This is my in depth recipe to help you achieve the best eggless banana bread. This is the first eggless cake I ever made after my son was diagnosed with his egg allergy. It has been tried, tested and tweaked in my kitchen numerous times. It is great for beginners and seasoned bakers alike.

Banana bread was everywhere throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns, when people had much more time to bake themselves (and weirdly had a lot of ripe bananas). It’s undeniable that banana bread is very comforting. It feels wholesome, warming and familiar. Banana bread has been baked in kitchens since the 1930s, so its no wonder its such a comforting treat across generations.

Every man and his dog has his own banana bread recipe, but when you can’t eat eggs, you may need a little bit of inspiration. I encourage you to try this delicious and easy recipe. It has been kitchen-tested many times, and I promise you, you won’t be disappointed!

This was the first eggless cake I ever baked, right after my son was diagnosed with his egg allergy. It was such a success, it gave me the confidence to try other eggless cakes. It has now become a firm family favourite… Moist, soft and sweet, we never get tired of it.

My eggless banana bread is very low in sugar and relatively high in fibre, so you can enjoy this banana bread as part of a well-balanced diet. For these reasons, it is also great for toddlers and children.

My favourite way to eat this banana bread is whilst it is still warm out of the oven with a cup of my favourite Yorkshire Tea. It’s still equally great the next day; I like it lightly toasted with butter spread on top.

Shop bought versions really won’t compare once you have baked this.

Why you’ll love this recipe

This eggless banana bread is:

Sliced eggless banana bread ready to be served

Ingredients for the best eggless banana bread

Ripe bananas: Ripe bananas are more sweet than regular bananas. You can tell when they are ripe if they have brown spots, feel soft to squeeze and are easy to peel
Sunflower oil: Use any other mild tasting oil. You could use melted butter if you don’t follow a vegan or dairy free diet
Dark brown soft sugar: I like to use dark brown sugar because it gives the banana bread a rich caramel flavour, as well as turning it to a lovely deep brown shade. You can use light brown sugar or caster sugar if you don’t have dark brown sugar. It will taste just as good!
Self-raising flour: The flour should be sieved to remove any lumps. You can use plain flour if you don’t have self-raising, just combine two teaspoons of baking powder with the plain flour. Roughly one teaspoon of baking powder per 100g plain is recommended for this hack. You can learn more in this article by Epicurious
Cinnamon: Banana and cinnamon are a wonderful flavour combination. The cinnamon adds natural warmth, depth and sweetness to the bake
Chocolate chunks: Chocolate is an optional addition. I tend to add a handful of dark chocolate chunks, so that each slice has a few bites of melted chocolate. You can use whole blueberries to reduce the refined sugar in the recipe, or to make it dairy-free/vegan
Milk: I use a small amount of milk in the batter to help retain moisture in the final cake. I didn’t used to do this but I recently updated my recipe, because I think the milk improves the texture. This is especially important when baking without eggs, which usually provide moisture.

How to make eggless banana bread

Mash peeled bananas with a fork, then mix well with sunflower oil and brown sugar
Add flour, baking powder and cinnamon, and combine well
Add chocolate chunks if using. You can use chocolate chips, but I prefer to buy a bar of good quality dark chocolate and break it up into chunks. I think you get to use better quality chocolate this way, and enjoy bigger chunks of chocolate too!
Pour the mixture into a lined loaf tin for 20 minutes. After this time check the cake and cover with foil if the cake is browning. This will help prevent the top of the cake from burning, whilst still allowing the middle of the cake to cook
Bake for another 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean
Allow to cool a little before slicing, and enjoy whilst warm out of the oven.

Major success tips

This eggless banana bread is great for using up ripe bananas. The riper the bananas, the sweeter the banana bread. Some people will tell you to put bananas in the oven to ripen them. This doesn’t really ripen them, but just makes them soft. You’ll find that their flavour stays the same. Instead, if you can place the bananas in a brown paper bag the day before baking, this will trap the ethane gas (which bananas naturally give off) in the bag and help them ripen quickly. This BBC article talks about it more
Use two large bananas or three small bananas. This is enough to get a delicious banana flavour whilst giving the cake a lovely soft crumb. Some recipes do use more bananas, but I find that banana bread can get dense very quickly
I use my favourite dark chocolate in this recipe. If you want to make this dairy free or vegan, you can use your favourite vegan chocolate. Alternatively, you can try blueberries or raisins
Use dark brown sugar if you can, as it gives the banana bread a lovely caramel flavour and beautiful deep brown colour
Cover your banana bread with foil halfway through baking. This will stop the cake from burning, whilst ensuring it still cooks through

Can I freeze this banana bread?

Banana bread is ideal for freezing. I find that its best to freeze individual slices so that they thaw quicker:

Ensure the loaf is fully cool
Wrap the banana bread slice tightly with cling film
Place the slice in a freezer safe container. Freeze for up to three months.

Thaw at room temperature before serving.

Other banana recipes you’ll love

Eggless banana chocolate chip muffins

Slice of eggless banana bread on a plate with a bite taken out

Best Eggless Banana Bread

Author: Kiran
Total Time: 50 minutes
Yield: 10 slices 1x
Diet: Vegetarian

Print Recipe

Description

A simple and straightforward recipe for the best eggless banana bread, which is moist, sweet and oh so satisfying.

Ingredients

Scale

2 large ripe bananas
85ml sunflower oil
50g dark brown sugar
225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
75g chocolate chunks

To decorate

50g chocolate, melted
Dried banana chips

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180c, and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
Mash the bananas well with a fork, and transfer to a large bowl. Combine the mashed bananas with the oil and dark brown sugar, and mix well. Use the back of the spoon to break up any large lumps of sugar.
Add the self raising flour, baking powder, cinnamon and chocolate chunks to the bowl. Stir gently, until everything is combined. Do not overmix, as this can cause your banana bread to sink in the middle when baking.
Transfer the cake batter into your lined loaf tin. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, cover the top of the banana bread with foil, so that it doesn’t burn. Bake for another 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven. Once the cake has cooled slightly, gently lift it out of the tin and place onto a wire rack to cool completely.
If you are decorating your banana bread, melt your chocolate, either in short bursts in the microwave, or by placing the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. If doing it the latter way, make sure your bowl doesn’t touch the hot water, and keep the heat very low.
Once the cake is completely cool, drizzle your melted chocolate on top of the cake and decorate with dried banana chips.

Notes

I use a 900g/2lb loaf tin for this banana bread. You should find that the batter fills around 2/3 of the cake tin, giving it plenty of space to rise
You can use increase the sugar if your bananas aren’t very ripe, or if you don’t want to use chocolate chunks. If either of these is the case, I would use 75g sugar
You can use plain flour for this recipe, and simply increase the baking powder to two teaspoons.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Category: Cakes
Method: Baking
Cuisine: American