Banana bread with walnuts: moist, one bowl, no mixer
What to do with bananas that have gone brown: mash them with a fork, mix with butter, sugar, an egg and flour in one bowl, bake in a loaf tin. The darker the bananas, the sweeter and moister the bread. Fifteen minutes of work, no mixer, and a loaf that gets better for three days.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Batter 15 min
- Baking 55 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMash the bananas
Heat the oven to 175 °C and line the loaf tin with paper. Mash three bananas with a fork in a large bowl into a lumpy purée; don't blend, the small pieces give moist pockets in the crumb.
Ingredients: 4 pcs bananas · 100 g butter · 120 g sugar · 1 pcs egg · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 220 g plain flour · 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda · 1 tsp cinnamon · ½ tsp salt · 80 g walnuts
TipThe bananas should be brown-spotted or nearly all brown. Yellow ones are not sweet or soft enough; if you must, bake them 15 minutes in their skins at 180 °C first, then mash.
Three brown bananas, a fork, lumpsAdd the wet ingredients
Pour the melted, cooled butter into the bananas, add the sugar and vanilla sugar, crack in the egg. Whisk until combined, half a minute.
Butter, sugar, egg, a whiskAdd the dry ingredients and nuts
Add the flour, soda, cinnamon and salt and fold with a spatula only until the flour disappears; lumps are fine. Add the walnuts and fold in with two strokes. Long mixing makes the loaf rubbery.
TipThe soda reacts with the acid in the bananas and gives the lift; baking powder won't work the same way. Don't swap.
Briefly, until the flour disappearsInto the tin, banana on top
Scrape the batter into the tin and level it. Halve the fourth banana lengthways and lay it on top cut side up, pressing lightly.
Banana halves on topBake
Bake 50–55 minutes, until the top splits and turns deep golden and a skewer in the centre comes out dry or with moist crumbs. If the top browns too fast, cover with foil after 35 minutes.
A split top, a dry skewerCool and slice
Leave in the tin 15 minutes, lift out by the paper and cool on a rack. Slice only when lukewarm, thickly. Wrapped in foil it keeps 4 days and gets moister every day; freezes in slices.
Thick slices, even better the next day
Before you start
With chocolate
80 g dark chocolate in chunks instead of the walnuts, or alongside. The version children usually like best.
Less sugar
With very ripe bananas 80 g sugar is enough. The loaf is less sweet and better for breakfast with butter.
Gummy under the banana
Too many bananas or underbaked. Three medium bananas are about 300–350 g of purée; don't add more, and test the skewer in the thickest part.
