I am sharing my favorite Banana Bread recipe two ways. This recipe has been made many times over the years and has always received may compliments. I’m not big on ingredient substitutions like apple sauce for butter but last week I found myself with several overly ripe bananas and thought I would make some banana loafs to use them up.
While gathering the necessary ingredients, I noticed that I didn’t have enough sour cream on hand. The only option, since leaving the house was not a great option, 0% fat greek yogurt. Since I hadn’t tried yogurt in this recipe before, I thought I would conduct a little experiment; separate this recipe in two halves and make this banana loaf recipe two ways. Sour cream went in half of the batter and greek yogurt for the other half.
Banana Bread Recipe Two Ways
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup of butter soft
- 3 cups of sugar
- 3 eggs large
- 6 ripe bananas mashed
- 16 oz sour cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 tsp baking soda
- 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- any additional ingredients such as nuts chocolate chips, coconut, dried fruit, etc. My go-to are chocolate chips, coconut, peanut butter chips and walnuts.
Instructions
- Pre heat your oven to 350° F.
- Start by mashing your bananas. I usually use a large measuring cup because the size of the bananas isn’t very consistent. You need approximately 2 cups of mashed bananas but if you want more, feel free to add a bit more.
- In a small bowl combine the dry ingredients together. These are the cinnamon, salt, baking soda and flour.
- Mix together your butter and sugar, this should be done in a very large mixing bowl. You could definitely use your stand mixer for this step if you have one but you will need to transfer to a larger bowl unless your mixer bowl is very large. I often don’t have unsalted butter on hand so I just use the salted and omit adding the extra salt.
- Add the vanilla and eggs to the butter and sugar mixture and mix until well combined.
- Add the sour cream to the step above and combine.
- It’s now time to mix your wet and dry ingredients together. Make sure that everything is fully incorporated but don’t over mix.
- Add in any optional ingredients that tickle your fancy.
- Grease 3 loaf pans. One trip that I’ve found is that I use cooking spray to coat the surface of the pan but I then cover with a sugar and cinnamon mixture. It forms a tasty crust on the exterior of the loaf.
- Pour 1/3 of the batter into each of the loaf pans.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes.
- Let cool on a rack for about 10 minutes.
- Remove from pan and let cool a few more minutes.
- Slice and enjoy!
Experiment Results
The results of the experiment surprised me. Here are a few observations when comparing the loaf with sour cream vs the loaf with greek yogurt:
- Batter consistency was very similar for both the greek yogurt and sour cream.
- Greek yogurt version took 10 minutes less to cook.
- The one made with greek yogurt was much darker both inside and outside.
- Loaf made with sour cream was much lighter in color; the loaf made with greek yogurt looked more like traditional banana bread.
- They tasted practically the same. In a blind taste test, the tester chose the one made with greek yogurt.
At the end of the day, since the fat and calories of the greek yogurt are quite a bit lower than with the sour cream, I will probably opt for that going forward.
Finally, if you are craving sweets and are looking for other great recipes, below are a few of our favorites:
Make life a bite better with Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Premium Baking Chips. Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate chips offer rich, bittersweet chocolate flavor with hints of vanilla extract.
Set of 2 rectangular-shaped loaf pans; ideal for baking bread, pound cake, meatloaf, and more.
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Amy
I make my banana bread with sour cream but have run into the same issue with not enough in my fridge, but I do have an unopened large container of vanilla Greek yogurt that is going to expire if I don’t use it up and I hate waste. I know it’s vanilla, not plain, but I’m gonna throw caution to the wind and go for it anyway…lol. Just one question. Maybe you stated and I missed it but when substituting with Greek yogurt, do you use the same measurements?
WaryTraveler
Hi Amy, Yes, I did use the same quantity.