Banana Bread with Shortening {easy one bowl recipe} (2024)

FAQs

Can you substitute butter for shortening in banana bread recipe? ›

If you're substituting butter for shortening, use equal amounts. So 1/2 cup of butter replaces 1/2 cup of shortening. In the same way, you coulduse 1/2 cup of shortening instead of 1/2 cup of butter in a recipe that calls for butter.

Mix in a bowl 3 ripe bananas, well mashed, and 2 eggs, beaten until light. Sift together 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Add to the first mixture. Add 1/2 cup nut meats, chopped.

Fight the urge to use more banana than called for in your recipe. Using too much banana could make your bread heavy and damp in the center, causing it to appear undercooked and unappealing. If you have bananas leftover, you can always freeze them for later use.

Mold on bananas is fuzzy white, gray, or greenish—it looks a lot like mold on bread. If a banana smells rotten or fermented or is leaking fluid, it's time to say goodbye. If the fruit inside, not just the peel, is black, that's a sign that your banana is too far gone to safely eat.

Shortening traps more air bubbles and has a higher melting point than butter, so recipes using shortening tend to produce baked goods with more lift and that hold their shape during baking. Interior texture will also be softer and lighter.

No matter what you're using, use the same amount called for in your recipe. In other words, it should be a one-to-one swap. If your recipe calls for one cup of butter, you can use one cup of shortening and vice versa.

Baking soda works best in conjunction with an acidic ingredient. In the case of banana bread, this may be buttermilk, brown sugar, molasses or the bananas themselves. Recipes generally include just enough baking soda to balance the acidity in the batter.

An overmixed banana bread batter will result in a dense, rubbery loaf. As you're prepping your batter, heed the advice of "stir until just moistened" and "no more than 10 seconds."

Adding more eggs makes for a spongy, less flavorful banana bread. Doubling the number of eggs I was using resulted in a spongy cake with a moist texture.

Is it bad to use overripe bananas for banana bread? ›

Brown, overripe bananas are sweeter because in the ripening process the starches in the banana are converted to sugar. You can even use super-soft, black bananas that have a really strong smell and are oozy inside. As long as they're not moldy, there's no such thing as too-ripe bananas for banana bread.

Skimping on the sugar can dry out a loaf of banana bread and leave it flavorless. It turns out, sugar does more than just make things sweeter. When it comes to banana bread, cutting back on sugar will leave you with a dry loaf totally devoid of any distinguishable flavor.

Cool completely on rack. Wrap and store at room temperature overnight before slicing. (We know it's hard to wait, but your bread will be more evenly moist and less crumbly if you let it sit overnight.)

The best bananas for banana bread aren't yellow; they're black. Or they're at least streaked with black/brown, with just the barest hint of green at the stem. And again, the darker the better: there's no such thing as a too-ripe banana when you're making banana bread.

Margarine and butter can both be used as a substitute for shortening, though their moisture contents should be taken into consideration before making the swap. While shortening is 100% fat, margarine and butter contain a small percentage of water (so, shortening adds more fat, thus more richness and tenderness).

Vegetable Oil

Vegetable oils like canola and olive oil may be a healthier alternative to shortening because they're lower in saturated fats. Because they are liquid, they can't be substituted in every recipe.

Margarine. Margarine is a spread used for flavoring as well as baking and cooking recipes. Commonly, it's used as a swap for butter so it's a swap for shortening as well. Just be sure to add an extra tablespoon of margarine for every cup of shortening.

Vegetable oil or coconut oil or butter. Most banana bread recipes don't use shortening as it is too much hard fat.