Toaster Oven Banana Bread
This toaster oven banana bread recipe is perfect for baking in a medium or large oven. You can make a single moist and sweet loaf or 3 mini loaves, either way, they’ll be full of great banana flavor. If you’ve got a smaller toaster oven, no worries we’ve included some little oven baking tips too!
You know how everyone has a go-to quick bread recipe they swear by? This is ours.
It’s not a fast recipe, the loaf takes about 45 to 50 minutes to cook. But the final results are so tender and moist, that I’d say it’s more than worth the wait.
Ingredient Notes
Bananas: The secret to this tasty recipe is using very ripe bananas. Ones that are spotted brown all over, easy to mash, and are so fragrant you can smell them through the peel.
Step-By-Step Instructions
1. Adjust the toaster oven’s cooking rack to the lowest position and preheat to 325°F on the BAKE setting. Grease only the bottom of an 8½” x 4½” loaf pan.
Normally, we bake quick bread at 350°F but with this full-sized recipe, the lower temperature gives the center of the bread enough time to cook through without over-browning the top of the bread.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl combine the mashed bananas, egg, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla.
3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and gently mix together just until combined. For the most tender bread avoid overmixing the batter, it should be chunky/lumpy looking (not perfectly smooth).
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes.
If you’ve got an instant-read thermometer on hand, the bread’s internal temperature should be between 200°F and 205°F when ready.
5. Allow the bread to cool in the pan to cool for 10 minutes, then carefully tip the loaf out and transfer it to a baking rack to cool completely.
How to Make Mini Loaves
Instead of baking a single large loaf, the batter can also be made using mini loaf pans.
- Increase the temperature to 350°F.
- Divide the batter evenly between three greased 5-3/4” x 3” x 2” mini loaf pans.
- Check on the loaves early, ours usually take about 25 to 30 minutes before a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Aside from the faster bake time, another bonus of making the recipe this way is getting to customize each of the loaves.
We usually make a plain banana mini loaf (my favorite), one banana walnut option, and a chocolate chip banana walnut mini loaf (this one’s all for Tim). I know, kind of a tame blend.
Feel free to get creative and use your favorite mix-ins. Just divide the batter into thirds and stir 3 or 4 tablespoons into each one.
Tips For Smaller Toaster Ovens
Unfortunately, the loaf pan is too tall for our smaller toaster oven. Although I can get it to fit inside, as the bread rises there’s a chance it could come in contact with the heating elements and cause a fire.
So to make this recipe fit, I use a cake pan that holds a similar capacity (volume) as the original loaf pan.
- An 8½” x 4½” loaf pan holds 6 cups.
- The cake pan from our Farberware toaster oven pan set holds 6 cups.
- Our Nordic Ware Compact Oven Cake Pan also holds 6 cups.
If you’re curious about how to find the volume of a baking pan, check out this post on Baking Pan Sizes from the website Joy of Baking.
I like to use the Nordic Ware pan because it’s a little deeper. The slices come out fat and thick, like a banana bread snack cake.
Since the pan is wider/shallower than the loaf pan, the batter bakes faster. Similar to the mini loaves, increasing the temperature to 350°F seems to help it bake more evenly.
For the best results, start checking on your bread after 25 minutes. Then add more time as needed. It’s easy to bake something longer, it’s nearly impossible to unburn it 🙂
More Tasty Toaster Oven Baking Recipes
- Toaster Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Banana Bread For Two
- Blueberry Coffee Cake (Cake Mix Recipe)
- Mini Banana Bread Loaf (No-Egg)
- Toaster Oven Blueberry Muffins
- Toaster Oven Bread (make a small loaf of french bread!)
- Toaster Oven Biscuits for Two
- Mini Applesauce Spice Cake
Toaster Oven Banana Bread
Designed for a large toaster oven, this recipe uses two bananas and is great for gifting, feeding a group, or stashing in the freezer to satisfy late-night sweets cravings.
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 1 cup plus 1/2 cup (180 grams) All-Purpose Flour or White Whole Wheat Flour
- 1/2 cup (96 grams) Granulated Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
Wet Ingredients:
- 1 cup Mashed Banana, about 2 medium overripe bananas (150 to 170 grams peeled)
- 1 Large Egg (50 grams without shell), at room temperature
- 1/4 cup Canola Oil (see note)
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces) Low-Fat Buttermilk (see note)
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Adjust your toaster oven’s cooking rack to the lowest position and preheat to 325F on the "Bake" setting.
- Grease only the bottom of an 8½" x 4½" loaf pan.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In another bowl combine the mashed bananas, egg, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes.
- Allow pan to cool for a few minutes and then carefully tip the loaf out and transfer it to a baking rack to cool completely.
Notes
Buttermilk Substitute: Pour 1½ teaspoons apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice) into a glass measuring cup. Then fill with milk to the 1/2 cup mark. Stir and let sit for 5 minutes before adding to the recipe.
Oil Options: In addition to melted coconut oil, we’ve used canola oil and grapeseed oil without any issues. Personally, I think the coconut oil tastes the best but you do have to make sure the dairy and egg are at room temperature or else the coconut oil will harden in the batter.
To Make Mini Loaves: Increase the oven temperature to 350°F. Grease the bottom of three 5-3/4” x 3” x 2” mini loaf pans. Divide batter evenly between the pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes.
Alternative Pans:
An 8.5 x 6.5 pan or 10.75 x 7.5 pan can be substituted for the 8.5 x 4.5 loaf pan. Increase the temperature to 350°F and bake until browned and a toothpick comes out clean, about 28 to 35 minutes. The total time will depend on your oven and the pan used. For the best results, begin testing after 25 minutes and add time as needed.
Recipe adapted from the Banana-Walnut Muffins recipe in The Gourmet Toaster Oven Cookbook.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 10 Serving Size: 1 sliceAmount Per Serving: Calories: 129Total Fat: 6.3gSaturated Fat: 5.7gCholesterol: 19mgSodium: 193mgCarbohydrates: 17.2gFiber: 0.8gSugar: 12.6gProtein: 1.8g
Very good! It started getting dark about half-way through, so I covered the top with foil to prevent over-browning. (Note: my toaster oven allows foil as long as it doesn’t touch the heating elements.) This is the first thing I baked in my new air fryer/toaster oven combo. It was just as good as banana bread baked in a regular oven.
Yay, that’s great to hear, Vicki! I’m so thrilled your first bake with the new oven turned out well. Now you’re all set for the holidays and baking season 🙂
Happy Cooking!
~ Brie
How much chocolate chips or walnut does in need in the batter ?
Hi Wendi,
I usually add about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of mixin’s total to the batter.
My banana bread is always kind of soggy in the middle and I cook it for almost 2 hours. Maybe my oven shot.
Hi Sandy,
It could be the oven, 2 hours is a very long time to bake banana bread.
Is it just the bread that’s giving you trouble or do other things take a long time to cook in the toaster oven too? If everything is taking 2 to 3 times longer than it should the toaster oven is probably the culprit.
To see if the temperature is accurate and consistent you can try popping an oven thermometer into it – we’ve got a post with some tips for troubleshooting temperature issues: https://toasterovenlove.com/toaster-oven-temperature-and-heating-tests/.
If everything besides the banana bread is cooking up well then there’s probably too much liquid in the recipe. Measuring by weight works the best for me.
One last thing, if you’re cooking with a lower wattage toaster oven you may have better luck using a different pan.
The tiny Oster shown above does a good job with the cake pan because the batter is more spread out. In a smaller oven like that one, a big loaf pan will leave little room for airflow inside of the toaster oven making it hard to get things cooked all the way through.
Hope that helps,
Brie
Sandy. What size pans are you using for your banana bread? I tried Baking them last night in mini pans and they took just at 48 min.
I failed to turn up the heat to 350 until the 40 minute test time, which the toothpick came out very wet. At that point I looked at the bake time again and realized the recipe says 350 for mini loaves. So I turned it up to 350 deg. for 10 more minutes and watched close.
The toothpick came out clean about 8 minutes in. Tops browned nicely as well.