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This is the Best Banana Bread Recipe in the entire world – I promise! It’s my mom’s banana bread recipe and I’ve been making and eating this my entire life. The quick bread is soft and fluffy with perfect banana flavor – you’re going to LOVE it.
BEST Banana Bread in the Whole World
I make a lot of banana bread. Every single banana bread recipe or banana muffin on this site has been based off of one recipe: my Mom’s. It’s one of those recipes I’ve eaten my whole life.
I have to say, I think it’s the best banana bread recipe, ever. And while I love all my variations, I still love the original recipe the best.
Why you’ll love this recipe
- It’s SUPER easy with banana in every bite
- Stays moist for days
- Has a nice long crack down the center and tons of banana flavor.
- Is a bit crunchy on the outside and super soft on the inside
- Banana bread is the perfect way to use up overripe bananas – and it’s so easy to make. You’re going to love my mom’s recipe.
- She has two simple things she does that makes her bread stand apart: the milk and the pan.
Banana Bread Ingredients
The worlds best Banana Bread (no kidding) is a simple quick bread recipe. “Quick Bread” is bread that doesn’t have yeast (as in, it’s quicker to make it because it doesn’t need to rise).
- Bananas: You need to use overripe bananas for this. They should be nice and brown spotted – my mom calls them tired bananas.
- Butter: you can use either salted or unsalted (see recipe notes).
- Sugar: Granulated sugar goes into the bread AND my mom uses it on the pan – one of her secret tips!
- Sour Milk: Basically, sour milk is the same thing as buttermilk. Back when this recipe was written, I’m figuring that milk went sour more than it does now, but if you don’t have sour milk sitting around, don’t worry, you can make your own.
How to make the BEST Banana Bread Recipe
- Make your sour milk and let it sit for 5 minutes.
- Cream together room temperature butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy.
- Option 1: Add bananas, eggs, baking soda, and milk to a blender and blend until smooth. Mix the wet ingredients into butter mixture with the all purpose flour.
- Option 2: Mash your banana, then mix mashed bananas into the butter and sugar mixture with the eggs, baking soda, milk, and flour.
- Mix until the mixture is smooth. You can use a hand mixer or a stand mixer.
- Add to the pan and bake. Mom’s tip: grease and sugar your pan. Spread butter or shortening all over the loaf pan and then, instead of using flour, use granulated sugar to coat.
Recipe Swap: Sour Milk
This is a banana bread recipe with sour milk! Basically, sour milk is just buttermilk but since we rarely have that around, and milk doesn’t go bad like it used to, here’s what to do:
- 1/2 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice + 7 tablespoons milk or nonfat milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice + 7 tablespoons nondairy milk
- 7 tablespoons buttermilk
The acidity in the sour milk (or vinegar or buttermilk) active the baking soda, making the bread rise.
Expert Tips
- Did you know you can freeze bananas? Whenever my ripe bananas get too much so, I just throw them in the freezer (peels and all). Then I defrost them on the counter to make banana bread or cake whenever I want.
- The sugar pan coating gives an amazing crunchy sweet crust to the bread. To get the amazing pan effect for this bread you grease the pan with butter or shortening, then you add some sugar and move the pan around so that you coat all the greased parts with sugar. Add the batter as you normally would and bake. Note: do NOT try and sugar your pan using a cooking spray instead of butter or Crisco.
- I don’t normally use vanilla but you can add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract if you want.
- You know banana bread is done when it is dark golden on the top and there will be that nice long crack running through the center. The crack is my favorite part! You know it’s done when a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs from the center of the crack.
FAQ
It won’t last long because you’ll eat it fast, but store it covered on the counter. If you’re like us, it’ll be gone in a day.
You can slice the cooled loaf and freeze the slices in sandwich baggies. Then pop one into a lunchbox for a yummy mid-morning snack.
This recipe also makes great mini loaves or muffins. I’ve done them all. Just adjust the baking time.
This recipe calls for blending them but you can also just mash the bananas with a fork and add them to the recipe that way. Or, use your mixer to mash them!
The bananas and eggs in the recipe help keep it moist, along with the sourness/acid combination from the baking soda and sour milk. Don’t over bake it for ultimate moist bread and keep it wrapped well so it doesn’t dry out.
Simply substitute 1:1 gluten free flour for the all purpose flour.
This recipe is written for baking soda, which is activated by the sour milk and helps the bread rise and be nice and soft and moist.
Best Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar plus more for the pan
- ½ cup (113g) salted butter softened (plus more for the pan)
- 2 medium tired bananas brown spotted
- 2 large eggs
- 7 tablespoons (103ml) sour milk see note
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups (248g) all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x5x3” loaf pan with butter and coat it with sugar. (You do this like you would grease and flour a pan. Grease it first, then add about 2 tablespoons sugar to the pan and move the pan side to side until the bottom and sides are coated with sugar. Do NOT substitute cooking spray for the butter. You can skip the sugaring and just use cooking spray, if you wish.)
- Cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer. Set aside.
- Add bananas, eggs, milk, and baking soda to a blender jar and blend until smooth.
- Pour half the banana mixture into the butter mixture with 1 cup of flour. Mix with hand mixer until just incorporated, then add the remaining banana mixture and flour. Mix until just incorporated. Stir in nuts if using them. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs. The edges will be a dark brown and there will be a nice crack down the center.
- Cool completely before removing loaf from pan, but you can cut slices from the pan after it’s cooled for about 15-20 minutes.
Recipe Notes
- 1/2 teaspoon vinegar + 7 tablespoons milk or nonfat milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vinegar + 7 tablespoons nondairy milk
- 7 tablespoons buttermilk
- Unsalted butter: add 1/4 teaspoon salt to the recipe
- Gluten-Free 1:1 AP Flour – use equal parts
- Whole Wheat Flour: use 1 cup each whole wheat and AP flour
- Oil: substitute 1/2 cup vegetable oil for the butter
- Pan: Use an 8×4-inch loaf pan and make just 1-2 muffins along side
Recipe Nutrition
Other Favorite Quick Breads
This is the BEST Banana Bread Recipe ever – it’s an easy moist banana bread that’s my mom’s recipe. Make this plain or with chocolate chips or walnuts – it’s such a simple classic and the BEST recipe!
I love banana bread and this truly does look like the best! So moist and not too brown. I need this for breakfast tomorrow.
I think you do too! ๐
What a great idea with sugaring the pan, I’ve never even heard of that! My banana breads never turn out that great, but I use a weird sized pan and they totally do end up burnt on the outside and raw in the middle! I think i need to get a 9×5 one and try out your recipe! … And yes you should def share more of your Mom’s recipes! ๐
I think I’m going to – so much easier, ha! ๐
Wow! This is the most beautiful banana bread. I love the mind blowing tip of adding sugar to a greased pan. Amazing. I can’t wait to try that. Moms are truly the best!!
They sure are! Enjoy the sugaring Zainab!
I just love the smell of banana bread and how moist it feels, it makes me pretty happy. Also since this is a “Mom” recipe I totally trust it and will make it very soon! Can’t wait to devour it…
Me too! Enjoy Pamela!
That looks amazing! I haven’t had breakfast yet and now I really, really want a slice of that!
Thanks Tonia!! Me too, ha!
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