Ultimate Banana Bread
This single loaf of banana bread is packed with FIVE bananas(!), brown sugar, butter, chopped walnuts, and a sprinkle of sugar on top. It bakes up high, dense, and supremely moist. Ultimate indeed!
I stared at this recipe for years -YEARS – before making it. I saved it from a Cook’s Illustrated magazine, but it took until I had an entire bunch of bananas that had gone black on me to finally dive in and give it a try.
Why had I dismissed it all those years? Quite simply, I always felt like banana bread should be, well, simple. A quick remedy to overripe bananas on the counter that could be in the oven before the first commercial break of your grandma’s favorite soap opera. Spoiler alert: this is not your grandma’s banana bread. The preparation methods seemed over the top to me, so I ignored it for years. Finally, I had some free time on my hands, along with the black bananas, so I decided to give it a try.
Yes, there were more preparation steps and additional preparation time, but this is most definitely the best banana bread I’ve ever made.
The banana flavor is dramatically intensified and the loaf baked up nice and high (all of the banana bread recipes I’ve made over the years have been short and squat). Not that I ever complained; it was all I’d ever known, but I do love a high loaf of bread, be it yeasted or quick. Tall is where it’s at!
Now, let’s talk about the texture. I love, love, loved it. The bread is supremely dense and very moist; while previous attempts at banana bread have all been moist, the dense texture was new to me. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to crumble apart when you handle it; the slices are heavy and substantial.
I also love the sprinkling of granulated sugar on top of the loaf before putting it in the oven – it gives the finished bread a little bit of a sweet crunch on top.
How to Make the Ultimate Banana Bread
Okay here we go, the banana bread that’s a little high maintenance in preparation, but pays off in dividends with the final product… this is how we do it!
- Microwave the bananas, then strain over a bowl to capture all of the juices that have been released.
- Reduce the banana juice in a saucepan to get super concentrated banana flavor without needing to add a ton of extra liquid.
- Mash together the bananas and reduced liquid – ultimate banana flavor!
The rest of the recipe is pretty run-of-the-mill with whisking melted butter (no oil!), eggs, brown sugar (moister and more flavorful than white!), and vanilla into the mashed bananas, then stirring together with the flour mixture.
Save This Recipe
Enter your email address, and we'll send it straight to your inbox!
All that’s left is to sprinkle the top with sugar and bake away.
Ultimate Banana Bread Recipe Notes
- It’s important that the bananas are not just speckled, but are full-on browning or even black so they can release those delicious juices.
- You can use thawed frozen bananas; if you do so, you do not need to microwave them, simply go to placing them over a fine-mesh strainer (they will release a lot of liquid naturally).
- If you use a 9×5-inch loaf pan, start checking for doneness 5 minutes sooner than the recipe states.
- You can substitute other chopped nuts for the walnuts; use what you love (or omit them completely)!
- This banana bread can be frozen by wrapping in plastic wrap, then foil, and placing it in a freezer bag; freeze for up to 3 months.
If you’re itching to try a new banana bread recipe and you’re not opposed to a few extra steps, give this one a try – I guarantee you’ll love the end result!
If You Like This Ultimate Banana Bread, Try These Recipes:
- Grandma’s Banana Bread
- Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips
- Zucchini-Banana Bread
- Banana-Chocolate Chip Snack Cake
Watch the Recipe Video:
Four years ago: DIY: Homemade Flour Tortillas
Five years ago: Doggie Pupcakes with Yogurt-Peanut Butter Frosting
Six years ago: Snickers Rice Krispie Treats
Nine years ago: Dog Birthday Cake
Ultimate Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups (249 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) salt
- 5 large very ripe bananas, about 1¾ to 2 pounds, peeled
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup (149 g) light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup (57 g) walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degres F. Spray an 8½ by 4½-inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray; set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
- Place the bananas in a microwave-safe bowl; cover with plastic wrap and cut several steam vents in plastic with a paring knife. Microwave on high power until the bananas are soft and have released liquid, about 5 minutes. Transfer the bananas to a fine-mesh strainer placed over a medium bowl and allow to drain, stirring occasionally, or 15 minutes (there should be ½ to ¾ cup liquid).
- Transfer the liquid to a small saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until reduced to ¼ cup, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, stir the reduced liquid into the bananas, and mash with a potato masher until fairly smooth. Whisk in the butter, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla extract.
- Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just combined, with some streaks of flour remaining. Gently fold in the walnuts, if using. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the granulated sugar evenly over the top of the loaf.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 55 to 75 minutes. Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove the loaf from the pan and continue to cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. The bread can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. It can also be frozen (the wrapped loaf should then be placed in an resealable freezer bag or double-wrapped with foil) for up to 2 months.
Notes
- It’s important that the bananas are not just speckled, but are full-on browning or even black so they can release those delicious juices.
- You can use thawed frozen bananas; if you do so, you do not need to microwave them, simply go to placing them over a fine-mesh strainer (they will release a lot of liquid naturally).
- If you use a 9×5-inch loaf pan, start checking for doneness 5 minutes sooner than the recipe states.
- You can substitute other chopped nuts for the walnuts; use what you love (or omit them completely)!
- This banana bread can be frozen by wrapping in plastic wrap, then foil, and placing it in a freezer bag; freeze for up to 3 months.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Update Notes: This recipe was originally published in August 2014.
[photos by Ari of Well Seasoned]
What was the weight on this/yield?
Hi Josh, The yield is one 8×4-inch loaf. I did not weigh it.
After making this recipe, I ate a slice. The bottom of the bread was almost wet, super moist. The top was almost burnt. Maybe a bit too much moist ingredients?
This banana bread is delicious! Maybe it was a little more work than plain old banana , but worth it.
An excellent recipe. This will be my go-to banana bread recipe from now on.
Just made your banana bread recipe. Mashed the bananas BEFOREHAND. Made it except the banana extra steps. Hoping it will still come out okay. Thoughts?
Hi Jennie, I think it should still be okay, but I couldn’t say for sure. Let us know how it turns out!
I just made the ultimate banana bread. Everyone loved it. But I know it will be better the next time. Bananas have to ripen naturally to get natural sweetness. Mine had large brown spots so O thought they were very ripe. They fooled me. They were still firm when peeled. Memo to me open banana before starting the rest of the recipe. Unlike what I read someplace, bananas do not ripen in microwave. They only soften. I also thickened the banana juice in the microwave. Iused anemersionblender to mash the bananas. Would use mixer first or potato ricer. The bread will be even better if I leave them to fully / over ripen. I copied a commenters idea to use another banana sliced in birder on top.
Since I prefer the molasses taste of dark brown sugar, I substituted it for light brown in recipe and for the white sugar on top. Think I will use it in place of light brown sugar but go with coarse white decorating sugar on top.
My family likes nuts. I only like the flavor and not the chunks in soft baked goods. So I took 3/4 c of pecans and ran them thru my small processor (could use blender) until almost a paste. All very tiny pieces. Wonderful flavor addition.
Baking time. My oven although showing correct temp on separate thermometer bakes faster than most ovens.
So I preheated to 350. Lowered it to 340 for 30 minutes. When I checked the batter on wooden stick was cool and liquid. I lowered the temp to 325 for another 25 minutes. Bread was moist and top bananas were slightly carmelized.
So Michelle with a few tweeks for taste and equipment, this is our favorite banana bread. Maybe will also try adding chocolate chips next
This recipe is A-mazing. My husband is not a nut fan so I mix in chocolate chips instead. I pretty sure he purposely avoids eating bananas when we get them from the store so eventually I have to make this bread!
Kept seeing all these ‘best’ recipes involving putting the right-out-of-the-oven banana bread into the freezer – apartments don’t have freezers to deal with, so kept looking and found this recipe. Honestly, this has to be one of The best, not to mention unusual, recipe for banana bread. I have never had one disappear so quickly either. It’s a keeper, there is no doubt. And pecans worked really well since I was out of walnuts from all the Christmas baking.
Well, I used all the ingredients, but skipped the fancy steps and it still turned out great, just saying… ;)
Made this last night. In the words of my 5 year old. “This is yumilicious” it’s the best banana bread recipe I’ve tried and not nearly as long as I thought it would take.
Hi, you state that this is an adapted CI recipe. Did you try their original recipe first and then adapt it? Just curious what you improved on from the original. Thanks! :)
Wow, I’ve got to be honest.. I found the process and the result completely unappealing. The grey banana mush and even greyer banana water that resulted from microwaving was not pleasant at all and the end banana bread was dry, flavourless and boring. I followed this recipe to a T but now find myself googling uses for stale banana bread.
A shame really, as I’ve really enjoyed all of your other recipes so far. Oh well, 100% success would be weird.
I have been trying many banana bread recipes in search of the best one.
Came across yours and baked it and had great feedback from the family.
I don’t like to use the microwave for anything other than reheating food but tried your way anyway. One of the five bananas had been saved in the freezer, in a container, out of its jacket and I noticed when it defrosted it had already released lots of liquid. Next time I will try the same recipe but with frozen, defrosted bananas.
I finally got around to trying this recipe, and it was incredible! I was bummed at first because I was just a little short of the minimum weight – my 6 bananas were a bit smaller! I decided to just wing it and added the missing weight in applesauce. Microwaved it and followed the recipe according to instructions from there – and it came out perfect! So just a piece of info in case anyone is sooooo close to having the needed amount of banana but still falling a bit short.
Made this and it was awesome….thank you for sharing!
After going totally gaga over your fabulous New York-Style Cheesecake recipe, I can’t tell you how pleased we were to see your site come up in a search for “ultimate banana bread”. My wife and I are both fans of banana bread and also huge fans of your cheesecake recipe, so our expectations were high. We were not disappointed. Best banana bread ever. Such an intense banana flavour and a nice sturdy loaf. Out thanks, and greetings from Toronto Canada.
Hi Michelle,
I love this recipe & just made it again with chocolate chips. So good. Do you think it would work well with whole wheat flour? I have a bunch of it because I made your zucchini cran walnut bread (also really good). Thanks.
Hi Marcie, I haven’t tried using whole wheat flour, but I would recommend only substituting a portion of the flour with whole wheat to start to see how the recipe responds and then try increasing amounts from there.
Thank you for sharing this! Yum yum yum :)
Michelle,
This was so good! We really loved this, but of course it wasn’t quite as good as it could be because there’s no chocolate- so says my husband. He wants chocolate in everything! Anyway, do you think I could add chocolate along with the nuts? How much do you think?
Hi Marcie, Absolutely! You could add chocolate chips to the batter, however much you’d like. I’d probably start with a little less or equal to the nuts, or decrease the nuts and add more chocolate chips.
Made this beautiful bread this morning (was waiting for the appropriate opportunity to get it out of my house quickly). I also had a little extra liquid so I cooked it down a little longer. Only change I made was to sprinkle the top with raw sugar instead of granulated sugar. Worth the extra steps with the bananas any day of the week! Thank you for sharing this one!
I think I went back and forth a dozen times in my head between regular banana bread and this one when I saw your recipe – the usual ‘quick’ banana bread is so delicious, how could this be any better right? Wrong! So glad I went for this one, I will never use the regular method again. Deeeelicious
This was awesome! I made it this weekend and went all out. In the time I was waiting on the bananas I browned the stick of butter (in the pan that I later used to reduce the banana juice) and toasted the walnuts in the oven for 12min @ 350degF.
Yummy, yummy and yummy!!! Yes, it is the “ultimate banana bread”! I am tossing out all my other banana bread recipes and keeping this one! Yes, it does take time to prepare but so worth it! The bread is moist, excellent banana taste and is loved by granddaughters!! Thank you for sharing!!
This is the only banana bread recipe I will ever need again. So great ! And your cream cheese cinnamon rolls by far the best I’ve ever had.
Banana bread is such a staple in my kitchen and I love experimenting with different recipes for it! My all time favourite so far is the Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread recipe that I have posted on my blog, but this one sounds delicious as well. I would definitely add chocolate chips to it though to satisfy my sweet tooth :)
Sydney
I don’t know why the ultimate banana bread seemed like such an enigma, but this recipe is a must try for sure!
Wow!! I will never throw out another extra ripe banana again. Just finished making this.. In oven now. The banana mixture tasted fantastic and it’s not even cooked yet!! :)
I HAD to give this recipe a try . . . and I have to say that this is truly delicious banana bread. I used the specified number of bananas, but ended up with more than the specified amount of liquid (approximately 1 1/4 cups). It took me much longer than 5 minutes to cook the liquid down, and I gave up and used what I had, which was maybe 2/3 cup (I’m not sure though b/c I didn’t measure, just poured it all back into the bananas). In the end, it didn’t seem to matter as my loaf turned out just as beautiful looking as yours, and SO flavorful, moist, dense and wonderful!! I believe this bread gets better tasting after a couple of days – although the slightly crunchy top (which I LOVE) disappears. Thanks for trying this recipe and posting it. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to my old stand-by banana bread recipe . . . :D
I too had a lot of extra liquid! We will see how it turns out, as it is cooking now!(:
I made this tonite….used 6 bananas that I had in the freezer because they were too ripe to eat (I just throw them in the freezer with peelings intact) and when they thaw, the extra liquid basically drains right off! No need to microwave etc, you can strain the juice right away. My husband doesn’t like walnuts, so I put chocolate chips in place of the nuts. Very, very yummy!!!!
You might find it easier to peel the banana before freezing it. The banana freezes beautifully without the peel (as long as you seal it in a freezer bag first) and when you are ready to use it you don’t have to deal with the mess of removing the blackened peel. Some websites recommend slicing them too but I prefer leaving the bananas whole so I know exactly how many I have frozen at any given time. If you add overripe bananas to the freezer bag on a regular basis you will almost always have enough in the freezer to whip up a yummy banana bread recipe like this one whenever the mood strikes. They keep for about 3 months.
I’ve been challenged by one of my readers to find a good banana bread recipe, and so far I’ve been letting her down! All of mine, whilst delicious, are way too high in the middle and way too crispy on the outside… defo not blog worthy! Now I just need to try this one out, and to try and get a hold of a few kg of bananas before my hubby eats them all!!