This easy banana “bread” is really a glorious banana cake baked in a square tin, with a crisp cinnamon sugar crust and beautiful banana halves on top.
Bread? I call it cake!
It’s a wonderful cake, though Samin Nosrat, whose Good Things cookbook the recipe is from, calls it bread. It’s that odd American way of calling some cakes ‘bread’, which comes from the differentiation between yeast-leavened breads that we slice and butter (though here’s another landmine), and so called ‘quick breads’ that are leavened by baking powder.
That seems to completely omit the much more in my view important distinction which is sweet vs savoury. Plus they have come to simplify baking products by calling ‘bread’ anything that is baked in a loaf tin.
I do disapprove of that, I must say, and Samin actually takes it further into the shady corner because her banana ‘bread’ is not even baked in a loaf tin! It’s baked in a square brownie-type tin to allow for a bigger surface of delicious topping and for the four banana halves to sit on it comfortably.
Still, the recipe itself makes such a delicious cake (cake, Samin. CAKE!) that I’m inclined to forgive her. The recipe name is ‘bread’ after Samin but for me, that’s no ham sandwich material.
Bananas are really bananas
Bananas are the classic easy cake/quick bread materials but they are quite a peculiar fruit. To start off with, they are actually, technically, botanically berries, because their seeds live inside the fruit. Who knew?
They also do not grow on banana trees as you might have thought because a banana plant is in fact a giant herb. Plus, they are very slightly radioactive, containing tiny amounts of potassium-40. Add to that the fact that you can make paper out of them, and that they contain about 75% water (yes, really!), and the humble banana turns out to be truly bananas.
The cake/bread recipe below is certainly not radioactive though and you shouldn’t use it to wrap food in. It is delicious, fluffy but at the same time squidgy and moist, especially around the banana strips sitting on top. And the crunchy, ‘sparkling’ as Samin calls it, topping is blissful.
Ripe or overripe?
If you make your banana bread/cake only ever to use up surplus overripe bananas, that’s absolutely fine. But if you buy bananas for the purpose of baking, don’t worry if they are not squishy and black all over. Just like with wine used in cooking, baking bananas should also be good to eat. And the cake/bread will be all the better if they are not too black and mushy.
The only advantage of using bananas nearing their use-by date is that they are far easier to mash. But a solid fork and some elbow grease will quickly sort it.
How to make the banana batter
It’s as easy as any wet-to-dry mix. The flour, raising agents and cinnamon (lots!) are stirred in one, large bowl. The sugar can actually go into either: I believe most bakers are undecided about whether it belongs with the wet or the dry.
The mashed bananas though are definitely wet, as is the buttermilk, eggs and the oil. Walnut oil gives the cake wonderful flavour but any neutral oil can be used too: groundnut, grapeseed or rapeseed.
The wet ingredients, whisked together, go into the dry and the batter should be energetically mixed with a spatula for a while, because dry flour quite stubbornly keeps showing through. But that’s the batter done, poured into a square cake tin (see? another proof it is a cake) lined with parchment, and rapped against the worktop to remove air bubbles.
The topping
The topping is the best bit, and it can be either granulated or demerara sugar. Granulated sugar does give the surface a sort of ‘sparkling’ effect but I do adore demerara crunch. And the best bit (of the best bit) is the long strips of banana halves, cut lengthwise, snaking across the sugar plain.
The cake takes a while to bake, depending on whether you have a larger, 23 cm/9 inch or smaller, 20 cm/8 inch tin. Both are suitable, only the baking will take 5-10 minutes longer in the smaller but deeper tin.
The cake is delicious warm, but keeps quite well in the kitchen for a couple of days.
More banana recipes
Fudgy white chocolate banana blondie with added Brazil nut toffee chunks. The only slightly tricky part is making the toffee but it’s completely worth the effort.
Buckwheat banana fritters for delicious and gluten free breakfast. Smashed bananas in buckwheat pancake batter, and a drizzle of honey is a must!
Banana and nut granola clusters, crunchy and fragrant homemade cereal for those who like it ultra-crisp. The mix bakes into one large bar to be broken up into crunchy chunks.
More cake aka bread recipes
Cranberry and walnut bread made with fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped walnuts and orange juice and zest. It has intense flavour, gorgeous cranberry tang and crunchy sugar topping.
Easy pumpkin bread recipe that takes about 5 minutes to mix, excluding baking. A great pumpkin cake baked in a loaf tin, with dried cranberries and walnuts, a perfect autumnal recipe.
The easiest cake recipe ever: coconut loaf cake by Bill Granger. This coconut bread recipe uses shredded or flaked (not desiccated) coconut. The quickest coconut loaf cake, it tastes the best lightly toasted and buttered.