Grandma’s banana bread is a favourite with my children, even my non-banana loving daughter. It is moist and light, and packed full of the beautiful flavour of banana.
Think comfort food at it’s best. I love a slice of this with a cup of tea mid afternoon. Ah, bliss!
For those of you who have ever had the privilege of meeting my amazing mum, you will know what a fantastic cook she was. Always kind and generous, she loved to cook and took such great joy in caring for her family and friends. This banana bread is one of the first recipes I ever learned from her.
And since it’s so easy to put together, it has been a wonderful one to bake with my children over the years. From peeling and mashing bananas, to cracking eggs and measuring up ingredients: this is a brilliant little recipe to do with very young children as an introduction to baking and learning lots of new skills too.
And at some point, every household will end up with bananas uneaten and overripe, right? There is so much that can be done with them: banana bread of course is the reason for this post! You can also make my banoffee crumble don’t forget, which is another yummy one to do with the kids!
Now I know there are many many recipes for banana bread out there. This one is one of the simplest I have come across, using ingredients that are pretty staple in any home. And, as an added bonus, there is honestly not much that can go wrong with it!
We always put walnuts into our loaf, and sometimes raisins too if we feel like it. You can absolutely swap everything out if you wish, or use different nuts or dried fruit too. In our family, we’ve just found we prefer walnuts and raisins.
Everyone has a favourite banana bread recipe right? This one is a firm favourite of mine, for all the memories it has given us as a family, baking with our children over the years.
Thank you, mum, for this beautiful and delicious recipe, and all the joy it has given over the years. Friends, I really hope you too will enjoy Grandma’s banana bread as much as we have.
Happy baking, friends!
🙂 x
Grandma’s Banana Bread
10-12
servings10
minutes50
minutes1
hourSimple but delicious banana bread!
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Ingredients
3 large overripe bananas
60 ml (¼ cup) oil (I used vegetable oil)
170 ml (½ cup + 3 tbsp) buttermilk (regular milk will be fine if you don’t have buttermilk too)
1 large egg
100 g (¼ cup + 3 tbsp) sugar (I used granulated)
280 g (1 cups + ¾ cup) plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
0.5 tsp salt
100 g (½ cup) walnuts, chopped or broken into quarters (optional)
Directions
- Grease your loaf tin and line it with paper so it overhangs, to make it easy to lift your loaf out once it’s baked. Preheat your oven to 170C/340F.
- Mash your bananas, then mix in a large bowl or jug with the oil, buttermilk and egg. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, sift together your flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt. Make a well in the middle and pour in the wet ingredients, mixing completely to combine. Stir in the walnuts, if using.
- Tip your mixture into your loaf tin. Don’t fill more than 3/4 full or your loaf will mushroom as it bakes. Bake in your preheated oven for 45-60 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. If you find the top is browning too fast, just cover the top with some foil to stop it burning.
- Once your cake is done, leave it in the tin for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then remove from tin and cool completely on a wire rack.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Don’t worry if your cake batter is lumpy: it will all come good once baked!
- The loaf cuts much more easily if you can wait until it’s cooled before you cut it. It is delicious when still warm, of course, but will be harder to cut!
- Once cooled, store in an airtight container and eat within 3 days. Ours never lasts that long!
