Simple Banana Bread Recipe - Easy, Moist, & Delicious - Love Mischka (2025)

FAQs

Why is my banana bread dense and not fluffy? ›

You Over-Mix the Batter

For soft and tender banana bread, gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry — don't overmix! The more you stir, the more gluten will develop. The result will be a tough, rubbery banana bread. Simply stir until moist, and then do no more.

Place a paper towel at the bottom of an airtight container or in a zip-top bag. Place the cooled banana bread on top of it, then cover the loaf with another paper towel. Seal the container tightly and refrigerate for up to one week.

Ripe bananas are not only softer and easier to mash and blend into a batter, but they are also sweeter, which is why baking recipes specifically call for ripe bananas in ingredient lists. As the bananas ripen, the fruit converts starches to sugars, making them sweeter and more flavorful.

Using a lot of bananas adds excess moisture, and there are two ways to get rid of it. You could either add more flour or increase the baking time. Add a tablespoon of extra flour at a time into the batter and give it a good whisk until its consistency starts to look right: thick but runny enough to fall off a spoon.

Lubricate With Oil. One of the easiest ways our bakers follow to make bread soft and fluffy is by using 1-2 tablespoons of lubricant/fats such as vegetable oil to wet the ingredients. This will prevent the formation of excess gluten, as excess gluten makes bread chewy.

The experts at Allrecipes list excessive bananas as a common banana bread-making blunder, claiming it could make the bread feel a bit more hefty and moist in the middle. So instead of nice, airy, light bread, you might end up with mushy, dense bread that seems undercooked.

Once the loaf is fully cooled, cover it in plastic wrap. Then, wrap the loaf in aluminum foil. This will ensure it's airtight and will keep the loaf from drying out and avoid freezer burn.

Wrap the loaf tightly in plastic wrap, and store it in an airtight container. Paper towels and an airtight container. Swath your loaf in paper towels to help keep air from the surface and help get rid of any excess moisture—eliminating the mold issue. Place the loaf in an airtight container to keep it from going stale.

Le says refrigerating banana bread will inhibit the growth of mold that can occur at room temperature and will increase its shelf life by up to a week. So if you need to store banana bread for more than a few days, choose the refrigerator.

But, there is a limit. Black bananas or rotten bananas are a no-go. (Note that green bananas are also not a good choice for baking.) But those with slightly black peels and a little bit of excess liquid are perfect for turning into a loaf of banana bread magic.

Can bananas be too brown for banana bread? ›

In my experience, using bananas with a dark brown or even black peel for banana bread is ideal, as long as the inside isn't rotten. Key takeaway: As long as your bananas aren't starting to get moldy, infested with fruit flies or beginning to rot they aren't too ripe for baking banana bread.

But in the case of banana bread, adding extra butter weighs down the loaf and takes away from the banana flavor. The end result? A heavier banana bread with a more muted banana flavor. And though the inside winds up moist, my too-much-butter loaf ended up dry on the outside.

To substitute baking soda for baking powder in banana bread, use one third the amount of baking soda that you would of baking powder. For example, if your recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of baking powder, you can use 1 teaspoon of baking soda (exactly one third).

Too much baking soda will make your banana bread taste odd, a little bitter and salty. And it will make the batter rise to high. That might sound like a good thing, but the rest of the ingredients aren't sturdy enough to support the rise, so the bread will collapse.

There may be several reasons for a dense, cake like texture in bread. It may indicate the kneading wasn't enough for the gluten to develop properly, or the dough was proved for too short a time or the dough may have been too dry. It is also worth checking the flour you used.

Too much leavening can cause the bread to rise up too much and this will cause it to sink back as it cools. If you are having problems still then you could try making banana muffins instead. It is easier to make sure these are baked through properly (again use a cake tester to check).

To make it dense, you want a short rise. Skip the punching altogether; rise once, then shape, proof in the pan, and bake. Don't use a pizza stone or a preheated pan, these will give you large holes. Reducing the amount of yeast, in my experience, will make a denser bread.