Photos show how common baking mistakes can drastically change your banana bread

Rachel AskinasiJun 3, 2020, 22:53 IST

Insider

I made common baking mistakes as I was baking banana bread to see how they would affect the texture and flavor.
Using lifestyle guru Joanna Gaines' recipe, I made 12 loaves.
Mishaps like improperly measuring out flour and sugar to mistaking baking powder for baking soda can change the way your bread comes out.
I found that using too much sugar or too little flour results in a delicious, caramelized loaf, and an unripe banana can actually make it taste better.
But forgetting to melt your butter makes for a less flavorful banana bread.

Never have I ever made banana bread from scratch — before this assignment, that is.

After intentionally making several baking mistakes to show how they would affect chocolate-chip cookies, I set out do the same while attempting banana bread for the first time.

As I set out to conquer one of my all-time favorite breads, I was faced with a big decision: What recipe should I use? I ultimately landed on lifestyle guru Joanna Gaines' fresh banana bread recipe to make 12 loaves of what is essentially breakfast cake; in an Insider taste test of celebrity banana breads, Gaines' recipe was deemed the most traditional, which made it a convenient choice.

The recipe calls for "very ripe bananas" and suggests baking in a square pan for easy cutting, but, because I had a lot of batches to make, I used miniature loaf tins to minimize waste.

From packing my flour to mistaking baking powder for baking soda, here's what happened when I made 12 common baking errors all in the name of banana bread.

Using too much flour makes for an extra crumbly bread.

A loaf with too much flour. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Not using enough flour, though, results in a more caramelized-looking loaf.

A loaf with too little flour. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Using baking powder instead of baking soda is an easy mistake to make that changes the flavor.

A loaf made with baking powder. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Adding more eggs makes for a spongey, less flavorful banana bread.

A loaf made with an extra egg. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Conversely, leaving out eggs altogether resulted in a darker, flatter loaf.

A loaf made without any eggs. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Leaving out most of the butter didn't drastically change the flavor of this banana bread.

A loaf made with too little butter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Using too much butter makes for a heavier cake with less banana flavor.

A loaf made with too much butter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Using solid, room-temperature butter rather than melted butter made the banana pieces stand out more.

A loaf made without melting the butter. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Leaving out most of the sugar left a dry, flavorless banana bread.

A loaf made with too little sugar. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Adding too much sugar dried out the loaf a bit, but all the other effects were delicious.

A loaf made with too much sugar. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Using more bananas makes the bread more moist and flavorful.

A loaf made with extra bananas. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

Most banana-bread recipes call for ripe bananas. I tried using an unripe, bright-yellow banana and it was surprisingly good.

A loaf made with an unripe banana. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

By playing around with the recipe, you can make loads of different versions of the same treat.

Changing one recipe 12 ways resulted in 12 different banana breads. Rachel Askinasi/Insider

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