How to make Yeasted Banana Bread
Banana bread is no stranger to most of us, but somewhere around 99.99% of banana bread recipes turn out quick breads (breads leavened with baking powder or baking soda rather than yeast).
I love banana quick breads and muffins, to be sure, but sometimes it's a little fun to shake things up and make a yeast bread with overripe bananas.
Plus, this bread is kind of a looker.
Aaand if you prefer a lighter, less-sweet banana bread, this will be right up your alley...it's more like bread and less like cake.
I used to make this when I was a teenager, and the recipe comes from my beloved 1970s Better Homes and Gardens bread cookbook. I'd sort of forgotten about it until I ended up with 10 super ripe bananas recently, so I decided this was a good time to dust off the recipe!
To start, you'll need to mash some overly ripe bananas.
You can do this in a food processor, but because I am too lazy to get it out and wash it, I just use a potato masher.
I never get the bananas as fine as the food processor does, but this seems to have no ill effect on the end product.
Easy for the win!
You'll also need to combine the milk, sugar, butter, and salt and heat it to around 120 ° F. The microwave is super convenient for this and I do it right in the measuring cup.
Combine 2 cups of the flour with the dry yeast.
Mix the yeast and flour together. Then you'll pour in the milk mixture and add the bananas, an egg, and an egg yolk.
(We're reserving one white for glazing the loaves later.)
At this point, the dough will be a lot more like batter and you'll beat it on medium speed for about 3 minutes.
Now you're going to add in as much of the remaining flour as necessary to make a kneadable dough.
I like my dough to be fairly soft when I start to knead it, but you can make yours a little stiffer than mine if you like.
Here's what it'll look like when you dump it out.
And once you knead it, it should look more like this. See how it's still soft enough to sort of flatten out a bit on the counter?
That's good because when dough is very stiff, the yeast bubbles have a hard time lifting it, and the result is heavy bread.
Softer dough will rise up beautifully, though.
Place the dough in a bowl, cover it with a wet tea towel, and leave it to rise for an hour.
Once it's done rising, turn it out onto a lightly floured counter and divide it in half.
Then you'll want to make each half into a round loaf. I do this by pulling the outer edges around so that there's a smooth surface on the top and sort of an ugly mess on the bottom, like so.
It takes a little bit of practice to do this easily, especially with a ball of dough this size, but it's the best way I've found to make nice smooth yeast dough balls for loaves, buns, or rolls.
Place each loaf onto a greased baking sheet. You could try to fit two on one sheet, but I think it's too crowded that way.
Cover each loaf with a wet tea towel and let the loaves rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 °F about ten minutes before the rising time is up so the oven is nice and hot when your bread is ready to bake.
Then whisk an egg white together with a teaspoon of water. Brushing this over the unbaked loaves will help them develop a beautiful sheen while they bake.
Brush over the whole loaf, and then use a knife to make slashes on the loaf, like so:
I find that a knife with really shallow serrations works great for a task like this.
Pop your loaf into the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes, then remove loaf to a wire rack to cool.
(And put your other loaf in the oven to bake!)
Then slice, butter, and enjoy.
Since the recipe makes two loaves, and since it has no preservatives, you'll probably want to freeze one so that it doesn't dry out before you get to it.
If you have a small family, try cutting the loaves in half and freezing each half separately. That way you can defrost just one half at a time.
Yeasted Banana Bread
Printable Yeasted Banana Bread Recipe
makes 2 round loaves
5.5-6 cups all purpose flour (Gold Medal Unbleached is the BEST)
2 pkg. active dry yeast
¾ cup milk
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup butter, cut into pieces
2 ripe bananas, mashed (1 cup)
2 eggs
In a large mixer bowl, combine yeast with 2 cups of the flour.
In a measuring cup, combine the milk, sugar, butter, and salt, and heat to 115 °F.
With the mixer running, add the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Then add mashed bananas, 1 egg, and 1 egg yolk (reserve the white for brushing over the loaves.)
Beat at low speed until combined, then beat at medium speed for 3 minutes. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft, but kneadable dough.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead 3-5 minutes, adding flour as necessary, until dough is smooth and elastic.
Place dough in bowl, cover with wet tea towel, place in a warm spot and let rise for 1 hour.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface, divide in half, and shape each half into a round loaf. Place each loaf on a greased baking sheet. Cover with a damp tea towel and let rise til double (30-45 minutes).
Use a knife with shallow serrations to make slashes around the loaf as shown in the photos. Beat egg white with 1 teaspoon water; brush over loaves.
Bake in a preheated 350 °F oven for 30 minutes. Remove from baking sheet to cool on a wire rack, and place second loaf in oven to bake.
Looks really good,Kristen! I just made banana cake (with baking soda and sour cream) a couple days ago and it's really good. I made banana bread once but can't remember all the ingredients I used.I will try your recipe!Also,I read from "The Art of Bread" that using unbleached flour is always recommended.
Oh, this looks so good! And I have just the bananas for this recipe. They went from really unripe to overripe seemingly overnight. Mmmmmm, banana bread.....
I've been waiting for this post since you put the pic on Instagram! Yum. I just started experimenting with yeasted breads because I was tired of spending up to $5 a loaf on the healthy breads at the supermarket. I can't wait to try this!
What's the surface you're kneading your bread on? It looks like a very thin cutting board but I'm guessing it's not.
Thanks.
I just knead it right on my formica countertop.
I'd love to try this today, but I only have one banana. Do you think it would work to cut the recipe in half and just make one loaf?
Definitely!
Yeasted banana bread! Now that's a new one for me. I'll have to pin this and try it. I have bananas out right now to make banana quick bread.
I've bee looking for this recipe every day since you posted the picture on Facebook. My bananas are about 2 days from being ripe enough, so if I can keep my toddlers from devouring them I'll be able to try the bread then. Woohoo! 🙂
do you ever freeze the dough before baking it, then thawing it and baking the bread when you need it? I find this very convenient with Pizza dough.
ooh, forgot to ask, does this have a very banana-ish taste?
Kristen: Just this past Saturday at our library fundraising booksale, I picked up a copy of a BH&G bread machine cookbook with a recipe for banana (walnut) bread. It also had apple bread and other interesting yeast breads. I thought it would be fun to try out and I have ripe bananas sitting in the freezer. If we don't lose power in this snowstorm, I'll have plenty of time to do such.
I use my immersion blender to puree bananas for banana bread. It doesn't dirty any more dishes than a for or a potato masher would, and it does a much smoother job.
Looks yummy! I haven't tried yeast banana bread, but I do love banana bread. I can't wait to try.
Your baking always looks so mouthwateringly good!
Not sure whether I could wait for this to bake (a diehard dough-eater here) 🙂
You may want to freeze the dough for that second loaf and bake it on another day.
Leftovers made a wonderful bread pudding!
I made this as a loaf and added mini chocolate chipsit is simply amazing and my all new favorite toast. Thanks for sharing your wonderful inspirations.
I'm planning on making this, but I'm going to add in the half avocado that I had needing to go somewhere. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Oh, interesting! I hope it turns out well. I've successfully subbed avocado for part of the banana in regular banana bread, so maybe it'll be good in this bread too.
So I used this recipe for something even more amazing than bread... Cinnamon rolls. Mind you they don't have raisin's because NO one in my house will eat them.. Still this was one of the most amazingly moist rolls ever. I am waiting for some new old banana's so I can try pecan rolls with it next.. Thanks!
Oh! And I baked both loaves at the same time and it only baked 30 min!
I don't have a mixer. Do you think it'll turn out the same if I hand knead the dough?
This is my second time to bake this bread! It is so delicious! I used only about 1/4 cup honey in place of sugar and baked it in loaves. It makes the most awesome French toast! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! My family loves it. It's so filling you only need one piece! I would love to post a pic, they're beautiful! But idk how to 🙁
Well, I have made many banana cakes in my time, usually use 3 medium bananas for a 13x9 cake, and this is wonderful. So, I thought I would try the banana bread (real bread -- i.e., with yeast), so I tried your recipe, but I doubled the banana (2 per loaf), and I cannot even tell there was ANY banana in the bread: no banana taste, no black flecks. What was the point of this if it doesn't taste like banana (I cannot imagine that yours tastes of banana with only half as many bananas in it)?
Can I bake the bread without dividing it in half?
I would not. That'll make a really large loaf, which will tend to burn on the outside before being cooked all the way through on the inside.
Made this banana bread today, of course with my tweaks. I am baking it in the slow cooker, so made the dough wetter than I would normally. Just didn’t add much flour on last steps. Also added some fiber as 1/4 c each rice bran, oat bran, and ground pecans. This replaced some of the flour. And I forgot the butter, so I get to try again. I’m sure it’ll be eaten.
Update.: it needed to cook a full hour and a half on high before checking with thermometer to
180 F In slow cooker. I checked at one hour and mine fell . Still good bread. Very tasty. Slight banana taste would be alright as sandwich bread. Will try another half recipe soon.