A loaf made with oat flour and rolled oats, three very ripe bananas and cinnamon, with raisins or almonds through it. No wheat anywhere, and the riper the bananas the better it works.
The temperature contradicted itself
The first instruction preheated the oven to 180°C. The seventh told you to bake at 200°C. Both were in the same recipe and only one can be right.
For a loaf this size, baking 40 to 45 minutes, 180°C is the one. At 200 the outside darkens and sets long before the middle, which with three bananas in it is very wet, has any chance of baking through. You end up with a dark crust and a raw centre.
It now says 180°C in both places.
Half the fat it used to ask for
Two hundred grams of margarine is close to a full cup of fat, going into a loaf whose entire dry content is two cups of oats.
That is roughly double what any banana bread uses, and the result is greasy and slow to set, because fat does not evaporate the way water does. A hundred grams is the amount this now calls for and it is in line with what the rest of the recipe expects.
Melt it and let it cool before it meets the eggs, which is what the second instruction is for: hot fat poured onto eggs scrambles them.
Oats are not flour
There is no wheat anywhere in this loaf, so there is no gluten, so there is no structure. Nothing traps the air the baking powder produces.
What comes out is dense, moist and slightly crumbly, held together by two eggs and three mashed bananas rather than by a network of protein. It slices best cold and it is closer to a cake than to bread in texture.
That is not a fault of the recipe, it is what oat breads are. Expecting a risen sandwich loaf is what leads people to think theirs went wrong.
Very ripe bananas
Spotted or blackened skins, flesh that mashes under a fork without effort. Three of them.
They are the main sweetener, which is why the quarter cup of brown sugar is optional. An underripe banana is starchy rather than sweet and leaves pale streaks through the crumb.
This is the loaf to make when the fruit bowl has gone too far, which is exactly the point of it.
More things with oats
- Sopa de avena — oats in a savoury soup.
- Banana cake — the wheat flour version.
- Banana mousse — no oven at all.
- Homemade bread — the wheat loaf.
Oatmeal Banana Bread FAQ
180°C, which is 356°F, for 40 to 45 minutes. The recipe used to preheat to 180 in the first step and then say 200 in the seventh, which cannot both be right. At 200 the crust darkens well before the middle sets.
Grind rolled oats in a blender or food processor until they are powdery. That is what the ingredient note suggests and it works perfectly. A cup of rolled oats gives roughly a cup of oat flour.
No. There is no wheat and therefore no gluten, so it has no structure to trap air. It comes out dense and moist, held together by the eggs and the banana. That is what an oat bread is.
Spotted or black. They are doing most of the sweetening, which is why the quarter cup of brown sugar is marked optional, and underripe fruit is starchy rather than sweet.
A hundred grams of margarine. The recipe used to say 200, which is close to a cup of fat against two cups of oats, and it makes a greasy loaf that struggles to set.
A knife or skewer into the middle should come out clean and dry. With this much banana in it the centre is the last part to bake.
Yes, the same weight. It browns a little more and tastes better.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup oat flour (you can grind rolled oats to make it)
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 3 very ripe bananas
- 100 grams margarine (melted and cooled)
- 2 large eggs
- ¼ cup brown sugar (optional, the bananas are already sweet)
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup raisins or chopped almonds
- A pinch of salt
Notas
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 180°C (356°F).
- Melt the margarine and let it cool.
- In a bowl, mash the bananas into a purée.
- Add the brown sugar if you are using it, the margarine, the vanilla extract and the two eggs to the banana, and mix well.
- Work in the rest: the rolled oats, the oat flour, the cinnamon, the baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix gently, then fold in the raisins or almonds.
- Grease a loaf tin with butter and dust it with a little flour, then pour the mixture in and level the top.
- Bake at 180°C (356°F) for 40 to 45 minutes. Test it with a knife or a skewer in the middle: if it comes out clean and dry, it is done.
- Let it cool before turning it out of the tin.
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