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Nearly everyone loves the taste of banana bread, which is why it’s amazing that it is actually much healthier than most baked goods. I almost always have a loaf of fresh, moist banana bread sitting on the dining room table for the family to snack on between meals, and I think it’s a good habit others should adopt too.
That’s why I put together this post about why banana bread is growing in popularity and how you can properly prepare and store it.
Table of Contents
- About Banana Bread
- What Exactly Is Banana Bread?
- Why Is Banana Bread So Popular?
- Banana Bread Preparation
- How To Mash Bananas
- What Kind Of Bananas To Use
- How To Keep It Moist
- Can You Replace Bread Flour with All-Purpose Flour?
- Other Tips
- Serving and Storing Banana Bread
- How To Serve Banana Bread
- How To Store Banana Bread And For How Long
- Freezing Banana Bread
- Banana Bread Recipes
About Banana Bread
Banana bread is the most searched-for bread recipe in the United States, ahead of even something like whole wheat bread or sourdough. But why is it so immensely popular? Let’s take a look.
What Exactly Is Banana Bread?
Banana bread is a semi-sweet bread made with mashed bananas as one of the principle ingredients. Most of the bread’s sweetness comes from the healthy sugars naturally present in bananas, so it is considerably healthier than other sweet baked goods that rely on added sugars for their delectable taste.
Bananas also contain a lot of Potassium and vitamin B6, two nutrients that are lacking in many diets. Furthermore, banana bread often includes whole grains and other healthy ingredients.
Banana bread is not the same as banana cake, which is lighter and fluffier due to a greater amount of leavening agent. Banana cake also tends to have more fats and sugars, which is why it is considered a dessert rather than a snack like banana bread.
Why Is Banana Bread So Popular?
Banana bread initially shot to the forefront of baking during the Great Depression of the 1930s because it makes use of an ingredient that hardly any other recipes do: the overripe banana. Bananas were a very popular fruit around the time of the Great Depression because they were cheap, delicious, and filling.
Unfortunately, they went bad quickly, and people were not super jazzed about the prospect of eating brown or even black bananas. People quickly realized, though, that those overripe bananas are actually the best kind to use in banana bread since they contain the most natural sugar. Banana bread quickly became a national sensation.
Over the next few decades, banana bread remained popular. As the world recovered from the Depression, banana bread recipes with more decadent ingredients like nuts, creams, and extracts emerged. The home baking boom of the 1960s bolstered its popularity, too. Sometime around the late 1970s, though, banana bread fell out of style.
In the past few years, banana bread has undergone a resurgence in popularity because of the pandemic. Not only has baking soared in popularity since people are looking for more things to do at home, but people are also looking for ways to repurpose food like in the 1930s. It’s not necessarily because they can’t afford groceries, but instead because leaving the house and going to the supermarket is a bigger ordeal in the midst of COVID. Quarantine restrictions have now loosened up considerably since their peak, but the banana bread trend has still stuck somewhat in the collective consciousness.
Even besides period-based factors like the Great Depression or the coronavirus quarantine, banana bread has always been popular with bakers because of how versatile it is. Preparing banana bread is not like most baked goods, which require a very specific set of ingredients or they’ll taste bad. With banana bread, bakers can throw in whatever they have lying around in the pantry and, as long as they use some banana and flour, it’s likely to come out well.
Banana Bread Preparation
Let’s review some tips to keep in mind when you’re making your own banana bread.
How To Mash Bananas
Break the bananas into a few parts by hand and put them in a bowl. To break them up, use a potato masher (the best option) or an electric mixer if you have one. If you don’t, you can use the back of a fork. You don’t need to totally puree the bananas, but the more mashed they are the more flavorful they will be in the bread.
As a rule, 1 cup of mashed banana is 2-3 medium-sized bananas.
What Kind Of Bananas To Use
Believe it or not, the best bananas for banana bread are the ones that are already black, or at least dark brown. Those bananas contain the most natural sugar, so they make for the tastiest banana bread.
How To Keep It Moist
Banana bread is nice and moist when the ratio of bananas to flour in the bread is spot-on.
If your banana bread comes out of the oven too dry, try drizzling a little syrup over it. The syrup will soak into the bread and make it moister. I recommend simple syrup, which is equal parts water and melted sugar.
To keep banana bread moist in storage, be sure to keep it in an airtight container like plastic wrap or Tupperware!
Can You Replace Bread Flour with All-Purpose Flour?
Yes. The results will be very similar, though not exactly the same. All-purpose flour contains more yeast, so substituting bread flour will result in a slightly denser banana bread.
Other Tips
Some miscellaneous tips:
- Grease the pan to help the bread come out smoother.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time to evenly distribute them.
- If the bananas you’re using aren’t already brown, peel them and heat them at 300 degrees in the oven until they become golden brown.
- Add a touch of sour cream or applesauce for more moisture.
- Don’t beat the ingredients too much or the gluten in the batter will break down and the bread will be too dense.
Serving and Storing Banana Bread
Some tips to keep well-made banana bread at its best after it’s made.
How To Serve Banana Bread
After baking banana bread, let it cool for 10 minutes before plating it. Most people will cut the first piece off either end of the loaf, but you should actually cut a slice from the loaf in the middle. That way, you can push the two halves together after taking the piece, which means the inside of the loaf will not be exposed. This is a good way to keep banana bread fresh.
My recommended foods to serve with banana bread:
- Orange slices
- Milk chocolate
- Yogurt (to top the banana bread)
- Berries
- Nuts (pecans are my favorite)
How To Store Banana Bread And For How Long
Banana bread stays good for three or four days on the counter as long as it’s wrapped up or stored in an airtight container. It will start to dry out after that, although it won’t actually start to taste bad for a week.
If you store it in the refrigerator, the banana bread will last a full week before it starts to dry out. If you go with this option, though, make sure to heat up the banana bread in the microwave or oven before serving it.
Freezing Banana Bread
You can freeze banana bread for four months and it will stay good. To do so, you should wrap it in a layer of tin foil and then stash it in a totally airtight container – I’d recommend a Ziploc bag with as much air sucked out of it as possible.
When you take your banana bread out of the freezer, leave it on the counter to thaw. Before serving it, heat it in the microwave. You may also want to drizzle a bit of syrup over it to make sure it is as moist as when you baked it.
Banana Bread Recipes
Now that you know how to make and take care of banana bread, here are a few of my favorite recipes:
- Banana Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Snickerdoodle Banana Bread
- Whole-Grain Banana Bread
- One Banana Bread Recipe
- Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Time To Get Baking
Banana bread is delicious and so easy to make. It’s also healthier than most baked goods, so it’s a great snack to leave sitting out at all times. I hope this quick overview of banana bread helps persuade you to make up a batch ASAP.
