Banana Bread 101
You’ve had terrible banana bread, we all have. Who could tell Aunt Edna that her brick of bananas needed a gallon of milk to wash it down? Not me. She might have- bless her heart- gone with a recipe that called for creaming a good amount of butter with sugar before adding her other ingredients. Our secret to a nice, tall loaf of banana goodness without the heft? Using vegetable oil in place of butter and throwing in a little buttermilk for tang. As for what kind of vegetable oil to go with, try using olive oil- it’s got more fat and less processing than canola (and I promise that you won’t taste the olive). Try this trick to ripen yellow and green bananas in a pinch.
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Ingredients
- 2 cups All purpose flour
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 2 tsp Salt
- 2 bananas Very ripe
- 1-1/3 cups Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 2/3 cup Olive oil
- 1/3 cup Buttermilk
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 orange optional
- 1/2 tsp Ground cardamom optional
- 1/2 cup Finely chopped chocolate again, optional, but really not
Instructions
- Line a medium-sized loaf pan (about 9″x5″) with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350F.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl until just combined. (Flour, baking soda, and salt).
- Mash the bananas with the sugar. Whisk in the eggs, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and all your optional flavors (10/10 encourage using chocolate!!).
- Pour your wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the center no longer sinks when you poke it.