Ever-Evolving Banana Bread

December 11 2007 by Kristin at The Kitchen Sink in Breakfast,Recipe » 8 comments

My favorite quickbread, by far, is banana bread. I’ve dabbled in pumpkin bread, zucchini bread and others, but my heart belongs to banana bread. And I love nearly all of its permutations—studded with walnuts or dark chocolate chunks or unadorned; topped with streusel, a dusting of sanding sugar or simply glistening and cracked; light or dark; sliced thin or thick; spread with a pad of butter, a slather of peanut butter or nothing at all.

And I think I have finally, finally (finally) found my favorite version. It began with a recipe that I made so many times that I knew the recipe by heart and instinctually tossed the necessary ingredients into my shopping basket at the grocery store. I even kept a constant source of bananas in the freezer (in my opinion, the only way to get the most scrumptiously banana-y flavor) to feed my love for this bread.

But of course, I figured it could be even better. I’ve toyed with the base recipe in countless ways—mainly by trying to “health it up” by experimenting with various amounts of whole wheat flour in place of all-purpose and by reducing the sugar by as much as two-thirds. I’ve also amped up the flavor by adding vanilla extract and strong, spicy Vietnamese cinnamon—two additions that became permanent after their very first debut.

Last week, out of necessity rather than culinary brilliance, I had to make yet another change to the original recipe. Out of sour cream, I had to substitute Greek yogurt. Well, clearly the banana bread gods were smiling down on me. This is the one. At least, for now …

Ever-Evolving Banana Bread

3/4 cup          sugar
1/4 cup           butter, softened to room temperature
2-3                             mashed ripe bananas (2 large or 3 medium-sized bananas)
1/4 cup           skim milk
1/4 cup           Greek yogurt, such as Fage 0%
1 tsp.               vanilla extract
2                      large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 cup               all-purpose flour
1 cup               whole wheat flour
1 tsp.               baking soda
1/2 tsp.          salt
1/2 tsp.          cinnamon
                        cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease one 9-inch loaf pan or four mini loaf pans with the cooking spray. Using an electric mixer, combine the sugar and butter; scrape down the bowl. Add banana, milk, yogurt, egg whites and vanilla; beat well.

In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flours, soda, salt and cinnamon). In several additions, add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-banana mixture. Beat until blended.*

Pour the batter into the four loaf pans (distributing evenly) or the one large loaf pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes for the mini loaves or 60-70 minutes for the large loaf, or until a tester inserted in the center of the loaf/loaves comes out clean. Let cool in the pan(s) for 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire wracks to cool completely.

* I generally make four mini loaves and, at this point in the recipe, I add dark chocolate chunks to two of them. Guess who eats the chocolate-laced loaves—Kevin or me?

8 comments so far. »
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Polly says on September 07 2008 at 10:28 am:

Perfectly evolved banana bread; so moist and not overly sugary. I see no reason to use any other recipe ever again!
Kristin at The Kitchen Sink says on September 07 2008 at 11:50 am:

Polly: Yay! I’m so glad you liked it. As I type this, I have butter softening for a loaf of my own.
Amy Plavnick says on April 03 2009 at 4:34 pm:

Absolutely delicious! I added dried cherries and walnuts instead of chocolate chips (only because my 2 y/o doesn’t eat chocolate yet) and it was fabulous! I will probably try decreasing the sugar to 1/2 cup next time to see if it makes that much of a difference. I didn’t have greek yogurt, so I substituted plain yogurt and it still turned out great! Thanks for the recipe!
Jala says on May 16 2009 at 5:24 pm:

I absolutely love your blog. I added mashed kiwi (since I really wanted to use it before having to throw it away) and cranberries and am in love with the results. Thanks so much!
Cara Loryn says on February 22 2010 at 7:33 pm:

So I come home, I’ve got some old bananas on top of the fridge and some unemployed Greek yogurt. And I’m thinking…banana bread with Greek yogurt. I bet that would taste amazing.

But will I have to experiment from scratch? Surely some food pioneer has tried this before!

And huzzah! Thank you! Know that this hippy chick skipped class, opting to stay home and try her hand at your Greeky bread.

The clock is ticking. Only time will yield the ultimate results.

Namaste,
~Cara
Katie says on April 25 2010 at 11:42 am:

Wow! This was great! Thank you! Like other users, I was searching for a recipe to use my ripe bananas and left-over greek yogurt, and tada! I did make a few changes b/c I didn’t want to go to the store, and it still came out great. I did not have egg-whites, so I left them out. Also, I automatically mix my flour, so it’s always some part whole-wheat and some part all-purpose. So, I added about 1 1/2 cups of this blend and about 1/2 a cup of self-rising white flour. My yogurt was vanilla-flavored, so I omitted the vanilla extract, which I also happened to be out of. And, finally, I didn’t use cooking spray, but I lightly greased my pans with olive-oil. I used three medium bananas, and like I mentioned before, this is possibly the best banana bread I’ve ever made. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Jessica says on September 25 2010 at 12:09 pm:

Thank you! Finally a healthier banana bread recipe that tastes delish. I used all 100% whole wheat flour, but the XL egg whites helped keep it light. 60 min was the perfect baking time. Thanks again.
Charlotte says on December 24 2010 at 8:24 am:

This was the best banana bread I’ve ever had – and it’s not that bad for you! I added blueberries (about 1/2 cup) to the batter and it was FABULOUS. my roommates and i devoured it within hours. Bravo. Thanks!