Banana Loaf Recipe

When you want to use it you can just take it out and defrost it and add it to your recipe. We, of course, would recommend making banana loaf cake with your defrosted banana! See our signature classic Banana Loaf Recipe for the perfect banana loaf or for lots of variants see our full recipe list.

Things to note:-

• The skin of the banana will go black in the freezer. That’s normal.
• It takes a couple of hours to defrost a banana at room temperature. You need to defrost it before you can add it to your banana loaf cake mix.
• When you defrost the banana, the banana will leak and ooze! Don’t just leave it on the side or you’ll have an awful mess. Just pop it on a deep plate or in a bowl to defrost. If you're in a hurry, blast it in the microwave.
• When you peel the defrosted banana, the banana flesh will be really mushy and look pretty horrid. Not very appetising as fresh fruit, but perfect for a good banana loaf cake!

Using frozen bananas in a banana loaf cake

Frozen bananas have many uses but the easiest and most appealing, given their appearance, is to use them in a banana loaf cake. Their less robust structure gives a moistness to the texture of the resulting banana loaf cake which we find particularly yummy.

If you do decide to use frozen bananas in the banana loaf cake, you need to take a slightly more flexible approach to the banana loaf recipe we give on this website. Two key things will be affected - 1) the quantity of bananas you use and (2) the cooking time.

With regard to the quantity of bananas, you will find that the defrosted bananas will have leaked and oozed a lot of their juices out of their skin. As a result, the banana flesh inside the banana peel will weigh less than the fresh banana flesh would have done originally. In our recipe we suggest 3-4 bananas with approximately 1lb/450g weight of flesh without skin. The flesh of 3-4 defrosted bananas will not weigh anything like the flesh of fresh bananas - 3 or 4 defrosted bananas may only weigh as little as 8-10oz (200-275g). Don't panic! You don't need to add more banana to the mix - go with quantity of bananas not weight of banana flesh when using defrosted frozen bananas. So 3 large or 4 small defrosted bananas should still be sufficient to make your banana loaf cake just right.

With cooking time for a banana loaf using defrosted frozen bananas, you may need to monitor the cake even more carefully than when using fresh bananas. The wetter texture of the defrosted frozen banana flesh will result in a slightly wetter cake mixture which will possibly (not definitely) need more cooking time. When the baking time is nearing its end, observe the banana loaf cake carefully through the oven door and if you really think it's cooked, check it carefully with a skewer to see if it is cooked through. See our article Is my Banana Loaf cooked? for more help.

We quite often mix and match defrosted frozen bananas and fresh bananas in our loaf cakes when we make them. An odd banana can easily be defrosted from the freezer and added to two or three that are sitting going brown in the fruit bowl. Just like you would for using only frozen defrosted bananas as described above, you should simply go by quantity of bananas not weight of banana flesh when preparing the banana loaf cake mixture and watch the cooking time a bit more carefully.