🥖 Castle & Cairn Banana Bread Recipe - Refined over 20 iterations

Castle & Cairn Banana Bread with Sour Cream

Yes it's a bit dark - that's the dark brown sugar!

We always seem to somehow end up with overripe bananas, so I find myself constantly needing to find a use for them. Banana break is by far the easiest final destination, and I'm never mad to have a slightly sweet breakfast option around. As a wise man once said, "Banana Bread at work? Hell yeah!"

Banana Bread Recipe

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 60-70 minutes
Total Time: ~1 hour 25 minutes
Yield: 1 loaf (8-10 slices)

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas (medium, about 1 ¼ cups mashed; very ripe with brown spots works best)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 large eggs (room temperature)
⅓ cup unsalted butter (melted - substitute with vegetable oil for a moister texture)
1 tsp baking soda

Spices/Seasoning:

½ tsp salt - can skip if you use salted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¾ cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract - who measures this anyway?

Optional Ingredients:

¼ cup sour cream or plain yogurt - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - can sub in Greek Yogurt for more protein.
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (for crunch, if you have them handy). Chocolate Chips also work well if you want a sweeter outcome.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease loaf pan generously.
Mash Bananas - I typically just throw them in the stand mixer.
Mix in ¾ cup brown sugar, ⅓ cup melted butter, 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and ¼ cup sour cream.
Add 1 ½ cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, and ¼ tsp nutmeg - If you want, you can mix this in a bowl on the side first, but I just throw it into the mixer.
Fold/mix in half the nuts or chocolate chips is using.
Pour into loaf pan, smoothing top with spatula and sprinkling on the remaining nuts and a little bit of extra brown sugar if you're feeling frisky.
Bake for 55-60 minutes. I would check it around 45min and cover with foil if the top is getting too brown. Assess with toothpick - should come out clean with a few moist crumbs.
Cool and serve - let sit for 10 minutes in the pan if happy with doneness otherwise try and get it out ASAP

Other Tips/Discussion

For me, moisture is the key, so the addition of sour cream was a game changer. I prefer the density of the loaf made with butter over that of a version made with oil though. You can comfortably increase the cinnamon/nutmeg to about 200% of the values above before it becomes unbearable, but these are probably the best generalizable values. If the loaf is overly dense, you probably overmixed it. Similarly, if it sinks a bunch in the middle you may have had a little too much moisture, likely from some big banana energy. Reheats great in the microwave (about 15 seconds) and is perfect slathered with some more butter.

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