A delicious, but not-too-sweet banana bread recipe that makes 4 large loaves to share with friends or serve to your large family!
Banana bread – just saying the words bring back childhood memories of earthy sweet bread slathered in butter. It also brings back memories of blackened bananas hanging out in the freezer waiting to be made into bread.
I’m not entirely sure why my mom didn’t peel the bananas before throwing them in the freezer, and it took me years to figure out that that is NOT a good way to save bananas because let me tell you, when those suckers come out of the freezer with their peels on, they are either freezing and impossible to peel OR they are greasy and slimy, and impossible to peel!
I finally learned (the hard way) that when a banana starts to get too dark for our liking, we need to peel it before throwing it in a freezer bag and putting it in a conspicuous place so I don’t forget I have bananas in there begging to be made into this yummy bread!
If I’m really on top of my game, I’ll even break them into chunks and flash freeze them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. But let’s just admit right now that I am rarely on the top of my game.
Once enough bananas make their way into the freezer, we pull them out and make this large family banana bread recipe. It lasts us all week – which is saying something considering how quickly my family can devour bread of any kind!
But with this recipe making 4 loaves, it’s plenty to keep our large family happy. And the fact that it isn’t overly sweet makes mama happy!
Check out all of my Large Family Recipes!
OK, a quick note about my bakeware…
Personally, I prefer stainless steel pans to bake my bread in. I use them for my whole wheat bread and other quick breads like my large family zucchini bread. The results are consistent and the clean up is a cinch!
I typically use bread pans from Norpro with great results. I bought mine from a lovely little Amish bulk food store, but you can get them off of Amazon if you don’t have a lovely little Amish bulk food store in your neck of the woods. (BUY THE PANS WE USE HERE!)
I also like to have stackable cooling racks because everything we do is on a large scale and having racks that stack saves space. I bought mine from Pampered Chef years ago, but this 3-tier collapsable cooling rack from Wilton has rave reviews on Amazon, so I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase it if I needed another set.
Now, onto the recipe…
One of the best things about this recipe is that it isn’t too sweet, and it is very forgiving should you choose to experiment with different sugars and flours.
And yes, it freezes well…so no need to have a crowd to feed to enjoy this tasty and unbelievably easy recipe! BUT, if you do have a large family (or a crowd), this recipe will be plenty to keep them happy and satisfied!
By the way, I have been known to PURPOSELY buy almost overripe bananas at the store for the sole purpose of making this bread. I just hate that they throw bananas out when they stop looking desirable. There is still so much life in them!
In fact, I have rescued a few bananas from the trash at a local store while they were throwing them away at the end of the night. It’s shameful how much waste happens in this country! I can make perfectly good banana bread with those ugly bananas!
Ok rant over.
Because this recipe is so easy, I highly suggest you grab a kid or two and make this a family affair! You family needs this banana bread right now! And trust me, breakfast tomorrow will thank you! (and those poor overripe bananas you almost threw away will too!)
Large Family Banana Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar (or sucanat)
- 2 cups butter, softened
- 8 eggs
- 8 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 ½ cups milk
- 4 tsp vanilla
- 8 cups flour
- 4 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 cups nuts (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° and grease the bottoms of 4 large bread pans.
- In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Add in eggs, bananas, milk, and vanilla.
- Add in flour, soda, and salt. Stir to moisten the ingredients, being careful not to overmix the batter. Lastly, fold in nuts (if using).
- Pour batter into the bread pans and bake 50-60 minutes, until nicely browned on top and pulling away from the sides of the pans.
- Remove bread from pans to a wire cooling rack. Cool completely before storing.
Suanna says
Banana bread sounds yummy and I have two bananas sitting on my counter…enough for 1 loaf 😉
Kathleen Bailey says
When I make banana bread, I use 4-5 bananas for one loaf!
Jesica says
Hi!
How many mini loaves would you say this makes? I’m trying to get a good head start on Christmas baking!
kathy hort says
I got 12 mini loaves from this recipe.
Samantha says
Have you tried this with coconut flour?
Amy says
You wouldn’t want to use all coconut flour because of how thick it is. You could use a baking mix that has coconut flour in it.
Tabitha says
I have replaced the butter/ oil in my recipe with coconut oil. It’s super yummy!
Josi says
We love banana bread, and I too like to cut down on the sugar in the recipe I use. I’m super impressed with your kiddos if they all eat it with nuts. I have one that prefers it without but puts up with me adding them!
I love to know that you are baking your bread in Norpro pans. I will have to tell my friend (she is blessed by customer stories). Her family started and operates this locally-based business. I think I’ve mentioned it to you before that they are a Christian family who absolutely loves the Lord. If you ever get a chance to treat yourself to a great kitchen gadget, I highly recommend their measuring scoops. I use their products on a daily basis, but these are probably my favorite! They have a long handle for scooping down into a container of flour, sugar, oats, etc and they are super sturdy. http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Stainless-Measuring-Scoops-4-piece/dp/B0002IK4Q0
Thanks for the recipe. I like the idea of making enough for the freezer too 🙂
Amy says
If you told me this, I have forgotten! How neat! Please do tell her we are big fans here! As for the nuts, I actually rarely make it with nuts. I have two kids who aren’t fond of nuts IN things. They will eat them by themselves, but not in things.
Nancy says
Can you tell me can I make this in a cake pan because I don’t have this many bread loves but still have family of five. Didn’t know how it would come out does anybody know
Gloria says
I have used a 8 x 10 cake pan. The cooking time is less, try 20 to 25 min.
Laura Roberts says
Hi Amy!
I’m excited to try this recipe! I have 7 kiddos that LOVE banana bread so I’m sure it will be a hit! Can I ask you a blog question? I just recently started trying to figure out this blog thing and would love to add recipes to our site, can you tell me what recipe template you use ?
thanks so much!
Laura
Amy says
It’s a plugin called Easy Recipe – makes it nice to print. 🙂
Tracie Parker says
If I want to half the recipe…wonder how long I would cook 2 loaves. ?? Half the time??
Amy says
I think it would take more than half – in fact, I would guess it would be nearly the same amount of time if you are using the same size pans.
Hannah says
Great recipe, I decided on a whim to look up big batch banana bread after purchasing a case of ripe bananas for $10! I wanted some muffins so filled two muffin trays and then three loaf pans! The muffins took about 25 minutes and are yummy! The loaves are shorter but still plenty substantial! Excited to have breakfast for the kids tomorrow, a loaf to send to work with my husband and a bunch for the freezer! I subbed coconut milk and did half butter half coconut oil as it’s what I had on hand! Still came out great!
Amy says
Fantastic!
Gen says
Anyone ever add pineapple?
JoAnn Hopkins says
How much flour? I have the banana mixture made and cant find the flour measurement.
Amy says
Oh! I am so sorry! The recipe plugin quit working properly and it didn’t all get switched over! It’s 8 cups and there should have been 4 tsp of vanilla in there too. Again, I am so sorry it wasn’t working properly!
Cynthia Faith Boone says
Where is the recipe does it say how much flour? I can’t seem to find it.
Amy says
Yes – 8 cups. I was in the middle of fixing the plugin when you must have popped on here! Sorry it was missing!
Diana says
Dear Amy,
Thank you for this recipe! It was superb. I love having a larger recipe instead of having to do so much mental math to multiply a small recipe! 🙂
One change I made was to reduce the sugar to 2 cups, and it was still great. I also made a few conversions to make it GFDF, and that went swimmingly!
Thank you again!
Diana
Amy says
FANTASTIC!!! I’m so glad you came back to let me know, Diana! 🙂
Gabrielle Clissold says
Truly superb banana bread.
Some notes, since it is such a large recipe it was very challenging to integrate the flour because it was such a large quantity and although my butter was softened and creamed with sugar when I put in the milk and the eggs it hardened up again so I definitely had to make sure the butter was re-integrated and it was a little hard to do. Although I made some of this in my stand mixer I ended up having to also mix it in a very large bowl with a handmixer and then manually keep on folding it and folding it and folding it until the flower was absorbed. I used pecans as nuts and baked in in 4 8”x8” metal non stick farberware pans prepped with Pam for baking. Anyhow-truly a great bread-the best Bannana bread I ever tasted (butter was definitely plentiful)
Jesamyn says
Hi Amy! I am glad to see this recipe since I like to bake for larger amount of people. It makes me feel good to share them what I baked or cooked.
I am just curious if how many cups of flour should we use for this recipe?
Amy says
8 cups
Tanya says
FEB 2022 : I made this recipe and baked it the big black oven pan that comes with the oven. I used half butter and half melted coconut oil as suggested by a comment above. Baked for an hour. PERFECTLY turned out Banana Loaf. Thank you.
Nisha says
Thank you for providing a recipe that makes 4 loafs as I make each batch and takes a long time. I am going to try your recipe as I need to make bigger batches to give it to friends. Normally one loaf calls for 4 ripe bananas, but you have used only 8 bananas in total for four loafs. Will it give less banana flavour? Also can I add 1.5 cup of oil instead of milk? I normally use butter and a little bit of oil to make it moist. But since I am going to make a large batch, would very much appreciate your advice. Thanks a lot in advance.
Amy says
Hello! I’m not really much of a chef (or chemist), so I’m not sure if this substitution can be made successfully, but I would imagine it would work just fine. It still has a definite banana flavor, but you can certainly add more if you’d like.
dirose says
Delicious. Three of the loaves raised nicely. The looked beautiful! One sunk a little but also took longer to cook. The were in the same oven. The neighbors thought their loaf was delish!
Will definitely make again. It’s now my “go-to” recipe. Thank you so much.
Sandra says
My question is how much ingredients I need to make 58 loaves of banana bread. For a school?
michelle huey says
I’m looking this recipe up to make it for the eighth time!!!!! I have written it down, but just as easy to google. Anyhow I make a few loaves, then with the rest I make a ton of regular sized muffins and some XL muffins. I add pecans, raspberries, blueberries , mini choc chips .to some. I mix it up depending on what I have. These are always very good, and not too sweet. They freeze beautifully!
Jean Carnell says
Can I add more bananas then the recipe calls for, I have lots of frozen bananas
Babajean1946@gmail.com
Thx
Amy says
You can, but it will change the consistency. Better to simply mix up several batches and then freeze the extra loaves or give them away!