I think I have found possibly the best banana bread ever with this recipe. Read on.
In case any of you didn’t know, one of the main missions behind Drizzleanddip aside from the altruistic desire to share delicious food and my recipes on the internet, was to unearth and discover the best-ever version of any baked good that I love. I want to put a stake in the ground and move on feeling assured that I have discovered what I think is the best. I move through life always on the hunt for delicious recipes – you can ask pretty much any chef I encounter, and I’m never completely settled until I find THE ONE.
I’ll go into more detail about the ONES that I have found and probably why I wrote a dessert and baking cookbook, but I had never really found the best banana bread. There are many recipes claiming to be the best and I think the version I have in my first cookbook was probably the closest I got to it until I discovered a recipeby Ashlae from Oh Lady Cakes Blog. A quick interrogation uncovered two new interesting aspects: 1) the bananas need to be completely overripe, and 2) there is quite a lot of salt in the mix. I had to try.
Because I believe that banana bread should contain a minimum of 4 large bananas I had to increase the ratio to that. I can almost not get enough banana flavour into the loaf no matter how hard I try. I also wanted to play around with coconut sugar, which I have recently fallen in love with and never used in baking. Ashlae strongly insists that the bananas need to be well into their overripe stage to add the relevant sweetness to this recipe and I fear mine was not quite there yet but close.
What sugar to use in banana bread:
I used her quantity of sugar but replaced it with less sweet coconut sugar, and the overall result was I wanted more sweetness. I know I should have double-tested this recipe for you guys using regular sugar but I’m going make take a stab at the perfect ratio here. Coconut sugar has a delicious caramel/palm sugar taste so I would use Muscovado or Demerara sugar as a substitute if you can’t find it.
This recipe is made by hand and it’s important not to overwork the mixture after the flour has been added. This will cause the texture of the loaf to be chewy (too much gluten being released etc). So you can beat the hell out of the mixture before this stage, but then delicately fold the flour through. If it’s too runny, add a little more.
I’m also of the belief that walnuts are imperative to banana bread and I loved how they were added to the top of this loaf along with additional sugar and sea salt flakes to create a sublime crunchy topping.
The texture of this loaf is ridiculously soft and moist and remains so after a few days sealed in an airtight container. It is now my best-ever banana bread and will be my go-to until I ever discover a better one. I probably won’t bother looking tbh.
How to store ripe bananas:
Top tip – if you have bananas that have gone past their edible stage of ripeness, pop them in the freezer in their skins and simply thaw when next you want to make banana bread. I always have at least 4 stashed away for this exact purpose. They turn black and look quite gross, but don’t worry, they are fine.
Oh, and in case you wanted to know what my best-ever baked recipes are, take a look here:
My best-ever baking recipes
My 10 best cake recipes
I recently made a banana bread with pecans and sultanas with this same sugar topping and it was so delicious.
My other favourite banana bread has cranberries and walnuts in it if you prefer that flavour profile.
Recipe – makes one medium-sized loaf – adapted from Oh Lady Cakes (I can’t link to the specific recipe as her website is behind a paywall now)
Possibly the best-ever banana bread
A recipe that could be the very best banana bread recipe.
Print Recipe
Prep Time:15 minutes mins
Cook Time:55 minutes mins
Ingredients
- 4 very ripe/overripe bananas 380gms
- 4 large free-range eggs
- 2 Tbsp milk any kind
- ½ cup sunflower oil or other neutral oil
- 3/4 cup or 160gmcoconut sugar or brown sugar muscovado / Demerara
- 2 cups cake flour / 290gms
- 2 tsp 8gm baking powder
- ¼ tsp 1gm baking soda
- 1 tsp salt yip, a whole teaspoon of table salt
Topping
- 2 - 3 Tbsp coconut sugar or 2 Tbsp regular dark brown sugar of your choice
- a handful of walnuts roughly chopped (a little more than ¼ cup)
- Sprinkle of sea salt flakes
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line a medium-sized loaf tin with parchment paper.
In a large bowl whisk the bananas until soft (this will happen easily), then add the eggs, milk, oil, and sugar. Whisk until well combined.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the wet mixture and gently fold until it's incorporated.
Empty this into the lined baking tin and top with the additional sugar, chopped walnuts, and sea salt flakes. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes until golden and baked through. To test if it’s done, insert a sharp knife into the thickest part of the loaf and if it comes out clean it's done. If necessary, loosely cover the loaf with tin foil from about halfway through to prevent over browning.
Allow this to cool in the tin for a while and then remove to cool on a wrack.
Notes
*You can use self-raising flour, just leave off the baking powder and baking soda if you do
Servings: 1 loaf
