Photographers: John Paul Urizar, James Moffatt. Stylists: Sophia Young, Olivia Blackmore, Kate Brown.
Over the years, we have made and tested our fair share of banana bread in The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Test Kitchen and we’re calling it: this is the best banana bread recipe. It’s perfectly moist, with a lovely crumb and chopped walnuts for added texture. In fact, it’s so good you might end up skipping the café altogether once you’ve made this at home.
Ingredients
Method
Preheat oven to 160°C/325°F. Grease a 13cm x 26cm (5¼in x 10½in), 2-litre (8-cup) loaf pan; line with baking paper.
Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until paler and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined, then mashed banana and maple syrup.
Sift over flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon and salt. Add walnuts; stir with a large spoon until combined. Spoon into pan; smooth the surface.
Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave in pan for 10 minutes before turning, top-side up, onto a wire rack to cool.
Banana bread serving suggestion
This banana bread is beautiful fresh from the oven but possibly even better toasted and slathered with butter, for a completely indulgent, café-style experience.
How to make banana bread
Moist, sweet and full of flavour, banana bread is one of the best ways to use up brown bananas that have been in the fruit bowl just a little too long. It’s also a café favourite and may be an excuse to have something like cake for breakfast. If you’ve never made banana bread before, or want to perfect your approach for café-style banana bread with this recipe, here’s what to keep in mind:
- Make sure your bananas are ripe enough. Banana bread works best with very ripe to overripe fruit as this is when they are at their sweetest and most flavourful for cooking. Barely ripe or ripe bananas won’t have the same flavour and can be hard to mash, which affects the consistency of banana bread.
- Remember to preheat the oven. It’s easy to forget this step in excited anticipation of fresh, warm banana bread, but preheating gives you the best results because it means the temperature is stable. As a guide, it usually takes 10 minutes to preheat most ovens.
- Use the same size loaf pan (or as close as possible). For our best banana bread recipe, we used a 13cm x 26cm, 2-litre loaf pan, greased and lined with baking paper. If you use a different size, you may get different results. For example, a smaller loaf pan could result in the bread mixture overflowing in the oven, while a larger one may not rise in the same way.
How long does banana bread last?
Store banana bread in an air tight container for up to three days. Although the moisture content means it could spoil sooner in humid environments.
Our best banana bread recipe: flavour variations
COCONUT BANANA BREAD
Make Banana Bread (above), omitting ground cinnamon and using ½ cup dark or milk Choc Bits instead of walnuts, and adding ¼ cup coconut flakes. Spoon the mixture into the pan; smooth the surface. Scatter the top with an extra 2 tablespoons each of dark or milk Choc Bits and coconut chips. Continue as directed in the recipe.
PEANUT BUTTER & RASPBERRY
Make Banana Bread (above), using ¼ cup vegetable oil instead of the butter, and ½ cup smooth peanut butter and ¾ cup fresh raspberries instead of the walnuts. Spoon the mixture into the lined pan; smooth the surface. Sprinkle the top with 1 tablespoon demerara sugar. Continue as directed in the recipe.
CREAM CHEESE-FILLED
Beat 125g (4oz) softened cream cheese, ¼ cup caster (superfine) sugar, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind and 2 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour with an electric mixer until smooth. Make Banana Bread (above); spread half the mixture in pan, smooth the surface. Top with filling, spreading to the edge. Spread evenly with remaining banana bread mixture. Bake as directed.
HUMMINGBIRD
Drain a 440g (14oz) can crushed pineapple; discard juice. Make Banana Bread (above), using ½ cup vegetable oil instead of butter and adding drained pineapple with the banana. Continue as directed. Beat 125g (4oz) softened cream cheese and 1½ cups sifted icing sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Spread frosting on cooled loaf, dust with extra cinnamon.
This recipe was originally published in 2018, then updated in 2023. We updated it in 2025 to include more details and tips.
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