bananas are super dark - not just ripe, but to the point where they have more black spots than yellow. This will give you the best banana flavor and sweetness. To speed up the ripening process, place bananas in a brown paper bag. The ethylene they release will build up and cause them to ripen faster. If you have a ripe avocado, apple, or pear, place that in the bag with the bananas. That will get you there in the quickest time.

This bread is perfect as is, but add some softened butter and a pinch of salt and thank me later.