Make Ahead

Best Banana Bread

Name: Best Banana Bread
Yield: Makes 1 loaf
Ingredients: 4 very ripe bananas (if frozen, defrost in the microwave); 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled; 1 egg, at room temperature; 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla; 1 cup sugar; 1 1/2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup plain, full-fat yogurt

by: Brette Warshaw

November 15, 2013

1 Ratings

Makes 1 loaf

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Author Notes

This is my favorite thing to bake, always. Sometimes, the middle will cave in a bit, but it still tastes really good; to avoid this, you can make three mini-loaves. It improves with a day or two of resting. I first made it in a cooking class with my mother when I was two years old, and we've tweaked the recipe over the years. —Brette Warshaw

Ingredients

4 very ripe bananas (if frozen, defrost in the microwave)
¹/₄ cup butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, at room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 ¹/₂ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup plain, full-fat yogurt

Directions

Mash your bananas in a big bowl -- and if they're frozen and defrosted, snip off the end and pour all the liquids and solids out of the skin.
Add your butter, egg, vanilla, and sugar to the mashed bananas. Mix well.
In another bowl, mix your flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Fold into your wet ingredients.
Fold the yogurt into the batter.
Butter a loaf pan. Pour in your batter. Bake at 325°F for 45 to 50 minutes, keeping an eye on it so that it doesn't overbake. (And it's delicious a tad underbaked.) Let cool in the pan on a rack.

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8 Reviews

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Fiona March 10, 2022

Good recipe. I used only 3 bananas and a 5oz 2% Greek yogurt container. Did not pour all the mixture into bread pan because it’s too much. The bread baked in 50 minutes. Covered the top with 15 min left to avoid it browning too much.

Jean January 29, 2018

This is way too wet. It might have been perfect before the cup of yogurt. Still in the oven. I hope it ends up edible. I'm disappointed.

Jean January 29, 2018

After 1 h 40 min in oven the (thin) crust is dark and crunchy and the inside is like pudding.

Tara April 5, 2018

Ugh agreed!

Kelly K. April 2, 2017

I've tried this recipe twice, both times failed. The cookbook it is in has the oven temp at 350°, but this has entirely too much liquid to bake properly. Our not enough flour but I think simply reducing the yogurt to 1/4 or 1/3 cup would do it.

Karen P. January 31, 2016

This is absolutely an easiest recipe for Banana Bread, but the web version has more details than the book. First, it deals with the liquid from frozen bananas, and lists "full fat" yogurt. And I can't get it to come out right. Mine sinks from the weight of the bananas.

I've made this several times, but with Greek, low fat yogurt (the book only says "plain") and with frozen bananas (no mention of frozen bananas in the book) with the liquid drained off. There just doesn't seem to be enough flour to hold the bananas.

Maybe the full fat plain, non Greek yogurt is the difference?? I did a sanity check on the flour with King Arthur Flour and they call for 2 2/3 C of flour, same amount of sugar, less bananas, and 2 eggs.

One more try, and if I end up with raw bananas again, I'm done. I will use fresh not frozen, and full fat regular yogurt.

HeatherDubs January 31, 2016

I don't think you're supposed to use the actual frozen banana in the recipe. Think its supposed to be previoisly frozen and now defrosted bananas. Sometimes as they defrost and soften, the bananas will also release a bit of water. I always use frozen bananas that have been defrosted when baking banana bread and never have issues.