One of my favorite breakfast treats growing up was banana bread. Waking up in the morning to the sweet smell of banana bread right out of the oven is one of my favorite childhood memories. When I started dating my boyfriend I wanted to give him that same feeling of happiness. What better way to someone’s heart than through their stomach? So I asked my Mom for her banana break recipe and as a beginner baker I was a little nervous to attempt it. I hope to make this recipe as simple for beginner bakers and give some tips and tricks along the way.

Tips Before You Start Baking

If you are a beginner baker, there are a couple of things to know. You will not need a fancy mixer for this recipe, although it does makes things easier! This recipe will take over an hour to make, so make sure you have planned out enough time. You will also need bananas that have seen better days. This requires some planning on your end. Sometimes I will throw old bananas into the freezer for when I want to make/have the ingredients to make banana bread. Whatever works for you. If you are a beginner baker it can be intimidating in the kitchen when making a recipe with a lot of ingredients. Don’t worry because I will walk you through step by step.

How To Ripen Bananas Quickly

Even if you are a baking beginner you know that bananas can take a while to become overripe. There is a trick to ripening bananas at home. If you do not have bananas that are brown, you have some options. You can either use yellow bananas and mash them up really well, or you can make brown bananas. To make brown bananas you can line a pan with foil, turn your oven to 300 degree F, and bake your yellow bananas for about 15 minutes until the peels turn black. Take out and let cool. If you went with the freezing method I talked about above, pull out the bananas earlier in the day so they have time to thaw out. If you do not want to wait for them to thaw out on their own, then throw them in the microwave until thawed.

Banana bread ingredients

Banana Bread Recipe

Let’s get started bakers! For this recipe you will need:

  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas (3 medium bananas)
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

Step-By-Step

  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Grease bottoms only of 1 (9×5-inch) loaf pan or 2 (8×4-inch) loaf pans. You can grease the pans with either Crisco or vegetable oil.
  3. In a large bowl, stir sugar and butter until well mixed.
  4. Stir in eggs until well mixed.
  5. Stir in bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat with spoon until smooth.
  6. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened.
  7. Stir in nuts (if desired).
  8. Divide batter evenly between 8-inch pans or pour into 9-inch pan.
  9. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  10. Cool 10 minutes in pans on cooling rack.
  11. Loosen sides of loaves from pans and place upside down on cooling rack.
  12. Cool completely about 2 hours.
  13. Store at room temperature or refrigerate!
Banana Bread

Tips While You’re Baking

  • Make sure not to over stir! If you over stir, it can create bubbles in the mixture that will leave a series of pockets in your bread.
  • You different types of nuts such as walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts.
  • Add a cup of chocolate chips to make this a rich, tasty dessert.
  • Blueberry-banana bread can be made by omitting nuts and stirring in 1 cup of blueberries.
  • If using a bigger loaf pan, make sure to cook longer than 1 hour 15 minutes. I ran into this mistake before and the middle looked cooked on the outside, but was not cooked on the inside. Use your toothpick or knife to make sure it’s fully done!

Tools Used to Make This Recipe

Large mixing bowls: You can never have too many mixing bowls! I got these on sale at Kohl’s.

Non-stick loaf pan: The perfect size loaf pan is essential for every baking beginner. I got mine at Target.

KitchenAide mixer: A KitchenAide hand mixer helps a lot during the stirring steps. It can save you from cramped wrists and make the process go faster and smoother. You can get 15% off when you sign up for KitchenAide’s email list.

Recipe book: A perfect way to keep track of your recipes is with a recipe book. This way you can write down tips and tricks for yourself for the next time you make any of your recipes. It also is a perfect tool if you want to share recipes, or pass them down to your kids or grandkids. This one is from Amazon.

Kitchen Utensil Essentials: I love buying in bulk, especially with cooking utensils. It can take a long time to build up different utensils and cookware in your kitchen, which can get pricey. It helps to buy in bulk because you can get a wide array of utensils for a good price! Here’s one from Amazon.

Enjoy

Remember, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when looking at all of the steps to make something delicious. Take it step by step and it will turn out great! If not, don’t be too serious. It’s ok to laugh at yourself, write down your mistakes, and try again! I’m a firm believer in always trying my recipes. You won’t know if it is any good unless you try it yourself! Feel free to have fun. Baking takes time to master and even great bakers can mess up from time to time. No need to worry. Enjoy this delicious banana bread at breakfast time or for a dessert. Happy cooking baking beginners!