Banana bread is a delicious and healthy food that is easy to make and is enjoyed by both children and adults. Banana bread differs from other breads in that it uses baking soda as a leavening agent instead of yeast, and it is made of thick batter instead of dough. The batter gets its perfectly sweet flavor from its main ingredient: very ripe, mashed bananas. Unfortunately, you cannot usually purchase very ripe bananas from your local grocery store, and bananas lying around the house tend to be too ripe, or not ripe enough, for banana bread. However, you can quickly ripen bananas for banana bread via several simple methods.
Leave your bananas in a bunch. When separated, bananas ripen more slowly. To quickly ripen bananas for banana bread, leave them connected and place them in a warm location.
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Place the bananas in a brown paper bag and close tightly. Fruits give off ethylene gas during the ripening process, and keeping them inside a paper bag will speed up the process by trapping the gas. A plastic, sealable bag will also work, but is not as effective as a paper bag because the gases cannot circulate as freely inside a plastic bag.
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Check your bananas every few hours while they are ripening inside the paper or plastic bag. Green bananas will usually fully ripen within 24 hours.
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Add an apple to the brown paper bag to accelerate the ripening process even more. Place an uncut apple into the bottom of the bag, and then place the bananas on top of the apple. Seal the bag and check on the bananas every few hours.
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Heat the bananas in the oven at 300 degrees F until the peel turns black. While this does not truly ripen the bananas, it will sweeten them and alter their texture, making them suitable for use when baking banana bread.
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Avoid storing unripe bananas in the refrigerator, even for only a day or two. Refrigeration interferes with the ripening process, which cannot be restored even after you bring the bananas back to room temperature.
Tips & Warnings
If you end up with too many overripe bananas, you can mash or cut up the extra bananas and store them in the freezer for later use.
