How to Keep Bananas in Banana Bread From Turning Brown

When you have bananas that are past their prime for eating straight out of the peel, you can use them to make banana bread. The best bananas for bread are those with completely black skins, but the banana fruit should not be brown. If you leave the bananas exposed to air for too long, the fruit turns an unappetizing brown color. These are the steps to take to prevent that from happening the next time you make banana bread.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 1 ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup shortening (or butter)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. banana extract (optional)
• ¼ cup buttermilk
• 2 cup flour
• ½ cup raisins (optional)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 3 large, old bananas (nearly black skins)
• 2 tsp. lemon juice or white vinegar
• ½ - 1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)
• Stand or hand mixer
• 3 mixing bowls
• Oven
• Parchment paper
• Baker's Joy cooking spray (or cooking spray and flour for dusting loaf pans)
• 1 8-inch by 3-inch loaf pans
• Baker's cooling rack

1. In one bowl, mash the bananas and stir 2 teaspoons of lemon juice into them as you mash. You should have about 1 cup of mashed banana mixed with lemon juice. The lemon juice will prevent the banana from turning brown.

2. Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat the inside of two loaf pans with Baker's Joy cooking spray or spray with plain cooking spray and dust the insides of the loaf pans with flour.

3. Mix sugar, shortening (or butter), eggs, extract(s) and buttermilk together in a large bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

5. Mix the flour combination into the buttermilk combination in the larger bowl. Then mix in the bananas, incorporating them into the mixture well before folding in the raisins and nuts, if you are using them.

6. Pour into prepared pans and bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes or until the knife you insert comes out clean.

7. Let the bread cool for 10 minutes in the pan before taking the bread out. Let it finish cooling on the baker's rack.

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