The Best Easy Banana Bread recipe with Cinnamon Swirls

I'm not gonna lie, I made this Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread months ago and I have been withholding it from everybody.  Yea, I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway.  This is seriously the best banana bread I have ever had.  It even beats out my mom's banana cake...but don't tell her I said that.  The best part about it? It's damn easy to make.  It honestly took me about 10 minutes to throw it all together, and then you just throw her in the oven and let her bake.  Done and done.

My analysis on the situation is that I think the coating of cinnamon and sugar on the top sort of hardens and forms a crust which in turn holds the moisture in and makes it cake-like and not so much bread-like.  Bread to me means dry and bland.  Cake is moist and sweet and delicious.  Throw some cinnamon and sugar in there yet and I think we found ourselves a winner.

Anyway, I got this recipe from Lovin' The Oven who I think got it from somewhere else.  Please, keep sharing.  This recipe deserves to be popular.

cinnamon swirl.
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 TBSP Cinnamon

1.) Preheat over to 350 degrees F.

2.) Combine cinnamon and sugar together; set aside.

3.) Generously flour and butter a 9x5 bread pan; set aside.

bread.

3-4 over-ripe bananas (mine were huge, so I only used 2)

Now that's a big banana. (Heh, I couldn't resist)

1 cup sugar

1 egg (beaten)

1/3 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

dash of salt

1 1/2 cups flour

4.) In an electric mixer, beat the first 5 ingredients together.  

5.) Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the top of the batter; mix.

6.) Slowly add the flour; beat until it is just incorporated, don’t over mix here.

7.) Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan

8.) Sprinkle half the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the batter.

9.) Pour the other half of the batter over the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

10.) Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture over the the top of the batter.

11.) Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until you can insert  a toothpick into the center and comes out clean.

leftovers: sour cream blueberry banana bread

So I was really stoked to make angel food cake the past few days and just haven't been able to get around to it. My brother-in-law is in town, so I was hanging out with him, plus Glee was on last night and I was not going to miss that, not to mention I am taking 2 classes and working 11 hour days at my job, 13 hour days if you count my commute. Needless to say, while my life is passing by at record speeds, I've got almost rotting bananas, sour cream, and blueberries that are waiting to be baked into something delicious...hence, sour cream blueberry banana bread. Based on the circumstances, I think I am going to call it "my life is out of hand and I am about to have a minor meltdown bread"...heh, just kidding. I think I'm just tired.

Needless to say, I did a Google search for all of the over ripe items in my fridge and found sour cream blueberry banana bread from a website called bakespace.com. The woman who posted the recipe said she got it from Cooks.com. There was no picture attached but the recipe sounded completely fine to me and I was determined to use up the ingredients I had So here it is, sour cream blueberry banana bread, pictures and all.

 sour cream blueberry banana bread.
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I used 1 tsp...cinnamon is good.)
1 cup buttered, softened
3/4 cup sugar*
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup pecans ( I omitted these, as I said before, I don't really like nuts in my food)

*In hindsite, I would probably add a little bit more sugar.  The bananas made the bread sweet enough, but I prefer sweeter. 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Grease and flour a 9x5" bread pan
3. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs, banana, and sour cream.  Beat until well blended.
5. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on low speed, until batter is smooth
6. Fold in the blueberries and walnuts
7. Bake for 1 hour*

*My oven usually bakes things faster than what a recipe calls for, but I actually had this bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  I was so nervous that the top was going to be too well done but this bread is really heavy and the darker crust was a nice touch.  It was like a container for the moist delicousness inside. 

Want more blueberry recipes? Try my Blueberry and Cream Cupcakes.

walnut streusal cinnamon swirl banana muffins.

I know I am supposed to be transferring over my recipes from my other website that is now out of commission, but I had a bunch of over-ripe bananas lying around and I just had to get them out of my house.  So ladies and gentlemen, I bring you, the first recipe I have ever created on my own.  I will warn you, I am by no means a master baker nor am I creative for that matter, but I had this idea so I just went for it.  I was pretty impressed with the outcome.  These have more of a cupcake consistency than a muffin, honestly.  They are very light and fluffy for a muffin.  The dough was sticky, almost like it was about to be bread dough. . Oh and um...the measurements are a little off.  I had a lot of extra cinnamon and sugar mixture, and a lot of extra streusal, so you may want to adjust those down a little bit.

streusal*.
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts toasted**
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Mix  all ingredients together using a fork or your hands.  That's it. Piece of cake. Piece of crumb cake. 

  

*I call this streusel, honestly, I don't even know what streusel means, but I'm pretty sure this is it.  Please feel free to call me out if its not.
**I really hate nuts.  But after biting the bullet and putting toasted walnuts in the Blondies I made (I will post that recipe soon...amazing), my life is changed for ever.  Please don't slide over this step and not toast them, it brings out a fabulous flavor. 

cinnamon swirl.
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon sugar

Mix sugar and cinnamon together; set aside. 

muffins.
 3-4 bananas mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Line a standard cupcake pan with papers
3. Mix first 6 ingredients  (up to vanilla) together until well blended
4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt
5. Beat in the flour mixture alternatively with the buttermilk, starting and ending with flour mixture
6. Fill muffin papers 1/3 full of mixture
7. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar in a layer over batter 
8. Fill muffin papers the rest of the way (about 2/3 full) 
9. Cover top of muffins with streusel.  Push it into the batter a little bit with your fingers, so it stays on when they rise.
10. Bake 20-25 minutes (mine took 22)  - I only made 12, it would probably make about 18 otherwise*

*I had some extra batter left so instead of  making more muffins, I opted to see how this would work as a bread/cake.  I greased a 9x5 inch bread pan and poured the batter in there and baked for about 40-45 minutes.  It came out beautifully.  I think this would honestly work best as a cake, but I guess it doesn't really matter, its all going to the same place in the end.

Want more Cinnamon recipes? Try my Snickerdoodle recipe.