{"id":15358,"date":"2020-03-24T19:45:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T23:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bakeschool.com\/?p=15358"},"modified":"2021-11-07T21:12:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T02:12:38","slug":"troubleshooting-banana-bread-recipes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakeschool.com\/troubleshooting-banana-bread-recipes\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make the best banana bread with tips & tricks for troubleshooting recipes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Banana bread recipes are some of the easiest to follow and considered a \"go-to\" baked good to make, even for novice bakers. Yet sometimes, banana bread recipes can go wrong. They might sink, they brown too much in the oven, they don't rise, they are under-baked in the middle or gummy at the bottom, they don't taste right.... Here's a post to explore what can go wrong with banana bread and how to improve your recipe next time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banana<\/figure>\n\n\n[feast_advanced_jump_to]\n\n\n

Banana bread 101<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Banana bread is essentially a banana cake, made just like any other cake with the same basic ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, flour, chemical leaveners<\/a>) and the addition of mashed bananas. It's referred to as a bread because it's baked in a loaf pan. Still you can bake the exact same recipe in a muffin pan and call it banana muffins. Or you can bake that recipe in a cake pan and call it banana cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic banana bread formula<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Most banana bread recipes have the same formula, roughly: 115 grams (\u00bd cup) butter (or oil) + 200 grams (1 cup) sugar (white or brown) + 2 large eggs +  2 or 3 mashed bananas + (190 grams) 1-\u00bd cups flour + 1 teaspoon baking soda + \u00bd teaspoon salt. Some recipes may include less bananas and a little milk to compensate, others may include an acidic ingredient, like buttermilk or sour cream, which are tenderizing ingredients that may reduce gluten formation during the mixing stage. Some may add cinnamon, nutmeg, or even cardamom for flavour, and vanilla extract too. And some recipes might have more flour. But most banana bread recipes actually follow the same formula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mixing methods vary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Some recipes will use the muffin mixing method to make banana bread: all wet ingredients are whisked together in one bowl, and all dry ingredients are whisked together in another bowl. In the muffin method, the wet ingredients are added to the dry, and slowly mixed in, just enough to make a cohesive batter without overworking it. Usually, cakes made with the muffin method call for either neutral vegetable oil (like canola), melted coconut oil, or melted butter, and these are incorporated with the liquid ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others will use the creaming method, which is the most common mixing method for cakes and helps you mechanically incorporate more air into the batter before the cake goes in the oven. To make a banana bread using the creaming method: the butter and sugar are whipped together until light and fluffy (this can take 5 minutes or more of beating them together), then the eggs are mixed in, one at a time, followed by the mashed banana, and finally the dry ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The banana bread recipes and methods are straightforward, and yet a lot can go wrong. Here's a deep-dive into all the problems that you may encounter while make banana bread, what you can do now (or next time) to make your banana bread better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banana<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Problem #1: it sinks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The trouble with banana bread is that, sometimes, you might notice it sinks or sags in the middle. For example, when I was working on this delicious chocolate banana bread recipe with chocolate chips<\/a>, I found the loaf cake kept sinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are five reasons why you might end up with sunken banana bread:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. the ingredients in your banana bread recipe aren't properly balanced<\/strong>: when I say \"balanced,\" I mean your recipe might have too much of the wet ingredients or not enough of the dry ingredients. The batter has more moisture content than it should and there aren't enough structural ingredients (mainly flour) to trap the air (steam from evaporation of water and carbon dioxide), leading to a wet loaf cake that may rise and collapse. This excess moisture could come from inconsistencies when measuring baking ingredients<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. your banana bread recipe doesn't mention the volume of mashed bananas, nor the weight of bananas you should use:<\/strong>\u00a0The trouble with most banana bread recipes is they will tell you to use 3 bananas or 2 large bananas, but who knows the size of those bananas. Descriptors like \"medium\" or \"large\" don't help because those quantifiers are all subjective and relative, hardly an exact measurement. And if you add too much banana, you may end up with too much moisture in your banana bread and structural problems, making it next to impossible to bake off that excess moisture in the oven. Inevitably, your banana bread will sink. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. your banana bread recipe might have too much chemical leavener<\/a>:<\/strong>\u00a0Leavening agents help your cakes and quick breads rise and you need to use enough for the quantity of ingredients present in your recipe. On the other hand, too much baking soda<\/a> or an excess of baking powder<\/a> will lead to too much gas forming in your baked goods which will rise too quickly and fall, causing cakes to sink<\/a> because the banana bread doesn't have enough structure to support and hold the volume of gas formed. The air escapes from the still raw batter and the banana bread sinks back down. And the problem with this is the chemical leavener is used up and lost, and so the banana bread can't recover from the fall.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. you topped your banana bread with a halved banana:<\/strong> slicing a banana in half, lengthwise, and placing the banana halves on top of a banana bread before baking is a very trendy way to gussy up banana bread. In fact, for the longest time, all I saw on Instagram were banana breads topped with bananas. That banana can cause your bread to collapse underneath as it bakes: the banana bread batter becomes more fluid as the temperature rises and it becomes more delicate as gases are formed when the chemical leaveners react, and since the bananas on top are quite heavy, the banana bread may collapse underneath<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. you pulled it out of the oven too soon:<\/strong> if your cake hasn't finished baking and you remove it from the oven, the structure hasn't set and your cake is likely to collapse.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \"Basic<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    What to do if it sinks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    If you've retrieved your banana bread from the oven and it begins to sink, there isn't much you can do. The damage is done and you can't stop it. But what you can do, is take a step back and look at your recipe. Analyze the ingredient list, compare it to other banana bread recipes in your cookbooks or on your favourite sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you cut into your banana bread and you realize it's collapsed and still wet inside, it may mean that you didn't bake the loaf for long enough. Consider what methods you used to judge if the bread was baked through. Learn how to test a banana bread to see if it's done with the methods listed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Problem #2: it browns too much<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    I bet this has happened to you while baking banana bread: you realize after about 30 minutes in the oven that your banana bread is already \"golden brown delicious\" but it's still got a full 30 minutes of baking left on the timer (or more!). The problem might not be your oven or the temperature you set it to. There's more going on when a cake browns too quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Excess of baking soda will cause browning<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Too much baking soda<\/a> in banana bread will inevitably lead to too much browning. Baking soda will increase the pH of your banana bread batter, making it more basic or alkaline. At higher pH, Maillard browning reactions occur, leading to a darker colour much faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is especially problematic with loaf cakes that take an hour or more to bake properly to the centre. For loaf cakes, you have no choice but to bake for longer, but if your batter is also more alkaline than it could be, this means an excess of browning will occur, all the way to the centre of the cake. This is why many banana breads actually look brown inside and outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For layer cakes, which are only an inch or two high, your cake will probably be in the oven for 30 minutes. It won't brown excessively in that time unless you've added way too much baking soda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After reading as many banana bread recipes as I possibly could, I realize now that most are leavened with baking soda exclusively, probably for historical reasons dating back to years when commercial baking powder didn't exist or wasn't as common in households. Ripe bananas aren't very acidic so wouldn't compensate for the excess baking soda. For this reason, banana bread recipes leavened with an excess of baking soda will inevitably turn brown<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Even banana breads made with sour cream still have too much baking soda and brown more easily in the oven. So adding an acidic ingredient to your cake batter won't solve the problem and will inevitably have an impact on the delicate balance of ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Two<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    A darker pan will lead to faster browning<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    It's a fact that darker metal pans absorb more heat in the oven than lighter pans, and given that metal pans are great conductors, your banana bread will heat up faster on the edges if you bake it in a dark, metal pan. To avoid this, either bake it in a lighter pan OR lower the temperature of your oven by 25 \u00baF (so I would bake a banana bread in a light metal pan at 350 \u00baF but in a dark metal pan at 325 \u00baF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What to do if it browns too quickly<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    The moment that you notice your banana bread is browning too quickly, you can tent it with a piece of foil to minimize further browning. You can also try dropping the temperature of the oven by 25 \u00baF. But other than that, there's not much you can do. And you can't remove it from the oven or stop baking the bread until you know it's baked in the middle, so the bread will darken further if there's still a lot of time left on your timer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Next time, if you are using a darker pan, preheat your oven to 25 \u00baF lower than the original temperature and from the beginning. Also, take the time to analyze the ingredient list of your recipe: is there a lot of baking soda and little to no acid present in the recipe? Then maybe you could use a little less and swap in some baking powder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Baked<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Problem #3: it doesn't rise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    With leavening agents like baking soda and baking powder, a little goes a long way. On the other hand, if you don't add enough of these ingredients, your banana bread won't be able to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Banana bread batter is particularly dense (as compared to a sponge cake or a flourless chocolate cake<\/a>, where you incorporate a ton of air by whipping the eggs), especially when you think of the weight of the bananas added to the batter. You need a lot of rising power to be able to spring that cake batter up in the oven and to compete with gravity trying to pull the ingredients down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The thickness and heavy-nature of the banana bread batter is why recipes call for more chemical leaveners than other cakes. Recall that the rule of thumb for how much chemical leavener to add to baked goods is roughly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n