The first banana bread recipe appeared after the Great Depression, in the 1933 cookbook “Balanced Recipes of Pillsbury’s Cooking Service.” It called for a single egg, lots of bananas, buttermilk, and some sugar; the result was a plum cake that tasted very much like bananas.
Over the years, as the US economy grew, the recipe became more enriched with lots of butter, spices, chopped nuts, coffee, or chocolate.
My sister’s recipe is modern because it uses brown sugar instead of granulated sugar, oil instead of butter, yogurt instead of buttermilk, and lots of chocolate and nuts. Don’t think it’s diet-friendly!
I still have a lot of hesitation about calling it bread, but I adapt and make it when I have some blackened bananas in the pantry. It’s delicious.

Banana bread

  • Preparation time: 15 minutes +baking
  • Ingredients for a plum cake pan
  • Difficulty: Easy recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 2 eggs
  • 100 grams of brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons orange marmalade
  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 1 banana yogurt
  • 100 grams of seed oil
  • 60 grams of water
  • 250 grams of all purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon of baking powder
  • Grated zest of 1 orange
  • 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or seeds from a vanilla pod)
  • 100 grams of dark chocolate
  • 50 grams of pecan
  • Butter and flour to taste
  1. Instructions
  2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
  3. In a bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until they become a puree.
  4. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, orange zest, and spices for about ten minutes, until they become fluffy. Add the yogurt, bananas, marmalade, water, and oil. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold them into the mixture, followed by the roughly chopped walnuts and chocolate.
  5. Pour the batter into the greased and floured pan.
  6. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • The eggs must be at room temperature. Therefore, remove them from the refrigerator at least two hours before making the cake.
  • The baking time is approximate because each oven bakes differently. It’s always a good idea to test the cake with a toothpick. If the toothpick, inserted into the center of the cake, comes out moist but dry, then the cake is ready.

Mirta and Bilbo