Oh so long ago, back when I was still in high school, my mom came home from work one day clutching a photocopied hand-written banana bread recipe. I wasn’t impressed, but she claimed it was the recipe for the best banana bread she had ever tasted in her life. It was a pretty bold statement, especially for my mom, who isn’t really prone to superlatives – she’s more the stoic type. Still, she stood by it. She even had a bunch of bananas, purchased with the sole purpose of ripening for the bread.
I had my doubts. I was wary of the illegible hand writing, the oil content, and, well, everything. But, I stand corrected: it really was the best banana bread ever. It was the banana bread dreams are made of. Moist, not too sweet, not overly oily, and loaded with banana flavor. The crowning glory was its crunchy, crisp, domed top. We must’ve made that banana bread hundreds of times after the first. The recipe got wrinkly, banana-stained, and well loved, until one day, it decided enough.
It was gone. We spent a good half a day searching. Its usual spot was stuck to the side of the microwave with a Care Bear magnet. The candy colored, Care Bear stare magnet was still there, its innocent smile belying its poor job performance. The magnet had one job – keep the recipe safe – and it failed.
Sadly, at this point my mom changed offices and the banana bread creator wasn’t available for consultation. We tried again and again to re-create the loaf from memory, but it was futile: some loaves came pretty close, but to be honest, they were never quite right.
To this day, I’m still searching for that elusive bread. In some ways whenever I have banana bread I feel betrayed. I’m always hoping for a taste of the past, only to be disappointed by overly sweet, dry loaves.
In desperation, I turned to the avocado. I don’t have a cool story for why I decided on avocados, aside from the fact that I thought it would be hilarious to have avocado toast made with avocado bread (the yeasted kind). From there I started thinking about quick breads and why bananas, zucchinis, and carrots got all the love.
Essentially, I substituted avocado in a slightly adapted version of my second favorite banana bread recipe. I ended up with a pleasantly green, slightly sweet, tender loaf. I topped a still warm slice with a scoop of ice cream and even Mike, who was a skeptic at first, thought it was a winner.
Avocado Bread Recipe
makes 1 small loaf
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup butter at room temp
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 cup mashed avocado*
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
Notes: The lime juice keeps the loaf a green color, you can skip out on it if you don’t have any on hand, just know that your loaf won’t be as verdant.
If you have a food processor or blender, blend your avocado – it needs to be completely smooth for this.
Preheat the oven to 325°F and line a small loaf pan with parchment paper.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla throughly and then the mashed avocado and lime juice. Gently fold in the flour mix, being careful not to over mix.
Spoon the batter (it is very thick) into the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes or until an inserted wooden skewer is clean with a few crumbs clinging. Cool completely, slice and enjoy.
I baked this today- and used perfectly ripe Avocados. In my mind i couldn’t understand how this would work as I know that the tannins in avocados cause it to become bitter when cooked but I was super excited to bake it after reading all the great reviews. I should have trusted my instincts… it was so incredibly bitter that it was simply unpalatable. Spare your avocados on this one folks- what an absolute waste. I fed the loaf to the dogs and had to wash my mouth out with Listerine to remove the oily acridity from my mouth (to no avail, I might add). This is honestly the worst thing I have ever made in my life. I feel like I’m living in a different universe when I read all these other comments touting this recipe’s greatness. Maybe we just have different avo’s in Africa…
I’m from the US and made this today and thought it was inedible. Even my dog wouldn’t eat it and I followed the recipe to a tee.
You’re aware there are several different types of avocados, right? The tiny round black ones, the large green outside/yellow inside ones, the large purpley-black kind.. etc
Will this recipe work with instant yeast instead of baking powder/soda? I like the yeasted taste and chew of real bread.
hi eunice,
yeast won’t work because this isn’t technically a bread, it’s a quick bread, like banana bread, so it won’t have the chew of a gluten bread.
Have you tried Mary Berry’s BB? Recently discovered it and think it’s the best I’ve ever had! Need to double the recipe though for a standard loaf tin. Works well with gluten free flour too :-) https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/banana_and_chocolate_74784
I gotta try this one for St. Patricks Day!
I made your avocado bread and it was delicious. I used coconut palm sugar (what was on hand) so didn’t get the pale green color. I used one very ripe avocado and as i forgot I no longer own a mixer, used a whisk to stir everything together. I did turn heat up to 350 after 30 minutes and maybe cooked for another 15-20 minutes. Came out perfect. If you are still questing after banana bread, try Fannie Farmer recipe. Use 3-4 very ripe bananas, add 1/4 – 1/3 cup fat – butter or oil and adjust sugar to your taste buds. I usually use 1/3 – 1/2 cup. The recipe doesn’t call for any fat, but the addition tastes better to me. It is an excellent recipe, definitely NOT soft, sweet or cakelike.
I doubled this recipe and added a few teaspoons of matcha. The bake was a great success – domed, crusty, soft and moist but not crumby. The taste though is a little off. It’s yummy on first contact but then I have lingering bitterness as well. What a pain! I made pancakes the other day with matcha and they weren’t bitter, so I’m also leaning more towards blaming the avocado. I’d love to try again though and see what happens. I’d really like this to work!
First, I am NOT a Baker so I don’t normally modify recipes but this seemed flexible enough that I could make some minor changes. I had 3/4 cups of avocado so I increased the recipe by 50%, used 2 eggs instead of 1. I also added 1/2 cup of milk made into buttermilk by adding the lime juice to the milk. I blended the wet ingredients super smooth before folding into the flour. I also added some crushed pecans on top.
Finally, instead of making a loaf, I put the batter in muffin tins and cooked for 30 mins.
These are by far the best muffins I’ve ever accomplished (and probably the first baked good I didn’t burn!) I will no longer throw out over ripe avocados! I got a very cool green color.
Thank you! This will now be my “go to” recipe for events.
Just wondering if you ever found your banana bread recipe? I have one I make with oil and it is moist and delicious. I can send it to you unless you already found yours.
hi irene,
i never found it LOL i’m pretty sure it’s gone forever if you want to share yours, i’d love it :)
Thanks for the recipe! I just made it and it came out amazing. I used a bigger pan than you did and ended up doubling the recipe. It took about 2.25 avocados to make 1c. I did cheat a bit and add 3 drops green food coloring to the mix just to ensure I don’t lose the color. Next time I will go with 6 drops as it still faded a bit. I also used 1.25 cups sugar total to ensure I don’t get a bitter product. In a 9×5 at 325C it took me about 35 minutes to brown the top enough that foil was definitely needed. Then I let it go for another 30 minutes checking every 6. I would say cover after 35 and go another 20-25 then check every 5 minutes. Pretty consistent with your assessment in an older post. Have to take the little ones to the store but when we get home I will be cutting into this thing for sure!