This easy recipe for Mini Banana Bread Loaves is perfect for snacking or gifting and stars a moist banana bread base customized with endless fillings.
What do you do when you’re at a loss for what to mix into your banana bread? Do you swirl in chocolate? Stud it with peanut butter chips? Add a touch of tang with Greek yogurt? Or perhaps even jump on the veggie train with zucchini?
Great news! Now all of the above are an option at the same time thanks to my go-to recipe for Mini Banana Bread Loaves. You can make them all the same flavor or choose eight different mix-ins to suit taste buds of all ages. (I’ll let you guess which of the eight mini loaves was first to be snatched by my little ones!)
The Best Mini Loaf Pan
Individual mini loaf pans are great (and make convenient sizes for gifting), but baking many different flavors of mini loaves at once could be easier. Enter: Wilton’s mini loaf pan.
This pan comes with eight separate cavities and makes it even simpler to get eight deliciously different loaves without the fuss of multiple pans. You could absolutely make eight versions of the same banana bread, but I love knowing I can have eight different flavors in the same time it takes to bake one.
How Full Do You Fill a Loaf Pan for Mini Banana Bread Loaves?
Most quickbread recipes are for one loaf, so I’ve made adjustments to allow for eight perfectly baked mini loaves (one regular recipe equals roughly three mini loaves). Like any quick bread, you’ll want to fill each cavity two-thirds of the way full to allow them enough room to rise.
Do Smaller Pans Bake Faster?
Size absolutely matters when you’re baking due to the depth of your pan and the thickness of your batter in the pan. Depending on the depth of your loaf pan, you may need to increase your bake time.
To play it safe, start to check on your loaves about 5 minutes before the end of their bake time to make sure they’re evenly baked and a nice toasty brown. All that banana bread babysitting will be worth it, I promise!
What Happens if You Overmix Banana Bread?
Over-mixing banana bread batter causes the gluten (which gives baked goods that fluffy elasticity) to overdevelop and become dense and gummy. Not two words we want associated with our mini banana bread loaves!
Set yourself up for success by mixing wet and dry ingredients separately before folding them in together. As soon as they’re incorporated, stop mixing and set down that spatula. Your perfectly moist mini loaf is now only minutes away!
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Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease eight (4×2-inch) nonstick mini loaf pans with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, white sugar, brown sugar, baking soda and salt.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, sour cream, eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix just until combined. Fold in your mix-ins of choice then divide the batter among the mini loaf pans.
Bake the mini loaves until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool completely in the pan before removing and serving.
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