This buttermilk banana bread recipe is very simple to make. It combines the delicious flavors of sweet ripe bananas and buttermilk. This results in a soft banana bread that is perfect as a breakfast treat, lunchtime snack or easy dinner dessert. If your family likes buttermilk pancakes & buttermilk biscuits… they will LOVE buttermilk banana bread.
Delicious Buttermilk Banana Bread
Recipe Sections
This buttermilk banana bread recipe should take you roughly 10 minutes to prepare and clean up. Please be aware that this is an oven-baked banana bread recipe. It is not made with a bread machine. You will find a printable and “pin-able” recipe at the bottom of this page.
Buttermilk Banana Bread – Fresh from the Oven
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup – Buttermilk – 115 milliliters
- 2 – Large Eggs
- 1/2 Cup – Vegetable Oil (use a neutral tasting vegetable oil such as corn or canola) – 115 milliliters
- 3 – Bananas (ripe & medium sized) – Roughly 1 cup of mashed bananas – 230 milliliters
- 2 Cups – All Purpose Flour – 240 grams
- 1 Cup – White Granulated Sugar – 200 grams
- 1 Teaspoon – Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder – 5 milliliters
- 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 2.5 milliliters
- Optional – 1/2 Cup of Chopped Walnuts or Chocolate Chips
Servings – Roughly 12 slices
Equipment – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, long wooden spoon, 9 by 5 bread pan, oven mitts, silicon spatula, cooling rack and an oven.
Key Ingredient – Buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Mash bananas with a fork.
- Lightly beat eggs.
- Stir oil, buttermilk, eggs and mashed bananas together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients. Stir until the batter is fully mixed.
- Optional – If you want to enhance this buttermilk banana bread, you can stir in a 1/2 cup of your family’s favorite dessert ingredient (i.e. chocolate chips or chopped walnuts) after you have mixed the batter.
- Pour the finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Place bread pan with batter in the oven. Bake in the oven for 65-70 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take bread pan out of oven and let the banana bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Do not remove the banana bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- After the 10 minute cool down, remove the banana bread from the bread pan. Place the banana bread on a cooling rack in order to completely cool. This cool down may take 1-2 hours. Gently slide a silicon spatula between the banana bread and the bread pan walls if the banana bread is stuck in the pan.
- Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common banana bread problems.
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Related Bread Dad Sections
- Baking Tools & Equipment
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- Dessert Mixes – Cookies, brownies, donuts, etc.
- More Books & Tools – Sourdough, sandwich recipes, etc.
Helpful Tips
- The tips below are designed to help banana bread “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience.
- Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
- In case you didn’t know, buttermilk has a slightly tangy & creamy taste. It is sort of like a liquidy yogurt.
- Buttermilk is NOT buttery milk. According to Wikipedia, “Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream”.
- Buttermilk is often used to add flavor to banana breads as well as a means to soften banana breads because the lactic acid in buttermilk “tenderizes” gluten.
- Remember to shake the buttermilk carton before using. The liquid in buttermilk might have separated and the top half of the carton could be too watery (and bottom half too thick) if not shaken and recombined.
- Use RIPE bananas for the best results!! If you use unripe green or hard yellow bananas, your banana bread might come out bland (with little banana flavor). Unripe bananas have more starch and less sugar than ripe bananas. The natural sweetness of ripe bananas works best when making banana bread recipes. Ripe bananas are soft and have small brown & black spots on the exterior of the yellow banana peel.
- This recipe uses 3 medium bananas (not 3 large bananas). After you have mashed the bananas, they should equal roughly 1 cup of mashed bananas. Try to be as close as you can to this measurement in order to avoid a soggy or dry buttermilk banana bread.
- You should use a NEUTRAL flavored vegetable oil (i.e. corn or canola oil) in order to make this no butter banana bread recipe. Stronger flavored oils (i.e. peanut oil or olive oil) may negatively impact the banana bread taste.
- This recipe uses vegetable oil because some vegetables oils (i.e. canola oil) have a lot less saturated fat than butter. In addition, some people find that banana breads made with oil tend to be moister than banana bread made with butter (as butter loses some of its moisture content during the baking process). FYI – According to Wikipedia, “Commercial butter is about 80% butterfat and 15% water”.
- Use FRESH ingredients (i.e. flour) for the best results. Ingredients that have been sitting in the pantry for months can become stale or pick up weird smells & flavors. Try to keep your ingredients (i.e. flour) in airtight containers in order to extend their shelf life.
- Optional – For a slightly richer & mild “molasses” taste, you can substitute light brown sugar for the white granulated sugar. However, in my opinion, the brown sugar taste can overwhelm the mild buttermilk flavor (thus I have not included brown sugar in the formal recipe).
- Optional – If desired, you can replace the vegetable oil with butter. However, butter has the same potential problem as brown sugar where it can overwhelm the buttermilk flavor.
- In case you are new to banana breads, most banana breads will have small cracks in the top after baking. Since banana bread recipes use baking powder/soda, the batter rises quickly during baking and the top crust cracks from this internal pressure. These cracks are normal and give banana breads their classic look!
- Recommended – Use an oven thermometer to confirm your oven temperature (as your expected oven temperature may be different than reality). Some ovens can be 25-50+ degrees F hotter or colder than the number you set on your oven dial. An oven thermometer (which usually costs less than $10) is an easy way to measure the actual temperature inside your oven.
- You can find buttermilk in most major supermarkets (in the diary section). However, buttermilk is becoming harder to find (as it gets squeezed out by newer “competition” such as soy milk, oat milk, almond milk, etc.). Therefore, if you can’t find buttermilk, you might want to try making your own with powdered buttermilk. FYI – You can usually find powdered buttermilk at Amazon, King Arthur Baking, Walmart, etc.
- Buttermilk powder is made from the solids left over after evaporating the water out of buttermilk.
- Visitors – Do you like to use powdered buttermilk or supermarket liquid buttermilk (i.e. buttermilk from a carton) when making buttermilk baked goods? Do you see any difference between the two? Please post your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of the page.
- If you want to know some of the science behind buttermilk – According to Wikipedia, “Cultured buttermilk was first commercially introduced in the United States in the 1920s. Commercially available cultured buttermilk is milk that has been pasteurized and homogenized, and then inoculated with a culture of Lactococcus lactis or Lactobacillus bulgaricus plus Leuconostoc citrovorum to simulate the naturally occurring bacteria in the old-fashioned product. The tartness of cultured buttermilk is primarily due to lactic acid produced by lactic acid bacteria while fermenting lactose, the primary sugar in milk. As the bacteria produce lactic acid, the pH of the milk decreases and casein, the primary milk protein, precipitates, causing the curdling or clabbering of milk. This process makes buttermilk thicker than plain milk. While both traditional and cultured buttermilk contain lactic acid, traditional buttermilk tends to be less viscous, whereas cultured buttermilk is more viscous”.
- Love the taste of buttermilk? Then you might also like to try our Buttermilk Bread Recipe (oven baked sandwich bread) or Bread Machine Buttermilk Bread Recipe.
- This doesn’t happen often but if the top of the banana bread looks too moist or under cooked, you should try the “toothpick test”. Gently push a wooden toothpick or wooden skewer into the top of the bread and see if any batter sticks to the toothpick. If batter is sticking to the toothpick then it hasn’t completely cooked. Place the bread pan back into the still hot oven for another 3 to 5 minutes. Make sure to wear oven gloves because the bread pan will be very hot. After the 3 to 5 minutes, remove the bread pan and test the banana bread again with a toothpick.
- If your banana breads are sticking to the bottom of your bread pan, you should consider either “greasing” the bottom of the pan with butter or vegetable oil, using a cooking spray, using a nonstick pan or lining the interior of the bread pan with baking parchment paper.
- However, don’t grease the bread pan near the top of the pan. There will be nothing for batter to cling to as it rises. This could cause the bread top to collapse as it rises.
- In case, you didn’t see this in the “equipment” section, this recipe is based on using a standard 9 by 5 bread pan. This means that the interior of the bread pan (not exterior) measures 9 inches in length, 5 inches in width and 2 1/2 inches in depth/height. Of course, Bread Dads are crazy about exact measurements… thus the use of measuring tapes! Ha!
- Please use the suggested 9 x 5 bread pan to make this recipe. If you start using different sized pans, there is a greater potential for bread top collapses (potentially less bread pan “wall” support for the quick bread as it rises), different interior batter to exterior bread ratios (thus the need for different baking lengths), smaller pans are more likely to overflow, etc.
- Make sure that your oven has been completely preheated. If the oven has not been properly preheated, this quick bread could come out undercooked. Use a portable oven thermometer to check the interior oven temperature.
- If you have a problem with a banana bread recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct oven temperature), using the correct amounts of ingredients (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measuring cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. baking soda/powder versus yeast or all purpose flour versus bread flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
- Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a hot oven and bread pan.
- For more banana bread ideas (i.e. chocolate chip banana bread, vegan banana bread or blueberry banana bread), please visit Bread Dad’s main Banana Bread Recipes or Quick Bread Recipes sections.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a comment below & give us a 5 star rating. We LOVE to hear from people who have enjoyed our recipes!! Jump to comment section
Reference Sources
- Wikipedia, Banana
- Wikipedia, Banana Bread
- Wikipedia, Butter
- Wikipedia, Buttermilk
Buttermilk Banana Bread – Moist & Delicious
This buttermilk banana bread recipe is very simple to make. It combines the delicious flavors of sweet ripe bananas and buttermilk. Visit Bread Dad (BreadDad.com) for more easy banana bread recipes.
Servings: 12 Slices
Calories: 267kcal
Ingredients
- 1/2 Cup Buttermilk – 115 milliliters
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil (use a neutral tasting vegetable oil such as corn or canola) – 115 milliliters
- 3 Bananas (ripe & medium sized) – Roughly 1 cup of mashed bananas – 230 milliliters
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour – 240 grams
- 1 Cup White Granulated Sugar – 200 grams
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda – 5 milliliters
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder – 5 milliliters
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt – 2.5 milliliters
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Mash bananas with a fork.
- Lightly beat eggs.
- Stir oil, buttermilk, eggs and mashed bananas together.
- Mix in remaining ingredients. Stir until the batter is fully mixed.
- Optional – If you want to enhance this buttermilk banana bread, you can stir in a 1/2 cup of your family's favorite dessert ingredient (i.e. chocolate chips or chopped walnuts) after you have mixed the batter.
- Pour the finished batter into a nonstick bread pan. Smooth out the top of the batter within the bread pan.
- Place bread pan with batter in the oven. Bake in the oven for 65-70 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take bread pan out of oven and let the banana bread cool down in the bread pan for 10 minutes. Do not remove the banana bread from the bread pan during this 10 minute cool down period. Use oven mitts as the bread pan will be very hot coming out of the oven.
- After the 10 minute cool down, remove the banana bread from the bread pan. Place the banana bread on a cooling rack in order to completely cool. This cool down may take 1-2 hours. Gently slide a silicon spatula between the banana bread and the bread pan walls if the banana bread is stuck in the pan.
- Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common banana bread problems.
Notes
This is a Bread Dad recipe and may not be copied or reproduced. This recipe is copyright protected under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Legal Disclaimer
The nutritional information is provided using recipe tools such as WP Recipe Maker. These figures should only be considered as an estimate. They should not be construed as a guarantee of accuracy given visitors may use different serving sizes, ingredients, etc. See our legal disclaimer for additional nutrition disclosures.
Nutrition
Serving: 1Slice | Sodium: 245mg | Calcium: 40mg | Vitamin C: 3mg | Vitamin A: 75IU | Sugar: 21g | Fiber: 1g | Potassium: 152mg | Cholesterol: 28mg | Calories: 267kcal | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Fat: 11g | Protein: 4g | Carbohydrates: 40g | Iron: 1mg
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