How Long To Bake Banana Bread

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How To Wrap Banana Bread After Baking

How To Bake Banana Bread

HomeBaking Tips

Banana bread is one of the most delicious types of bread in the world. It is easy to bake and prepare, and it can be stored for up to three months. Baking is one thing. But, storing and serving are two different things altogether. Today, I will be teaching you stylish ways on how to wrap banana bread after baking to make your banana bread preserve not only ready, but also serve ready.

How Ripe Should Your Bananas Be

The best kind of bananas for this recipe are ones that are overripe with a lot of speckles. If your bananas are still green or just yellow, then I suggest waiting a little longer.

If you need to speed up the process and ripen your bananas quicker, simply place them in a brown paper bag for 1-3 days. The ethylene gas will build up in the bag and circulate around the bananas, speeding up the ripening process.

Not Baking Your Banana Bread Long Enough

Most baked goods don’t really take that long to bake. Cookies? Typically you’ll leave them in for 10-12 minutes. Cupcakes? 20 minutes give or take. But banana bread? It takes a wildly long time, and you don’t want to skip out on that bake time.

Most banana bread recipes, such as The Kitchn‘s, requires banana bread to be baked at 350 degrees for 50 to 65 minutes. And while that may seem like a huge range, there’s a reason for it. According to The Kitchn, your bake time will depend on how moist your bananas are and the sugar content of them. Often, if you make banana bread and cut into it only to find a gooey, underbaked center, that’s the reason. It’s thanks to those bananas not having enough time.

It’s best to begin checking your banana bread sooner rather than later, but don’t pull it out of the oven until you’ve checked that it’s fully baked. The top and sides will be a caramel, dark brown, with a yellow bread color in the center, but check it with a toothpick to be sure it’s done. Insert a toothpick into the middle to check if it comes out clean. If it’s clean, or there are only a few crumbs, it’s ready to pull out.

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Not Using Ripe Enough Bananas For Your Banana Bread

First thing’s first, banana bread, of course, requires bananas. After all, that’s what gives your loaf its flavor and its lovely texture. But can you just grab any bananas from your kitchen counter fruit bowl and get to baking? Or even just grab a few at the store for your baking project? Absolutely not.

Banana bread requires super ripe bananas. We’re talking ripe enough that they’re starting to get brown spots on the peel. According to Real Simple, you want no green on the peel, but you also don’t want your bananas ripe enough that they’re rotten.

Insider explains that as a banana ripens, the starch in the fruit turns to sugar. Ultimately, they become sweeter the riper they are, which is why those with brown spots are utilized to add great flavor to baked goods. Whether your bananas are still at room temperature, or you chose to freeze a few old bananas you had let get too ripe for prime eating, the best banana bread will ultimately come from ripe bananas.

A Darker Pan Will Lead To Faster Browning

How Long To Bake Banana Bread In Mini Loaf Pans

It’s a fact that darker metal pans absorb more heat in the oven than lighter pans, and given that metal pans are great conductors, your banana bread will heat up faster on the edges if you bake it in a dark, metal pan. To avoid this, either bake it in a lighter pan OR lower the temperature of your oven by 25 ºF .

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Ingredients You Will Need

Other than ripe bananas, you need a few more simple ingredients:

We use all-purpose flour, but you can use 100% whole wheat flour or a combination of whole wheat and all-purpose flour. A gluten-free flour blend also works. Just keep in mind that changing the flour from all-purpose will affect the texture of the bread slightly.

Baking soda is our go-to leavener for banana bread. Since posting this recipe, quite a few of our readers have asked if you can make the bread without baking soda and instead use baking powder. While baking powder and baking soda are both excellent leaveners in baking, they are not always interchangeable. While I dont consider baking powder a perfect substitute in this case, if you are in a pinch, you can try substituting 2 teaspoons of baking powder for the 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda we call for in the recipe below. The bread may not brown as well and the texture will be slightly different.

Salt, vanilla extract, and cinnamon add flavor to the bread and make it taste amazing.

Butter is my favorite fat to use when making banana bread since it adds a luscious, buttery flavor to the baked bread. That being said, olive oil is an excellent substitute, take a look at our healthier banana bread that calls for olive oil instead of butter.

Brown sugar helps to make the bread flavorful and extra moist. You can swap other sugars , but the texture of the bread will change slightly.

Can You Freeze It

Yes, absolutely! To freeze the the loaf: Wrap the loaf tightly with plastic wrap and store it in a freezer bag or container in the freezer for up to 3 months. When youre ready to enjoy it, place it on the counter for several hours or overnight so that it can come to room temperature.

To freeze individual slices: Slice the bread and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, then place the baking sheet in the freezer for a couple of hours or until the slices are frozen. Place the frozen slices in a freezer bag or container and store them in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can thaw individual slices to room temperature or reheat frozen slices in the microwave for 20-30 seconds at a time or until warmed through.

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Why Would Baking Banana Bread Take So Long

The answer to the question is a combination of a few factors. First, when one makes a loaf of banana bread, there are certain dishes where the dough is placed and baked.

In most ovens, when one bakes a loaf of regular bread, it takes only about 20 minutes from when the oven reaches 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the timer goes off and the bread is finished baking.

In contrast, when baking banana bread with cooking time lasting at least 50 minutes, it isnt uncommon for either an electric stovetop or an ovens temperature to have dropped back down too low before being able to finish cooking. Thats why it is important to be careful.

Baking banana bread typically takes1 hour 20 minutes because bananas are much drier than other fresh fruit.

The secret to perfect banana bread is baking it at a lower temperature for a longer time, and it creates less heat which helps the cake stay moist and not dry out. Most people use 325°F, but 350°F 375°F produces softer finished products. To get the best results, tent the pan with aluminum foil during the first 10 minutes of baking, making mini loaves or muffins.

Banana bread is comfort food that many like. One can add so many ingredients like peanut butter, chocolate, and even nuts. One can achieve a nice piece of the loaf by following a few key steps and applying it all the way.

The recipe requires super ripe bananas, it should be such that it needs to have enough brown spots on the peel.

Techniques For Ripening Bananas

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For banana bread, the riper the better. The banana peel should be extremely spotted, almost entirely coloured and on the verge of turning all black on the outside. The bananas will be soft on the inside.

If your bananas aren’t ripe, the good news is that bananas continue to ripen after they are picked . You can’t speed up the process of ripening. You’ll just have to be patient. There are some bakers that claim you can ripen the bananas by baking them in the oven but that doesn’t make sense. Ripening is a biological process that transforms the fruit, making it sweeter and less acidic. Baking whole bananas can’t mimic that process.

I usually wait several weeks for bananas to ripen, especially during the colder winter months and there isn’t much you can do to reduce the time it takes. You can try placing the bananas in a paper bag with an apple. Apples release ethylene gas as they begin to decay, which promotes ripening of other fruit. Using an apple to ripen bananas would be a better option than baking the bananas and it’s science.

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Overmixing Your Banana Bread Batter

As simple as the ingredients are for banana bread, and as achievable as the method seems, banana bread can be a bit finicky. Whether you opt to make your banana bread in a stand mixer, or you’re simply using a bowl and a spoon, the key to a beautiful, fluffy, moist loaf is not to over-mix the batter.

According to Southern Living, the reasoning for not over-mixing is all about the gluten. As you mix, the gluten begins to develop. When too much gluten develops before baking, you can end up with a dense, chewy loaf, rather than the soft and delicious banana bread you were hoping for.

To avoid too much gluten development and achieve the perfect texture, it’s best to start by making sure your wet ingredients are fully combined before you introduce your dry ingredients. When it’s time to add the dry ingredients, gently fold them in maybe even using a spoon and not a mixer just until everything is fully incorporated.

How To Get The Best Cream Cheese Flavor

When I first tested this recipe, I used four ounces of cream cheese. However, my husband said it lacked flavor, and I wasnt a fan of how fluffy it was. Since I wanted a richer taste and a creamier texture, I bumped the cream cheese up to a full eight ounces. Go big, or go home! After my husband tasted that batch, his eyes lit up and I instantly knew he approved.

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Problem #: There’s A Gummy Layer Towards The Bottom Of The Loaf

On the outside, it can seem like your banana bread is perfectly baked, but then when you slice into it, you can see a line of under-baked batter that’s settled at the base of the loaf cake. The gummy layer that can form on the bottom of a banana bread is so frustrating and it’s a sign of a few possible problems:

  • the loaf is underbaked: it takes an hour or more to bake most banana breads. Anything less can result in a gummy layer where the batter didn’t dry up enough. Keep reading for how to tell if your banana bread is done.
  • the banana bread batter was too wet:
  • the recipe wasn’t properly balanced with enough dry ingredients to compensate for all the moisture
  • you used frozen bananas: defrosting bananas causes the cells of the fruit to break down, and then the bananas loose a ton of water. When baking banana bread with frozen bananas, you have 3 choices:
  • Strain off the liquid and discard it
  • Strain off the liquid, place the liquid in a saucepan and boil it down until you have just a couple tablespoons left, then add that bake to the bananas and proceed with the recipe
  • Problem #: It Doesn’t Taste Like Bananas

    How Long Do I Cook Banana Bread

    To me, when banana bread doesn’t taste like banana, there is a real problem because don’t we all want banana bread to taste like bananas? It’s not that it tastes bad, but some recipes make banana breads that seem to taste more like gingerbread than anything else, and that off-flavour completely overpowers the bananas.

    If your banana bread doesn’t taste like bananas, look at your recipe again. I bet it has 1 teaspoon of baking soda and probably little to no acidic ingredients on the list . Without an acid in your recipe, the baking soda has nothing to react with, and that excess of baking soda will carry over as it bakes, untouched, leading to a baking soda flavour that can verge on soapy if there’s way too much left behind.

    Sure, bananas can be slightly acidic, but if you are working with very ripe bananas, as you should be, there simply isn’t enough acid to react with the baking soda. The unreacted baking soda will impart a flavour to your loaf of banana bread and that taste can mask the banana flavour completely.

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    Things To Consider While Baking Banana Bread In A Glass Loaf Pan

    When youre braking banana bread in a glass loaf pan, there are few things that you must know:

    • Grease the pan GENEROUSLY. Its more challenging to release the baked good from glassware than other types of pans. So, adequate greasing is essential.
    • Your glass pan may retain brown or burning spots even after you wash it. That is why dont expect your glassware to look clean as new after youve baked in it. We also dont recommend using harsh cleaners and abrasives for cleaning your glass pans.
    • Even browning of the bread is one of the advantages of baking in a glass pan. If you like your bread baked uniformly throughout the batter, then glassware is the right option for you.
    • Its easier to tell the doneness of your banana bread in a glass pan because you can see how the bread is turning out from the sides as it bakes.
    • Glass loaf pans are heavier than regular metal pans. That sometimes makes it more challenging to unmold your bread.
    • Never put your hot glass pan straight under the sink as it will shatter within a second. The same is the case for the glass pans straight out of the freezer.

    Tips From The Pillsbury Kitchens

    • tip 1 Its important to grease just the bottom of the loaf pan, so the batter can climb evenly up the pan’s sides to create a nicely rounded top crust. And remember to mix up the batter until the dry ingredients are moisteneda few streaks of flour are okay. Overmixing will cause the loaf to be dense, with tunnels running through it.
    • tip 2 To ripen bananas quickly, place them in a brown paper bag at room temperature for 1 to 2 days.
    • tip 3 When the loaf is fully baked, the top should crackthats a hallmark of moist-crumbed quick bread.
    • tip 4 Use this base recipe as a starting point for other snack loaves. For Applesauce Bread: substitute 1 cup applesauce for the mashed bananas and stir ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon into the flour mixture. Berry-Banana Bread: stir in ½ cup sweetened dried cranberries into the flour mixture. Banana-Chocolate Chunk Bread: Stir ½ cup mini semi-sweet chocolate bar into the flour mixture, skipping the nuts.

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    How To Check If It’s Baked Enough

    Loaf cakes in general can be tricky to check if they are baked through and done. Here are some clues you can use to check if your cake is done baking :

  • the edges should be a deep golden-brown and pulling away from the sides
  • the edges of the cake should be pulling away from the sides
  • the cake should bounce back when pressed gently with your finger tips
  • a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean
  • a thermometer inserted into the middle of the cake should read around 100 ºC
  • Not Baking Your Banana Bread At The Right Temp

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    As important as it is to bake your banana bread long enough, it’s also important to pop your loaf in the oven at the correct temperature. And if you’re baking a loaf that, quite literally, seems to be taking forever to bake, and you decide to crank up the heat to make things go faster, you’ll only end up ruining your loaf.

    Trust your recipe from the very beginning when it comes to oven temperatures, and make sure your oven is clocking in at the correct temp. The majority of banana bread recipes call for a baking temperature of 350 degrees, and you’ll want to make sure you keep it at that temp the whole way through.

    It’s also important to remember that we preheat ovens for a reason. Don’t put your loaf in right when you turn on the oven, because it won’t get proper heat for the right amount of time. Check to make sure your oven is up to temp before your loaf goes in to achieve the ideal bake.

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    How To Mash Bananas

    Did you know you can use your electric mixer to mash bananas? Break or slice the spotty bananas into large pieces and place in the bowl of your stand mixer or use a regular mixing bowl and your hand mixer. Begin beating on low, then gradually increase to medium-high speed as the bananas break down into mashed banana. Transfer the bananas to another bowl and use the mixing bowl for the banana bread ingredients.

    I do this when I mash bananas for banana muffins, too.

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