How to Make Banana Bread

Banana Bread picture by Angela Schmeidel Randall

Bananas are a happy food.  Scientific studies have proven that bananas really do increase our levels of happiness. This banana bread recipe will certainly bring a smile to you and your taste buds.

Banana Bread Ingredients 

• 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of flour 
• 4 bananas
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of unsalted butter for the recipe
• 2 eggs
• 110 grams (3.9 ounces) of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• Half a teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• A little extra butter to line the loaf pan

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 degrees Celsius.  

You'l be cooking the banana bread in a loaf pan, so lightly grease the loaf pan using soft butter to ensure your banana bread doesn't get stuck to the sides.   

Next, get your bananas ready.  Remove the peels and enjoy smashing and squshing the bananas in a large bowl.  Don't worry, they won't mind - they'll be looking forward to being combined with the other ingredients!.  You can use a wooden spoon or even better, a potato masher for this squashing and sqooshing.

Chop your butter into chunks of about an inch or less then place the butter chunks in a saucepan on your stove over a low heat to melt the butter.  Don't let it get too hot, you need to just warm the butter until it melts.  The smaller your chunks are, the faster it should melt.  

Add the melted butter to the crushed bananas, stir in the vanilla extract, then add your sugar and salt.  From this point you can keep stirring using a wooden spoon or you can move up to using an electric whisk, starting slowly at first but gradually increasing the speed as the ingredients combine together. Next add your eggs and baking soda, stir again then add your flour.  A final good stir or whisk will do it, and the mixture is ready to be poured into the loaf pan.  

Place the loaf pan containing the mixture into the oven to bake for about an hour.  When the banana bread is cooked, remove the loaf pan from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Then remove from the pan and let the banana bread cool before serving.