When I was in college, I had a roommate that made our house banana bread all the time. The kitchen was always filled with it for us to grab in the morning on the way to class or if we needed something sweet to munch on as a late night snack. I think the story goes that she would always buy bananas and then not eat them fast enough so she needed a way to not waste them once they got riper than she was willing to eat them.
Thank God for Rachel. I’m not sure I would have gotten through that last semester without those muffins always available and I know the rest of the roommates would say the same. Since I am rewatching Grey’s Anatomy for, like, the 6th time, a fun comparison I can give you is calling Rachel the “Izzy” in our household with her muffins. It was amazing and I can’t help but smile. I will always think back to my time living in College Park fondly when I bake banana bread.
This specific banana bread recipe is referred to as “Copycat Starbucks Banana Bread” because the recipe apparently comes directly from Starbucks itself. I haven’t personally compared, but it’s delicious so I believe it! I hope you love it as much as my roommates and I did! My son is obsessed with it just as I expected him to be and I know this will be something I make very often from here on out.
I think I enjoy the muffin form of these much more than a loaf because it controls portions, is less mess, and is easier to store, so I would definitely recommend making muffins instead if anyone tries this recipe!
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees, 300 degree for a glass pan.
- Add flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl, mix, and set aside.
- In your mixing bowl, add the egg, sugar, and oil together and beat until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and continue mixing until you have a thick, dry mixture.
- Next add the milk, vanilla flavoring, and mashed bananas and beat until they’re well incorporated.
- Mix in your 1/2 cup walnuts and 1/4 cup cinnamon chips then pour into your loaf pan or cupcake tin.
- To garnish as I did, cut a banana in half and then cut one of the halves in half again longways. Gently place on top of your loaf, in the pan before putting in the oven. (This may cause the bread to need to be baked longer so make sure if you do this to actually poke with a toothpick repeatedly to make sure it’s baked all the way through.)
- Bake for about 50-75 minutes depending on what pan you’ve used. Check regularly after the 50 minute mark with a fork or toothpick until it comes out of the loaf clean.
— While gathering all the things I needed to start baking, I found that bag of cinnamon chips. They are not in the Starbucks recipe, but when I saw them I couldn’t resist using them. Be careful not to put too many in your batter though because they’re really strong!
WHAT YOU”LL NEED:
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1 1/8 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring
- 3 well mashed bananas
- Optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup cinnamon chips
1/2 whole banana to garnish
We don’t use cow’s milk in our household so I used almond milk in place of it, which worked fine. I used a glass pan and ended up having to leave the bread in the oven for 70 minutes.
Good luck & enjoy!
Abbvocado 