Small Banana Bread

Ingredients

  • 71g (2.5 oz.) all-purpose flour (I use Gold Medal unbleached all-purpose)
  • 40g (¼ cup) walnuts toasted, chopped
  • 50g (¼ cup) sugar
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ⅛ teaspoon table salt
  • 1 small ripe banana (about 125g, ¼ cup) mashed
  • 1 large egg (50g) room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter melted
  • 20g (1 tablespoon) plain yogurt
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 5½ x 3-inch loaf pan.
  2. If walnuts are raw, roast on small sheet pan for about 8 minutes, until they smell toasty. Set aside to cool.
  3. Whisk flour, walnuts, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in medium bowl.
  4. In separate bowl, whisk mashed banana, egg, melted butter, yogurt, and vanilla together until smooth.
  5. Gently fold banana mixture into flour mixture with rubber spatula until just combined. (Batter will be lumpy with a few spots of dry flour; do not overmix.)
  6. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Run a thin knife along the top to encourage an even split. Bake until loaf is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30-40 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking.
  7. Let loaf cool in pan on wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and let cool at least 1 hour before serving.

Notes

10 November 2024: I made this today for the first time, and it came out perfectly. I used walnut pieces from Nuts.com, and let them toast a bit while the oven was preheating. I followed the recipe basically as written (any tweaks I made are noted above in the Instructions). I baked it on rack 3 for 15 minutes, rotated, and then baked for another 19 minutes 30 seconds, for a total of 34 minutes, 30 seconds. I turned the loaf out of the pan as soon as I could (after about 2 minutes?) so it didn’t overbake. Flavor and texture were perfect, and it rose nicely.