So what exactly qualifies to be a best banana bread?
Regulars on my blog will know that there are quiteafewbanana bread recipes here. So what is the point of another banana bread, right? This particular bake has a special place in my heart, because I (and I am no different from many others) started my baking journey with a banana bread.
“The journey of a thousand bakes (often) starts with a banana bread.”– A quote I just made up now.
So here’s what I’d look for in the best banana bread.
- It should REEEEALY taste and smell of bananas (no brainer, huh?)
- It should be REALLY moist. If I’m looking for a door jam, I’d rather go out and get a brick, why would I go through the troubling of baking eh?
- It should slice up neat. Which is the reason I haven’t added any chocochips, walnuts, raisins or any other what-have-yous over here.
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There’s a bonus in this recipe. I have substituted 2/3rd of the all purpose flour with oat and wheat flour and the results are still incredibly moist. To make oat flour, grind instant oats to a fine powder in the mixer jar. Yes, the recipe has eggs, so please try with your usual egg replacements like yogurt or flaxseed meal and let me know if it turned out ok. I haven’t tried this recipe using any egg substitutes so I cannot give you a definitive answer if the recipe will still be best if the eggs are subbed out.
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I like recipes that don’t send me hunting and gathering for outlandish ingredients. That’s pretty much mandatory for every recipe that features on this blog. No place for hiflutin’ stuff here. This best banana bread recipe features ingredients that you’ll find right now in your kitchen. Even if you don’t have instant oats for the oat flour, substitute it with all purpose flour (maida) and it will be okay!
I use rice bran oil in most bakes for its neutral flavour and high smoking point. Feel free to use coconut or olive oil, if that’s your preference.
Now, bring out your mugs of coffee or tea, make a note (print out) the recipe, because I know you want to try it out and see if it is really the best.
Recipe adapted from this Best Banana Bread recipe
Best Banana Bread with Oat & Whole Wheat Flour
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour finely ground *
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup rice bran oil
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 4 bananas ripe medium sized
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 175xb0C. Grease and flour a regular sized loaf tin and keep aside.
- *To make oat flour, grind instant oats to a fine powder in the mixer jar.
- In a large bowl, sift the flours along with the soda and salt. Keep aside.
- In another large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, vanilla and eggs until well combined.
- Peel and mash the bananas with a fork until it is a coarse puree. Mix this puree into the egg mixture.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet and stir gently until there are no dry clumps of flour. Do not overmix.
- Pour this mixture into the prepared loaf tin. The mixture will be fairly wet, but this recipe has a longer baking time, which will yield a moist loaf of banana bread.
- Bake at 175C for 50-60 minutes, checking with a dry spaghetti or tester. If this comes out dry, then the loaf is baked and ready.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 5-7 minutes, after which, you can carefully turn it out onto a cooling rack.
- Allow this to cool for another 45 minutes or so, before slicing it up. This loaf yields 10 thick slices of banana bread.
Thank you for this lovely recipe. Came out perfect
Thank you for this recipe. It came out perfect and is super tasty????
Glad you tried it and appreciate your feedback 🙂
Hi nandita – made a few small tweaks subbing the oats flour with Ragi flour and using 1/2 cup yoghurt instead of the eggs ! And topped it with toasted sliced almonds !!! Superb bread it turned out to be – definitely my to-go banana bread now – will blog about this shortly with a ping back to ur blog – thank u so much for a wonderful recipe :))
thanks for trying and letting me know!
this is a pingback to your recipe from my blog 🙂 Thanks Nandita ..
http://www.sizzlingtastebuds.com/2017/06/quick-multigrain-almond-bread-for.html
Hi Nandita, this recipe looks good but I don’t really have anything to make the oat flour with so could I make this using only wholewheat flour or would it be too heavy? If not, would you just use 3/4cup each of wholewheat and plain flour? Or 1 cup of wholewheat and 1/2 cup of plain?
I just want to eliminate as much plain flour as possible without spoiling the recipe.
Hi, I left a comment a few days ago but it did not seem to make it onto the site so not really sure what’s happening there – trying again!
So I just made this and it is really, really good – I can’t believe how light yet moist it is so you really got teh recipe bang on 🙂
I also added about 60gm of walnut pieces and about 15 fresh raspberries cut in half which I think gives a bit of extra variety, taste and texture. I didn’t have any way to make oat flour so used 3/4 cup of both wholewheat (wholemeal here in Australia) and plain flour.
I also wondered if 3/4 cup sugar was too much but I used it anyway and it’s perfect, not too sweet at all.
Once it had cooled down I tucked in – and it came out so well I had three slices right off the bat!
So thanks for the recipe – I’ve saved this as my “go to” banana bread recipe 🙂