Dennis Weaver
We live in a little one horse town. Well, actually, we have lots of horses but only one grocery store. This week, we were working on banana bread and banana muffins. So I stopped at the store and looked up the produce manager. I asked her if she had any over-ripe muffins.
"Yeah, I think have some extra ripe bananas in the back." I followed her to the back. She sold me a case of going-black bananas for just a few bucks.
Mostly we made banana bread that week but we also made some very high dome muffins, and, if I remember right, some chocolate banana muffins, loaded with chips and absolutely delicious.
After hundreds of batches and thousands of mixes, we understand the four keys to scrumptious banana bread:
- Start with very ripe bananas. Squishy ripe bananas have two to three times the flavor of ripe bananas. Let your bananas get black on the outside and juicy on the inside.
- Add a teaspoon of banana flavor. It doesn’t matter how ripe the bananas are, banana flavor will make your bread or muffins a little better.
- Add cinnamon chips. Get a burst of sweet cinnamon in every bite. Cinnamon chips make an amazing difference.
- Refrigerate your bread. Wrap your bread and refrigerate it overnight. After chilling, the banana bread is easier to cut into nice, uniform slices and it holds together better.
Our Famous Cinnamon Chip Banana Bread Recipe
Busy? Instead of making this banana bread from scratch, make it with a mix. See our Cinnamon Chip Banana Bread Mix
This banana bread recipe makes two loaves.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups very ripe bananas (about five bananas)
- 1 teaspoon banana flavor
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 cups cinnamon chips
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9 x 5-inch baking pans or line with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
- In a large bowl, cream together the eggs and sugar. Stir in mashed bananas, vanilla, vegetable oil, and cinnamon.
- Stir in the flour mixture, a third at a time, until just combined. Gently fold in the cinnamon chips.
- Divide batter into the two prepared pans. Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the center of the loaves comes out clean.
- Cool the bread for about ten minutes and then gently remove the bread from the pans. Let it cool completely on wire racks. Place the bread in plastic bags and chill the bread in the refrigerator.
Comments (2)
Good catch, Sharon.
The mix and the recipe were developed independently, and the products are not identical.
It’s sometimes difficult to drive the heat through a loaf without the outside becoming crusty and overdone. The remedy is to turn the temperature down so that the outside isn’t overdone but increase the time so that the heat has time to soak through the loaf.
I noticed that the baking temp is different for this Banana Bread recipe and your wonderful Banana Cinnamon chip mix (a favorite for us). Mix calls for 300 for abt 70 min and this recipe calls for 350 abt an hour. Why are they different?
Thanks for your help!
Sharon.