Why You Might Want To Use Less Flour In Your Banana Bread

Baking can be an art, but it's really a science at heart. It's chemistry that gives a cake its rise, turns a lattice crust to gold, whips up cream, and transforms single ingredients like baking powder from tiny to mighty. Its beauty appeals to the right-brained among us, but to truly succeed, you need a little bit of what's left.

Take something as supposedly simple as banana bread. With seven or so ingredients, you can transform yesterday's bananas into this morning's homemade goodie. But there are as many ways to mess it up as there are to perfect your own proprietary recipe. Hana Dreiling, founder and head baker of Holey Grail Donuts, which you can find in Los Angeles and Hawaii, shared a few tips that address both scenarios exclusively with Chowhound.

"The flour-to-liquid ratio is critical for banana bread's texture," Dreiling says. "Too much flour, and your bread becomes dense and dry; too little, and it may collapse or turn out gummy." Crucially, she says that finding "The perfect balance creates a tender, moist crumb that holds its shape. Because bananas contribute natural moisture, you may need less flour than in other quick bread recipes. Adjusting the ratio — like slightly reducing flour or increasing the bananas — can yield a softer, richer loaf." For home cooks, this might take longer to perfect. So, if you feel like your banana breads come out dry, reduce the amount of flour incrementally from loaf to loaf. Try a tablespoon at a time until you notice a difference.

You can probably see where we're going with this. Flour is a dry ingredient, ergo less flour nets a less dry final product. But it also has a kind of flavor concentrating effect. "Reducing the flour in banana bread makes it softer and more moist, as it allows the bananas and other liquids to shine. This can also amplify the banana flavor, giving the loaf a richer, fruitier taste," Hana Dreiling says. That goes even further if you can get your hands on her preferred banana variety. "In Hawaii we like to use apple bananas for a sweeter, most flavorful punch, which requires slightly less flour," she specifies. (Those are the little guys you might be able to find in bunches at your local grocery store.)

Still, there are limits to how much flour you should cut. Dreiling warns: "However, go too low, and the bread may become overly dense or fail to set properly. It's all about finding that sweet spot where the bread is tender but still holds its structure." Once you've got your moisture levels on lock, you can tinker further by swapping out some of your liquid ingredients with things like orange juice for a perky banana bread adaptation. You don't simply want to toss in more liquid, as that would throw all those studied ratios out of whack, but rather replace a little bit of milk, for example, with the citrus.