The Best Banana Bread Recipe ~Sweet & Savory (2024)

FAQs

Why does my banana bread not taste good? ›

Skimping on the sugar can dry out a loaf of banana bread and leave it flavorless. It turns out, sugar does more than just make things sweeter. When it comes to banana bread, cutting back on sugar will leave you with a dry loaf totally devoid of any distinguishable flavor.

If you add too much salt, Curtis recommends using a splash of vinegar. This provides a counterbalancing punch of acid that will lessen the salty taste.

Frozen bananas are a great way to use overripe bananas in banana bread. If you're like me, you rarely remember to use your overripe bananas on the day they are perfectly ripe so freezing them is a great solution. Thawed bananas are easier to mash and can also add extra moisture to the batter.

You Use Underripe Bananas

That's why you should use only very ripe bananas to make banana bread. Not only are overripe bananas easier to mash, they also give the bread more moisture, sweetness, and flavor.

On its own, banana can be a little heavy or bland, which is why we like to pair it with other natural fruit flavors for complexity and boost. A little lemon or orange flavor adds a fabulous top-note, while vanilla extract, brown sugar, and cinnamon add depth.

Instead, we recommend non-iodized salt for a clean, pure taste that won't distract from the other flavors in your recipe. That said, feel free to use iodized salt if that's all you have — the effect won't be very noticeable, especially if you're baking a recipe with strong flavors.

You incorrectly measured the ingredients.

If you do not measure the ingredients exactly (and just eyeball things) then the liquid-to-dry ratio of the ingredients could be off. Too much liquid can lead to banana bread that sinks in the middle. Of course, an excess amount of dry ingredients can also lead to trouble.

The Fix: Tone down an overly sweet dish by adding a sour, salty, or bitter ingredient to it. Sour fruit (such as blackberries or cherries), cooling herbs such as mint, and chopped nuts work well in sweets such as cakes, cookies, and pies.

Banana bread recipes typically ask you to use overripe bananas so that they're easier to mush. This means it's tempting to toss all your bananas into the mix when you're ready to bake, to avoid food waste. But if you add too much of the fruit into your batter, your bread could turn out mushy, heavy, and wet.

If the bananas have any visible signs of mold, throw them out. If they smell off, that's another good indicator that they are no longer okay to use. Rotten bananas will often have a fermented or alcohol-like smell.

How ripe should a banana be for banana bread? ›

Search out overripe bananas

A banana that's way too squishy and soft for your cereal is just perfect for banana bread: the blacker the banana, the sweeter and more assertive its flavor.

You can freeze whole, peeled bananas in large plastic bags like smaller banana chunks. You can also freeze bananas whole in their peels, but this will only work if you want mashed bananas. After thawing and peeling a banana frozen in its peel, it will come out of the peel in an essentially mashed texture.

Banana bread freezes really well. Once the loaf is fully cooled, wrap it in plastic wrap. Then, wrap the loaf in aluminum foil. This will ensure it's airtight and will keep the loaf from drying out and avoid freezer burn.

Some banana bread just isn't strong in banana flavor. This is especially true if you make the mistake of not using overly ripe bananas for your recipe.

Bananas have an interesting flavour transition during their ripening process. Unripe bananas which still contain the green peel have a bland flavour with apparent notes of grassiness.

Salt adds flavor to bread. If none or too little is used in a recipe, the bread will lack the right flavor and taste "bland." If you reduce the amount of salt, try adding some dried herbs to increase the flavor. Too much yeast in bread will give bread an off-taste.

The alleged reason why artificial banana flavor doesn't taste like the Cavendish bananas we typically buy in the grocery store is because artificial banana flavor wasn't developed based on that variety of banana. It was developed based on a variety called the Gros Michel, or the Big Mike.