An easy to make, family favorite, moist, banana bread recipe with extra banana-y flavor made with oven-roasted yellow bananas!
I'm not a baker and I'll never claim to be one but I will occasionally like to pretend I am and end up making something that I actually enjoy! This easy roasted banana moist banana bread was born out of Terry's monthly necessity for banana bread with no black overly ripe bananas to work with, so this is his recipe. Traditionally, one of the best ways to make banana bread is to use overly ripe bananas that are SUPER DUPER mushy and black but I don't like eating bananas so I very rarely have them on hand.
Is this roasted banana moist banana bread any good? You know, coming from a non-baker and all. I'd say it's fantastic! This is actually my favorite banana bread recipe (and I don't really like bananas!) but I'm probably being a bit bias so don't take my word for it - give this one a try and judge for yourself 🙂 and as always if you have some neat tips, they are always welcomed.
INGREDIENTS FOR MOIST BANANA BREAD
- Bananas - We use yellow bananas for this recipe, but if you have the very ripe, black bananas, those will also work very well in this recipe as well. If you use the black ripen bananas you can skip the 'Baking the Yellow Bananas' step but make sure you add an extra ¼ cup of condensed milk to make up for the natural banana extract from baking the yellow bananas, it will give you back some moisture.
- Butter - I use unsalted butter for this recipe, and add my own salt. If you don't have unsalted butter, you can use salted butter but remove the ½ teaspoon of salt from the recipe when mixing the dry ingredients.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk - I like to use sweetened condensed milk for this recipe for the added moisture, sweetness and flavor. If you can't find sweetened condensed milk, you can use heavy cream instead but make sure you add an extra 1 tablespoon of sugar to make up for the loss in sweetness from the sweetened condensed milk.
HOW TO USE YELLOW BANANAS FOR A MOIST BANANA BREAD
When Terry put this recipe together, he used a method from theKitchn by Anjali Prasertong on "Can You Quickly Ripen Bananas in the Oven for Last-Minute Banana Bread?" but he went the extra mile and also figured out a way to make his banana bread extra banana-y by squeezing the roasted banana skins by hand to extract the banana extracts.
After baking the bananas, they got really juicy - I know it sounds really strange, banana's doesn't have any juice right? and being the weirdo that Terry is, he decided to squeeze the living daylight out of the skins to extract all the banana juices. This added extra moisture, natural sugars, and extra banana flavors - almost like a naturally sweetened banana extract. Neat-O right?
TRY NOT TO OVERMIX YOUR BATTER
To get a tender and moist banana bread, it's important that you don't overmix your batter. Overmixing it brings out the glutens in flour and makes the banana bread dense, and tough. It's okay to undermix the batter, I personally do it this way and just fold the batter approximately 10 times or until the flour is just combined with the wet ingredients - that's why the batter in the photos below doesn't look fully mixed with flecks of flour still.
Alternatively, Terry's method is to use the one bowl method and he mixes both the wet and dry ingredients together into one bowl for less fuss and cleanup. This does work as well, but you will need to mix the batter a bit more to get everything combined which will give you a denser banana bread.
HOW TO PREVENT YOUR BANANA BREAD FROM GETTING STUCK IN THE PAN
I hate it when my cakes get stuck to the pan. I have not figured out a way to get it out without ripping it or ruining it so I prevent it by buttering the pan and then lining it with a strip of parchment paper so it can ever get stuck at the bottom - ever.
If it gets stuck to the sides - we can deal with that! Just run a knife or something thin along the sides of the pan to release it and then grip the parchment paper flaps and lift up!
LOOKING FOR MORE SWEETS? TRY THESE!
- Mini Butter Mochi Cake
- Chewy Five Spice Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Black Sesame Cheesecake
- Lemon Pancakes with Candied Maple Bacon
DID YOU MAKE THIS BANANA BREADÂ RECIPE?
If you made this banana bread recipe leave me a comment to let me know how it went! I also want to see! Follow Pups with Chopsticks on Instagram, snap a photo, and tag and hashtag it with @pupswithchopsticks and #pupswithchopsticks. I love to know what you are making!
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Easy Moist Banana Bread
INGREDIENTS
Wet Ingredients
- 3 bananas (yellow bananas, see notes)
- ½ cup unsalted butter (melted)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup sweetened condensed milk (see notes for substitution)
- 2 large eggs
Dry Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
INSTRUCTIONS
Baking the Yellow Bananas
- Pre-heat the oven to 300F (149C)
- Once the oven is pre-heated. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the whole unpeeled bananas on it and place it in the oven
- Bake it for 25-35 minutes (Watch it around the 20-minute mark, all ovens are different so it may be done sooner) You will know when it is done when the skins are black in color, look very shiny and very plump. The bananas might will leak some juices out as well.
- Once it is done, remove it from the oven and let it cool before you handle it. The insides are REALLY hot so be very careful to not burn yourself.
Putting Everything Together
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F (177C)
- In a large bowl combine the wet ingredients (melted butter, vanilla, condensed milk and eggs) and sugar together and beat it with a fork. Make sure the butter has slightly cooled before mixing the eggs in - we don't want to cook the eggs 🙂
- Once the roasted bananas have cooled, peel the bananas and place the bananas in the bowl with the wet ingredients and mash it up with a fork very well.
- Take each banana skin and squeeze all the liquid out from the banana skins by hand and mix it into the wet ingredients as well, this will be the naturally sweetened banana extract, which will also give the banana bread some added moisture! 🙂
- In another bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon)
- Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix it until just combined (don't over mix it, it's okay if you see flecks of flour in your batter). Once the batter is just combined, set it aside.
- Grease a loaf pan with butter or oil
- Cut a strip of parchment paper and lay it on the bottom of your loaf pan lengthwise with the flaps sticking up (See blog post for photos)
- Pour the batter into the loaf pan
- Once the oven is up to temperature, add the loaf pan in and bake it for 45 minutes.
- Once 45 minutes is up, insert a skewer into the middle of the loaf to test if it is done - the skewer should come out clean and not have any batter on it. If there is wet batter on the skewer when you pull it out, let it continue to bake and do the skewer test every 5 minutes until it comes out batter-free.
- Once it is done baking, wait for the banana bread to cool for 10-15 minutes before you lift the parchment paper flaps to remove it from the pan. If it is a bit stuck and cannot be easily lifted out, run something thin along the sides of the pan to release it a bit and then try again
- Slice it up and enjoy! 🙂
NOTES
- You can use very very ripe black bananas for this recipe if you do not have yellow bananas. If you do, skip the 'Baking the Yellow Bananas' step and add an additional ¼ cup of condensed milk since it will not have the extra banana juices from the baking step
- If you can't find sweetened condensed milk you can substitute it with with heavy cream and 1 tablespoon of sugar
- Terry's shortcut for this banana bread recipe is to skip the mixing the wet/dry ingredient separately and just add it all together into one bowl and mix everything together - oddly this works as well but you will need to mix it more to get everything well combined and it will produce a denser (less airy) banana bread.
NUTRITION
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Josie says
I really like to see the ' pups with chopsticks ' cooking blog. Reason being is Joyce is amazing, comes up for exploring in creative ways to yield deliciously quick and healthy meals , deserts etc. , simple ingredients and very little process.
As I love to eat banana, therefore this TERRY’S EXTRA BANANA BANANA BREAD is definitely would be my first try.
Joyce says
Thank you for your kind words 🙂 I try my best, and I hope that anyone who tries my recipes give me tips as well of their neat finds because cooking is all about learning and you should never stop learning! 🙂
romain | glebekitchen says
I can't bake my way out of a paper bag. Seriously. This recipe is perfect for me. I love bananas and I love banana bread. Banana peel extract. I always love the mad kitchen science that goes on at pupswithchopsticks:-)
But ummm - how can you not like bananas? I'm scratching my head here...
Joyce says
You and me both friend. haha! So yea this recipe is kinda a miracle and I'm happy I can just make banana bread (or have banana bread made for me? huhuhu) The banana peel extract was like a WHOA COOL moment. When we let it cool it actually became a gel! So this definitely gives the banana bread added moisture. 🙂 I have no idea why I don't like bananas. They taste like acetone to me or smells like it. Apparently it's because I let them go too ripe before eating it 😛 but they are SO SWEET. I don't have a crazy sweet tooth maybe. haha!
Emily says
I love banana bread so much! This recipe looks so moist and delicious!
Joyce says
Definitely moist and deliciously banana-y! As Terry would say! 🙂
Anjali says
there's nothing like the excitement of having extra ripe bananas for banana bread!
Joyce says
haha I'm more the kid that's like 'Is it ready yet? can I eat it? how about now? how about now?' for all baked goods! 🙂
Katie says
The little chunks of banana bread really draw me into this - I can imagine taking a warm bite with some Kerrygold butter spread on top!
Joyce says
Sounds comforting! 🙂
Katie says
Alright, I've have my fair share of banana bread and this one takes the cake (takes the bread?) - I can't believe how delicious this is! Thank you for sharing!
Joyce says
I still don't know if it's bread or cake haha!
Kristine says
This banana bread looks so hearty and delicious! I have baked my yellow bananas for years (for banana bread), it's been my little secret weapon - LOVE IT! I'd like a slice of your bread right now! 🙂
Joyce says
No way! Definitely worth the extra effort for baking the bananas! I LOVE this little secret!! 🙂