No Mixer Needed Banana Bread
How to make banana bread – your way:
I love banana bread and so does my family. It is almost a staple in our home as we buy bananas weekly and some of them get too soft for some of the more fickle eaters amongst us (it is me… I’m the fickle eater!). There’s something quite disgusting in my opinion about eating soft, overripe bananas right out of the skin (I prefer bananas that have just turned ripe).
So when the bananas are past their prime, I repurpose them into banana bread and songs are sung to honour me. Just kidding! But I do get heaps of extra love for a few moments spent in the kitchen.
Because we love banana bread so much, I’ve made almost all of the more popular ones that you’ll find on the web when you type “banana bread recipe” in the Google search engine. But today was different. I actually wanted to make my own version of banana bread from my own recipe. The problem was, I didn’t know where to start.
Looking at most banana bread recipes, they are all really quite the same ingredients (the exception being additions made at the end, such as adding chocolate chips, fruit, nuts and/ or a myriad of spice choices such as cinnamon and nutmeg for example.
So, I went digging for how to create a basic quick bread recipe and came across some information on food52.com that gives an outline on how to go about it. To summarise here, they give a formula of sorts for the flour, sugar and oil ratios and it goes like this:
For every 3 parts of flour, use 2 parts of sugar and 1 part of oil.
So, when I did my calculations, for 2 cups of flour, I needed 1 1/3 cups of sugar and 2/3 cup of oil. I could be wrong in my calculations, but either way, those are the measurements I used for my bread and it came out great. But I’m jumping the gun a bit here.
So, where were we? Right, flour, sugar and oil does not a banana bread make on their own. Besides the obvious ingredient of bananas, there were things like baking soda and baking powder to consider and how many eggs for example.
There’s some science to why baking soda and baking powder are ever used in breads and if I’ve understood correctly, it comes down to whether or not you have acidic ingredients in your batter. So if there are acidic ingredients, such as, bananas, yogurt, sour cream and brown sugar for example, you’ll need baking soda. It is a leavening agent, meaning it helps the bread to rise in the oven. But since the batter may be a thick one, thanks in part to the bananas, then it would need a bit more help than the baking soda alone to get a nice rise in the oven. This is were baking powder steps in. And together, they make a light and well risen bread once fully baked.
But, how much of the baking soda and baking powder to use? Apparently, the rule of thumb is for every 2 cups of flour, add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Right, so we have the flour, sugar, oil, baking soda and baking powder. How many bananas… I used 4 of them (medium) but 3 large ones or 5 small will also do. Next, for the eggs, I used one per cup of flour. Is this scientific? Nope! But from my past experience (as an amateur in the kitchen), this has always worked. I’ll have to make a note to find some evidence to support my theory! Extracts should always include the vanilla kind or if you can find it, any kind of essence – again, vanilla works, but mixed essence is very nice in this bread as well.
Finally, the additions. In the past, I’ve added chocolate chips, cream cheese, nuts and even raisins (not all at the same time though!) and a turn or two of the ol’ nutmeg mill and a dash of cinnamon. It’s a very versatile bread!
Here’s the recipe:
Easy Banana Bread – No Mixer needed
Equipment
- Two bowls
- Measuring spoons and cups
- Spatulas
- Food scale – optional
- Baking tin – 9 x 5 or 8 x 8
Ingredients
- 2 cups Flour 250 grams weighed
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/3 cups sugar granulated
- 4 medium bananas, mashed very ripe, the riper, the better
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or mixed essence
- 2/3 cup oil canola or neutral tasting oil
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 9 x 5 baking tin with parchment paper with some overhang to allow for easy removal from tin.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a large bowl.
- Mix the eggs, sugar, bananas, vanilla extract and oil together in separate bowl. This is what mine looked like after thoroughly mixing.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, taking care not to over mix.
- Transfer to greased and lined tin and bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in tin for about ten minutes and then move to cooling rack to cool completely.
Let me know in the comments if you try this formula and how your personalised banana bread recipe came out!
