Help making banana bread

hey everyone, i'm so new to this baking thing. so for my first attempt, i tried to make banana bread by tasty (this is the recipe https://tasty.co/recipe/banana-bread#tips ). i used healthy ingredients such as whole-wheat flour, and i didn't use any sugar and oil instead i replaced it with honey and greek yogurt. i followed the step one by one. but in the end my banana bread is a total failure. my bread didn't rise, on the inside it's to wet and all soggy and mushy. is there something wrong with the oven heat? (i used bottom fan heat) or else. please i need your help, afterall i'm very new at this

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of baking awkalov!

I dont’t think there’s anything wrong with your oven—though it’d probably be a good idea to get an oven thermometer. If you want to do more baking, they’re a must. You may turn your oven onto 350°—but that doesn’t mean your oven is going to that temperature. My oven, when I got it, was off by 25°. So I had to go to 375° if I wanted 350°. Your oven may be the same. Get an oven thermometer, put it in the oven, turn it on to a temperature and, after 15 minutes, see if the thermometer reads that temperature or if it’s lower than expected.

Also, remember to always preheat your oven. That means turn it on to desired temperature for 15 minutes at least before putting the cake into the oven.

That’s the first thing to do. Second, always have a cake tester on hand. You can buy these—they’re a thin mental rod—or you can use a wooden skewer or even a toothpick, though those are a little short for a banana bread. You test the cake by poking the tester into it. If it comes out wet, give the cake another 5-10 minutes and test again. Skewer should come out clean.

In baking the recipe may way 55 minutes, but depending on your ingredients and the oven, it may need longer. The cake tester is what tells you if it’s *really* ready or needs more time.

Last...I know there are rave reviews there, I think this recipe is not a good one for a novice baker. Almond milk is very thin stuff, and it doesn’t give the banana bread much structure. Also, there’s only one egg, no oil and baking soda rather than baking powder, which would give the bread more puff. In baking, fat and proteins are really needed to give baked good structure and hold them together. This reads as way too lean and wet for someone still in the shallow end of the baking pool. Wheat flour is also tricky for new bakers.

If a whole wheat banana bread with honey and yogurt is what you’re after, I’d give this recipe a try. It uses actual milk—and if you’re going to use yogurt anyway, why not add milk? 2 eggs and coconut oil: https://www.sweetashoney.co/simple-healthy-banana-bread-yogurt/


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Sorry you had problems with your banana bread. It does get complicated when you substitute ingredients.

Whole wheat flour does not rise much at all because it contains the bran and the germ. If you use whole wheat flour, the banana bread will always be low and dense it’s the nature of the beast. If you want a banana bread with better rises look for a recipe that is a 50/50 mix of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour.


Yogurt and banana both contain a lot of water. People are always surprised to hear that banana contains water. But in fact banana contains about 74% water. When yogurt and banana is heated it will release it’s water.

Oil doesn’t have any water. So when you substitute yogurt for fat you introduce extra water into a recipe. When you make substitution of ingredients you take these things into consideration. So no oil and extra water means an adjustments to your bake time (increase) and maybe even adjustment to the oven temperature.


Sugar is sugar. It doesn’t matter if it is in the form of honey or granulated sugar. Sugar is hygroscopic meaning that it pulls water from its environment. Honey is an invert sugar, meaning that it is been chemically changed with a water molecule. Honey is more hygroscopic than granulated sugar. When you bake with an invert sugar like honey, the moisture in your batter will not evaporate as quickly because the honey is going to hold onto that moisture. So you have to make adjustments to your bake time and sometimes to your oven temperature.

So the combination of the yogurt and the banana, once heated, released all of their water. Then the honey which is hygroscopic held onto that water. There wasn’t enough heat for long enough to evaporate that water. But even if there was enough heat to evaporate the water from the honey, you used whole wheat flour which doesn’t rise. But in this case there was all this water, so it just sat in the loaf pan and you end up with a soggy messy.

 

To add to what NorCal observed regarding bananas...I don’t know about you, but where I am the stores sometimes have extra big bananas. When making banana bread, don’t get the big ones. Get smaller/medium sized bananas. That’s less water, also a better balance between the batter and the banana (i.e. banana bread moist rather than soggy). Also, they need to be very ripe. The skin of the banana should be spotted and the interiors, though still intact (not over ripe and into gooey), should be very soft, easily mashed. That will help with flavor and baking.

As for bottom fan heat...I’m not familiar with such ovens, but cakes/quick breads do well in the middle of the oven with heat surrounding them rather than just from the bottom or top.