Everyone has their own favorite banana bread recipe, it seems, and the Internet has plenty so what am I doing adding another? Well, when I looked for a recipe to make banana bread a few weeks ago, I didn’t find one that I loved. Either they called for ingredients I didn’t have on hand, or they seemed too simple and I wanted to add a bit more flavor to them.
I ended up turning to a basic recipe. I added almond flour and almond extract as well as a few spices, and substituted brown sugar for about 75% of the white sugar.
I’m still getting the hang of recipe development, and don’t trust myself to create a baking recipe without some sort of framework. But I wish I knew how bakers do that. Some of the home bakers on Great British Baking Show don’t even seem to measure their ingredients. It’s incredible.
I thought about calling this nutty no-nut banana bread but that would be confusing and slightly inaccurate. You see, it has a nutty taste from the almond flour and almond extract but it doesn’t have any crushed or chopped nuts like some banana breads.
I came up with that “nutty tasting, yet without big pieces of nuts” idea a few weeks ago and then saw that one of my favorite food bloggers had the same train of thought. Robyn of Sweetish.co made cinnamon buns with GRAIN flour and said something similar about the flavor of them on Instagram. I guess great minds think alike.
Adapted from Julia’s Best Banana Bread on Bon Appetit
Beyond basic banana bread
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 large eggs
3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Preheat oven to 350°. Coat a 9x5x3” loaf pan with nonstick spray.
Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Whisk eggs, sugar, bananas, oil and almond extract in a large bowl until smooth.
Add dry ingredients to banana mixture and stir just until combined. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top.
Bake until a tester inserted into the center of bread comes out clean, 60–70 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack; let bread cool in pan for 15 minutes. Run a knife around inside of pan to release the bread. Turn out onto rack and let cool completely.
Banana bread can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.
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