The Most Amazing Easy Moist Banana Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to moist bread? ›

Fortunately, one of the most glaring baking problems has an easy solution: ensuring your bread stays moist. The key is twofold: use quality ingredients and let the dough stand overnight. If you're using storebought flour, opt for “bread flour,” which will hold better in heat and help create a more tender crumb.

The basic banana bread formula

Most banana bread recipes have the same formula, roughly: 115 grams (½ cup) butter (or oil) + 200 grams (1 cup) sugar (white or brown) + 2 large eggs + 2 or 3 mashed bananas + (190 grams) 1-½ cups flour + 1 teaspoon baking soda + ½ teaspoon salt.

The best way to ensure that the bread comes out moist is to use the full amount of mashed bananas, 2 cups.

Using too much banana could make your bread heavy and damp in the center, causing it to appear undercooked and unappealing. If you have bananas leftover, you can always freeze them for later use.

Honey adds both sweetness and moisture to breads such as challah. Be sure to use a pasteurized honey, as wild honeys contain antibacterial properties that can kill yeast. Store honey at room temperature, out of direct sunlight. Honey would makes everything better, but especially sourdough.

If you want delicate, soft, and tender baked goods, I recommend using oil vs. butter. Butter will result in a denser crumb and not be as moist.

Baking soda works best in conjunction with an acidic ingredient. In the case of banana bread, this may be buttermilk, brown sugar, molasses or the bananas themselves. Recipes generally include just enough baking soda to balance the acidity in the batter.

The leavening power of baking soda is about three to four times stronger than baking powder. This means that you need a lot less baking soda in your recipes. If a recipe calls for baking soda and you only have baking powder, you need to use the right baking soda to baking powder conversion.

As a general rule, you can use either baking soda OR baking powder in banana bread – both ingredients will make your banana bread rise. While baking soda will react with acidic ingredients in the batter to raise your bread, baking powder can leaven banana bread without the addition of acidic ingredients.

Don't over-beat the mixture. Despite being called banana "bread" it isn't a bread, it is a cake insomuch as it is made from a batter, not a long-kneaded dough. If you start mixing and it seems already too dry - STOP - and add a few tablespoons of milk to loosen the mixture up.

Why won't my banana bread cook in the middle? ›

Your oven may not have been set to the correct temperature. You may not have used the correct pan size. You may not have followed the recipe correctly. For example, you may have added too much liquid, or you may not have added enough of some dry ingredient, and therefore your dough may have had too much moisture.

Adding more eggs makes for a spongy, less flavorful banana bread. Doubling the number of eggs I was using resulted in a spongy cake with a moist texture. While the banana flavor was present, it wasn't as prominent as it was in other loaves. This had more of a hint of flavor.

While it's okay if the banana peel is dark brown or even black, if the inside is too, then the fruit is beyond ripe and now on its way to rotten. Another sign that bananas have gone bad is if they start leaking any fluids. When in doubt, just toss the bananas out.

1-1/2 bananas: 1 cup chopped | 3/4 cup mashed. 2 bananas: 1-1/3 cups chopped | 1 cup mashed. 3 bananas: 2 cups chopped | 1-1/2 cups mashed. 4 bananas: 2-2/3 cups chopped | 2 cups mashed.

Lubricate With Oil. One of the easiest ways our bakers follow to make bread soft and fluffy is by using 1-2 tablespoons of lubricant/fats such as vegetable oil to wet the ingredients.

There's something magical about the bread you get at your local bakeries - they're always sooo soft and fluffy. Many of these breads, especially packaged ones, are made with a ton of chemical additives such as calcium propionate, amylase, and chlorine dioxide which help keep them soft, light, and fluffy for days.

A simple and cost-effective method of applying moisture to both the dough and the oven is to use a small handheld water sprayer, available from most supermarkets or online.