Banana bread is a crowd-pleaser. It’s moist, sweet, and full of buttery flavors when done well. Food Republic set out to find Nicole Johnson, owner, writer, and recipe developer at Or Whatever You Do tips for curating the most delicious loaf of banana bread. Johnson revealed this secret ingredient: “All of my banana bread includes sour cream.” In her recipe for making banana bread on a Traeger grill, she includes one cup of sour cream in the banana bread batter.
Johnson informed us, “It adds great moisture and a hint of tang to the final loaf.”
Sour cream’s ability to incorporate more moisture into cakes and quick breads comes from a couple of components. One is its fat content. Any fat (think butter, oil, or sour cream) gives baked goods a plush richness throughout for a moist crumb. Couple that fat content with the sour cream’s acidity, and you’ve got a winning combination.
In general, the slight acidity of this creamy dairy product not only adds a noteworthy tang but also works on a scientific level, too. All wheat-based flour contains gluten (which is commonly used for baking purposes). Acids, like those in sour cream, help soften gluten, preventing a tough, dense banana bread. Better yet, while you may have a partially used tub sitting in the back of the fridge, you can make your own sour cream for superly moist baked goods in a pinch.
Other ways to spruce up banana bread
While Nicole Johnson’s tip of adding sour cream is a surefire way to add moisture, other additions can create a delicious and uniquely moist loaf. For example, try using previously frozen, over-ripe bananas in the batter. This trick requires freezing super-ripe bananas and then letting them defrost in the microwave. As they thaw, the juices and natural sugars in the bananas pool in the dish, creating the perfect place for mashing them into a consistent texture before stirring them into the batter. This extra step allows the fruit’s juice and interior to come to life while imparting excess moisture that leaves the bread with a banana-heavy, moist mouthfeel.
While it does not provide the same acidity or tang as Johnson’s highly suggested sour cream, mayonnaise is another moisture hack some use in banana bread. Since mayo is technically just emulsified oil and eggs, it adds airiness to baked items. Yet another idea is to use dark brown sugar. There are many types of sugar out there, but in essence, dark brown sugar contains more molasses than light brown. This extra molasses content provides a depth of flavor, richness, and a noticeable moisture to the loaf.
