Set you oven rack to the lower 1/3 of the oven and preheat the oven to 350. Grease your loaf pan and/or line it with parchment.
Mash bananas into a puree. Add oil and honey and whisk everything together until well mixed. Add eggs, milk and vanilla and mix well.
Add baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg (if using) to your wet ingredients. Make sure everything is thoroughly mixed.
Add your flour at once. Gently fold it with a spatula a couple of times. If using mix ins, add them now (to prevent them from sinking to the bottom, add them when the flour is only about 90% mixed in - the flour will coat their surface to ensure they don’t sink to the bottom.) Continue folding only until flour is mixed in. You don’t want lumps of flour, but overmixing will result in development of gluten in the flour and tougher texture.
Pour the batter into gently greased 10x5 or 9x5 pan.
Wet a butter knife and run it 1/2 inch deep across the length and in the middle of the bread (this will improve the appearance of baked bread) and help it "break" more evenly.
Bake until the tester comes out clean. Or, as with all my recipes, I prefer more reliable and consistent measure with the help of the digital thermometer. My preferred internal temperature of the banana bread ranges between 200 and 206°. With 203 being ideal. The time will depend on the loaf pan used, accuracy with which you measured your ingredients, how hot your oven runs, etc. Start checking at 45 minutes. It should absolutely take less than 60-65 minutes. Cool directly in a loaf pan uncovered.
Ingredients
Directions
Set you oven rack to the lower 1/3 of the oven and preheat the oven to 350. Grease your loaf pan and/or line it with parchment.
Mash bananas into a puree. Add oil and honey and whisk everything together until well mixed. Add eggs, milk and vanilla and mix well.
Add baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg (if using) to your wet ingredients. Make sure everything is thoroughly mixed.
Add your flour at once. Gently fold it with a spatula a couple of times. If using mix ins, add them now (to prevent them from sinking to the bottom, add them when the flour is only about 90% mixed in - the flour will coat their surface to ensure they don’t sink to the bottom.) Continue folding only until flour is mixed in. You don’t want lumps of flour, but overmixing will result in development of gluten in the flour and tougher texture.
Pour the batter into gently greased 10x5 or 9x5 pan.
Wet a butter knife and run it 1/2 inch deep across the length and in the middle of the bread (this will improve the appearance of baked bread) and help it "break" more evenly.
Bake until the tester comes out clean. Or, as with all my recipes, I prefer more reliable and consistent measure with the help of the digital thermometer. My preferred internal temperature of the banana bread ranges between 200 and 206°. With 203 being ideal. The time will depend on the loaf pan used, accuracy with which you measured your ingredients, how hot your oven runs, etc. Start checking at 45 minutes. It should absolutely take less than 60-65 minutes. Cool directly in a loaf pan uncovered.
