Banana bread recipe | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make banana cake Jamie Oliver? ›

Peel and mash the bananas in a separate bowl with the back of a fork, then whisk in the melted butter, sugar, eggs, yoghurt and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and whisk until just combined. Spoon into the cake tin and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Ripe bananas are not only softer and easier to mash and blend into a batter, but they are also sweeter, which is why baking recipes specifically call for ripe bananas in ingredient lists. As the bananas ripen, the fruit converts starches to sugars, making them sweeter and more flavorful.

You Over-Mix the Batter

For soft and tender banana bread, gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry — don't overmix! The more you stir, the more gluten will develop. The result will be a tough, rubbery banana bread. Simply stir until moist, and then do no more.

The experts at Allrecipes list excessive bananas as a common banana bread-making blunder, claiming it could make the bread feel a bit more hefty and moist in the middle. So instead of nice, airy, light bread, you might end up with mushy, dense bread that seems undercooked.

Long ago, bakers learned that the addition of vinegar to baked goods helped them rise and kept the baked goods fluffy and moist. Apparently, the vinegar reacts with the baking soda in a recipe to produce carbon dioxide, a gas that enhances the rise.

If you purposely or accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder without making any changes to your recipe, you'll definitely end up with a bitter taste. Remember, baking soda is an alkaline, or base, ingredient that naturally has a bitter taste. Baking powder is a multi-ingredient leavener.

Let the bananas ripen (and overripen) at room temperature. Depending on the weather, this could take a few days, or up to a week. The best bananas for banana bread aren't yellow; they're black. Or they're at least streaked with black/brown, with just the barest hint of green at the stem.

Mold on bananas is fuzzy white, gray, or greenish—it looks a lot like mold on bread. If a banana smells rotten or fermented or is leaking fluid, it's time to say goodbye. If the fruit inside, not just the peel, is black, that's a sign that your banana is too far gone to safely eat.

If your bananas are mostly yellow, they are not ripe enough! The bananas should be very spotted or mostly brown and quite mushy — if your bananas are way past being good enough to eat fresh, they are likely perfect for baking!

If you use too much flour, you'll end up with really dry banana bread, and If you don't use enough flour, your banana bread will be way too wet. The secret lies in how you measure the flour. The scoop out of the bag method could be packing way too much flour.

How can I make my bread fluffier instead of dense? ›

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Short Answer: The alkaline environment of a batter with baking soda results in discoloration of the pulp fibers. Short Answer: The alkaline environment of a batter with baking soda results in discoloration of the pulp fibers.

Brown, overripe bananas are sweeter because in the ripening process the starches in the banana are converted to sugar. You can even use super-soft, black bananas that have a really strong smell and are oozy inside. As long as they're not moldy, there's no such thing as too-ripe bananas for banana bread.

Adding more eggs makes for a spongy, less flavorful banana bread. Doubling the number of eggs I was using resulted in a spongy cake with a moist texture.

You may find banana bread delicious, but conventional banana breads tend to be high in added sugar, refined carbs, and calories. Thus, it's best to enjoy banana bread occasionally as part of a balanced, nutrient-dense diet.

For baking, you need the sweetness that comes from an overripe banana – this means it will be very yellow with a few brown spots and feel soft.

If you use a yellow (or even worse a green) banana in your cake not only will it not have as much flavour it will be significantly drier. It's important to make sure your bananas are well mashed. If they aren't broken down well enough less moisture is released from the fruit, effecting the texture of your cake.

Bananas can go from yellow with brown spots to totally black and still be okay to eat and use for baking. In fact, black bananas are some of the best for making banana bread because they have developed more sugar as they sit around and therefore taste sweeter. They may also be moister, which is perfect for baked goods.

Some cakes tend not to rise as well if just baking powder is used, often those that contain cocoa powder or bananas such as Nigella's Gluten-Free Banana Bread, so a combination of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda is used to help to give extra lift.