Seeing as the whole world seems to be making banana bread...
If you've been on Instagram lately (of course you have, what else is there to do in lockdown?), you might have noticed your feed is awash with banana bread recipes. Why? Probably something to do with us all having unprecedented (I've heard this word constantly on the news and now it's made its way into my vocab) free time. Or maybe because the bananas we bulk bought are now overripe. Either way, we're not the only ones who've noticed the bounty of banana breads online.
Blogger (and owner of the most #interiorgoals flat ever) Kate La Vie also took to her Instagram Stories to say her blog traffic had been unexpectedly high even on days she hadn't blogged, all down to her banana loaf with cinnamon butter recipe . Looking at everyone's attempts to make banana bread inspired us to bake our own and if you're feeling the same, here's our round-up of the best banana bread recipes on the internet, starting with Kate La Vie's.
The classic banana bread recipe
Kate La Vie's Banana Loaf with Cinnamon Butter
Ingredients
100g salted butter
175g caster sugar
vanilla essence
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
100g chocolate chips
2 mashed ripened bananas
2 tablespoons milk
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C, pop in your bananas if they're not already ripe to soften them. Grease a good sized loaf tin and leave to one side.
2. Leave the butter to soften for a while before you make this and then cream the softened butter with the sugar. Next, add the eggs and a couple of drops of vanilla essence and beat until combined.
3. Fold in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips) but be careful not to over mix, then add the mashed banana and milk – slowly folding a couple of times.
4. Pour the mix in to the greased loaf tin and clean up any spills on the side of the tin. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and leave to cook for around 45 minutes to an hour.
5. The top should be golden, and a knife poked in to the centre should come out clean when the loaf is ready.
6. Leave the banana loaf to cool before gently easing out of the tin.
Cinnamon Butter recipe
Take a 1/4 cup of salted butter and let it soften, then add a tablespoon or two of icing sugar and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and mix with an electric mixer. You can add a little more icing sugar or cinnamon to suit your taste.
The celeb-approved banana bread recipe
Chrissy Teigen's Banana Bread Recipe
Serves 12
Active time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients
6 mashed very ripe bananas *
4 eggs
170ml rapeseed oil, plus a little more to grease the pan
250g plain flour, plus a little more for dusting the pan
450g sugar
1 (96g) box vanilla instant pudding mix **
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt
60g unsweetened shredded coconut
1 (96g) bar dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
Salted butter, for serving
*Get six brown bananas. Not four. Not five. Six. You will think you only need five because it looks like enough, but it will not be enough. You will get five, you will mash them, you will be about half an inch short and that makes a difference and you cannot get around it. Trust me.
**/I won’t tell you what brand to use, but the right brand rhymes with smello. There’s no exact equivalent in the UK, but it can be easily found online. Don’t use banana-flavoured pudding mix. I tried it. It is gross.
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 325˚F/160˚C.
2. In a large bowl, combine the mashed bananas, eggs and oil. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, pudding mix, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine well BUT GENTLY. I swear this came out differently when I used an aggressive electric mixer. Fold in the coconut and chocolate chunks.
3. Grease and flour a Bundt pan (that means wipe a little grease all over the inside of the pan, dust it with flour, and tip it upside down to shake out any extra flour). Pour the batter into the pan. (This can also make two 20 x 10-cm loaves, but it’s so much more moist in on Bundt pan!)
4. Bake until the cake springs when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes. (Test it with a toothpick at around 50 minutes.) Let it cool slightly in the pan, then use a butter knife to gently release the cake from the sides of the pan and around the inner circle, then flip it on to a plate.
5. Let it cool and cut it into slices. Re-warm them and serve them with salty butter!!
Recipe extracted from Cravings: Hungry for More by Chrissy Teigen published by Michael Joseph.
The gluten-free banana bread recipe
Nina Parker's gluten-free chestnut banana bread
Serves 8
Ingredients
190g chestnut flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon powder
4 ripe bananas, mashed, about 350g
85g buttermilk or whole milk with a few drops of lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g so unsalted butter
225g muscovado sugar
2 free-range medium eggs, lightly beaten
Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4, and grease and line a 24cm cake tin with baking parchment.
2. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the banana with the buttermilk or whole milk with lemon drops and vanilla extract.
4. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, this takes about 5 minutes. Still beating, gradually add a little of the beaten eggs followed by a spoonful of the dry mix. Keep alternating and adding until all the egg and dry mix has been incorporated. Use a spatula to gently fold in the banana mixture, until just combined.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 40 minutes until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a cooling rack for 15 minutes before carefully removing the banana bread from the tin to cool completely.
6. Serve immediately, or, if you have the will power, wrap in cling film where it will keep well for up to three days.
Extracted from Nina Capri by Nina Parker.
The chocolate banana bread recipe
Roz Purcell (AKA Natural Born Feeder)'s easy chocolate banana bread recipe
Ingredients
200g oats
4 bananas
3.5 tbsp maple syrup
4 tbsp tahini or nut butter
3 tbsp coconut oil
Baking powder
2 handfuls of Chocolate chips
Some sort of food processor (nutribullet or whatever to blend to oats)
Utensils: fork, spoons, small saucepan, mixing bowl, bread tin and parchment paper.
Method
Preheat oven to 180•C
Blend oats into a flour.
Mash 3 of the bananas.
Add all the banana bread ingredients to a bowl and mix into a batter.
Spoon into a lined bowl 1/2lbs bread tin.
Bake for 50 then leave to cool fully
Buy cookery author Roz Purcell's No Fuss Vegan recipe book on Amazon
The vegan banana bread recipe
Bosh's vegan banana bread recipe
Makes one loaf
Ingredients
250g plain flour
75g light brown sugar
75g white sugar
11⁄2 tbsp cocoa powder
1⁄2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1⁄2 tsp salt
1⁄2 tsp ground allspice
110g dairy-free butter
3 ripe bananas
60ml almond milk
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g dark chocolate
50g pecans
Preheat oven to 170°C, line a 1kg loaf tin with parchment paper - you'll need a food processor
Method
1. Pour all the ingredients except the dark chocolate and pecans into the food processor and whizz them to a thick mixture. Take out the blade and scrape any excess mixture back into the bowl.
2. Break the dark chocolate and pecans into small pieces and tip them into the bowl. Mix everything together
3. Pour the mixture into the lined loaf tin and put it in the oven. Bake for 60–65 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean
4. Take the tin out of the oven and leave the bread to cool to room temperature. Remove the bread from the tin and cut it into slices to serve
Recipe from BOSH! by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby (HQ, HarperCollins).