This Recipe for Banana Bread with Nuts full of warm, classic flavors! A moist banana bread with a touch of warm cinnamon is filled with walnuts (or pecans) for a simple and delicious bread.
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Homemade Quick Bread
So I have been making a lot of bread recipes lately, and many of them have been homemade banana bread.
With all this cooking, I have to give food out to friends and family. Otherwise I end up with quite the stockpile of baked goods laying around! And this Banana Nut Bread has been one of the most popular breads!
You can use this Easy Banana Nut Bread for breakfast, a snack, or dessert. It makes great toast!
But I find that the most popular was to eat this banana bread among my friends and family is just plain. It rarely lasts long enough to do anything else with it! A good problem to have.
How to Quickly Ripen Bananas – Is it okay to use unripe bananas for banana bread?
Ripe bananas, or overly ripe, are best for making an easy banana bread recipe because they have more sugars and are softer, which lends more flavor to the bread.
What happens if you don’t use ripe bananas for banana bread? Unripe bananas will result in a less sweet bread and likely a little dryer since the banana is firmer with less moisture.
If your bananas are not soft, you can bake them in the oven at 350F or when it is preheating until they start turning dark. Let them cool for just a few minutes before you remove the banana from the peel.
You can skip the nuts to get a plain, simple banana bread, but the nuts bring such great texture and flavor to the bread.
This Banana Nut Bread is perfect for our Banana Bread Pudding, which was ranked the best bread pudding I have made by a bread pudding lover.
What is the difference between banana nut bread and banana nut cake?
A banana cake is a thinner, sweeter batter that banana is added to.
Banana bread is much firmer and denser with less sweetness and a thicker batter.
Why is my banana bread dry?
One possibility is that the banana was not mashed enough, leaving larger chunks in fewer places that are not contributing moisture to the bread.
It is also possible that the bread batter was mixed too much, making it tough and drying it out.
Why does my banana nut bread sink in the middle?
Typically this means that the bread was not quite cooked through in the middle and the weight of the bread sunk down as it cooled.
You can prevent this by checking the middle of the bread with a cake tester which should come out completely clean and without any batter or wet dough.
Banana Nut Bread
Equipment
- Rubber spatula
- Cooking spray
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 bananas very ripe, mashed (1.5 cups)
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter melted and slightly cooled (3/4 stick)
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup walnuts chopped coarsely
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F with the rack in the middle position.
- In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
- In a medium bowl, combine the mashed banana, butter, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla extract.
- Add the walnuts to the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
- Generously coat a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with nonstick spray.
- Gently fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture until it is just combined. Some chunks and streaks is okay, and it will be thick.
- Spread the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top.
- Bake in the oven at 350°F until cooked through, approximately 50-60 minutes. A toothpick or cake pick inserted in the middle should come out with just a few crumbs.
- Remove from oven. Let the bread sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip out and let cool on a cooling rack complete, approximately 1 hour.
This Banana bread was very delicious! The well balanced flavors made it an easy favorite! The yogurt really made a difference compared to other breads.