Banana Bread
Updated December 28, 2025
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 65 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
FOR THE BREAD
¼ pound cool butter (1 stick), more for greasing pan
¾ cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 ⅓ cups very ripe bananas (about 5)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
FOR THE TOPPING
3 tablespoons chopped walnuts or pecans
1 tablespoon granulated or coarse sugar
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
Nutritional analysis per serving
43 grams carbs; 56 milligrams cholesterol; 292 calories; 3 grams monosaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 12 grams fat; 2 grams fiber; 202 milligrams sodium; 5 grams protein; 18 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. Using electric mixer, cream butter until smooth and fluffy. Add sugar and cream together 2 minutes more. One at a time, mix in eggs. Mix in bananas until only small lumps remain.
- Step 2
Stir dry ingredients together and mix into banana mixture just until combined. Pour into prepared pan. If making topping, stir ingredients together and sprinkle over batter.
- Step 3
Bake about 55 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack and let cool completely before wrapping tightly for storage.
Private Notes
Comments
If your bananas aren’t very ripe, you can place them on a foil covered baking sheet in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 300 until the skins turn black. It releases the sugar and makes them perfect for baking.
My new go to recipe. Add a teaspoon of vanilla, reduce brown sugar to half cup, and swap out half of white flour for whole wheat. Yum.
I used this metric conversion
110g butter
100g brown sugar
2 eggs
500g bananas - 3 large
240g self raising flour
Grind of sea salt
Topping
30g flaked almonds
20g brown sugar
Shake of cinnamon
I just made this, and not for the first time ( though it’s been a while). There is a second mention of the topping at the end of the recipe in which the ingredient list differs from the one in the beginning by the addition of TWO CUPS OF FLOUR! Like an idiot, I read it through several times and then put the ingredients together and now have a huge pile of pale floury mix atop my breads ( yes, I doubled it as well, though I made half of the topping. I will attempt to brush it off. Odd indeed!
This was a classic banana bread! I just needed something easy with minimal ingredients to use up a bunch of bananas and this was perfect. Nothing crazy or overly exceptional
No matter how long I baked this, I couldn’t get the center to set. It was gooey and wet. Too much banana I think, although I followed the recipe exactly.