We went to a once a month market that sold clothes and other knick-knacks this past weekend and at the back were the food sellers (majority selling baked goods) and this young man had a stall piled with very attractive-looking, rustic and authentic items such as croissants, pannetone and banana bread. But much to our surprise, a whole loaf of banana bread was going for $25! Mind you, it was a very sexy and large banana bread but I thought…”wow!” At home, I whip up banana bread so fast that I couldn’t imagine any banana bread being worth that much money. Now I wish that I had bought a slice of it to see how good it was…next month perhaps.
I always keep bananas in my freezer ready to defrost and make into banana bread. It started out one year with a market stallholder selling me 10 kilos (22 pounds) of bananas for $2AUD at the end of the day!! We put two in a snack Ziploc bag and froze them – over a year later, we’re still eating them!
My standby foolproof banana bread recipe is an adaptation from the American Sunset magazines classic cookbook first published in 1963 called “Breads”. It takes me less than an hour and a half from the prep to the baking and it tastes divine toasted under the grill with lashings of butter. My recent find has been ground nut meals at the Wayville Sunday market and have been topping my banana bread with ground walnut meal as well as in the batter. The extra oils and texture add an extra dimension and crunch.
This was the first time I put chocolate chips on...
Foolproof Banana Bread
2 cups flour OR 1 2/3 cup flour and 1/3 cup walnut meal
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp each baking soda & salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
Chocolate chips are optional
In a bowl, stir together flour, nut meal (if using) baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and nuts until thoroughly blended. In a separate bowl, combine bananas, milk, egg and butter; stir into dry ingredients just until well blended. Pour batter into a greased 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch (10 x 20 cm) loaf pan. Sprinkle top of loaf generously with walnut meal and/or chocolate chips if desired.
Bake in a preheated 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 1/4 hrs or until bread begins to pull away from sides of pan and a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Makes one large loaf.
Desperately Seeking Crab 
I have made something similar to this over the years, when I have bananas left over that will go off. I usually sprinkle in some nutmeg or cinnamon, i’ve never used choc chips, I should give that a go. My bread has always been pretty popular too! 🙂 Yours looks yummy though and i will definitely give it a go.
I had no idea you could freeze bananas. How do you defrost them, just leave them out to melt?
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Hey Kelly, yup, defrosting them is as simple as leaving them out to melt. If they are in plastic bags, I would drain out the really watery liquid and mush up the pulpy banana bit and then use it for the bread. I love having frozen bananas to make smoothies with (and that’s when I leave them frozen).
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I sent a link to your blog to my Mum last night and this morning the following message arrived in my inbox…
“Had a quick look at 06.00 this morning and the banana bread recipe looked very familiar. I have one in my little red recipe book I have had since I was in my teens. Every NZ housewife in those days made the damned stuff!
3 medium ripe bananas
1 C sugar
.5 (100gm) cup melted butter
2 C flour
1 t salt
1 t Baking soda
1 beaten egg
1 C chopped nuts (usually walnuts)
Mash bananas and cover with sugar. Add beaten eggs and melted butter. Add sifted dry ingredients. Add nuts. Pour into well buttered loaf tin. Bake 1 hr at 180.
Try making one – you’ll remember the flavour instantly having had copious slices since you were wee!
Love M xxx”
I’ll make one… that’s if my husband Jimmy hasn’t thrown out my frozen bananas that he thought I stored in there “by accident”!!!
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Hi, just thought I’d let you know, just made this bread. It came out perfectly, thank you sooo much. 🙂
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You are very welcome! I am glad that it came out nicely. Whenever you have any bananas that are over-ripe, just throw them in the freezer to use for making this recipe. Cheers.
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Made this last week and the kids loved it with peanut butter for breakfast. I added the ground walnuts for extra protein.
So this week I made a quadruple recipe, but I was so busy recalculating the ingredeients that I forgot ALL of the sugar.
They still taste decent to slice and eat.
But, I made french toast with one of the loaves this morning and it was Amazing. The maple syrup on top puts the sweetness back in but leaving the sugar out keeps the whole dish from being too sweet. So yummy! Now I am glad that I have 3 more sugar free loaves for French toast.
Oh, I also added 1/2 tsp vanilla to the recipe (2 tsp. for a quadruple batch!)
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Are you missing an ingredient in the ingredients list? Chopped walnuts and… what?
1/2 cup each chopped walnuts (optional)
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Hi Alex, my goodness I have never realized that I had a typo in the recipe. Thanks so much for pointing it out. It should just be 1/2 c. walnuts. Cheers!
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