So around my house, banana bread doesn’t last long. Everyone’s scrambling for it, especially warm out of the oven.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with a good batch of regular ole’ banana bread, I wanted to try to spice things up a bit.
Enter Banana Fruit Bread.
Great idea, since I have a few containers of candied fruit that a wonderful company called Paradise Fruit Company was kind enough to send me. They have lots of delicious kinds of candied fruit, such as cherries, pineapple, fruit cake mix, lemon peel, and ginger.
I figured I’d give it a go! I could use the recipe I normally use for banana bread, and throw in a delicious candied twist.
This recipe, from House of Nash Eats, is one of the best recipes I’ve found for banana bread. It looks perfect and tastes perfect.
I chose to use the Old English Fruit & Peel Mix from Paradise Fruit Company, because I thought it would be good to get a bunch of flavors mixed in there.
And boy was I right! I don’t think the bread lasted two days in my house. My two boys gobbled it right down.
Now let’s get to that tasty recipe!
How to Make Banana Fruit Bread
For this recipe, I used 3 ripe bananas, the fruit mix, sugar, flour, an egg, butter, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, vanilla, and walnuts.
The recipe originally called for a cup of walnuts, but since I was adding a half cup of the fruit mix, I cut it down to a half cup.
First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees! I tend to forget this until halfway through preparing the recipe.
Then I peeled the three bananas and put them into a bowl, where I smashed them up with a fork. I added the butter, which I had melted quickly in the microwave, and stirred it up.
Next came the sugar, vanilla, and egg.
After stirring these ingredients in, I set the bowl aside to chop up some walnuts. I aimed for a half cup of roughly chopped walnuts, but you can use more or less based on your personal preference.
I added the walnuts and a half cup of the Old English Fruit & Peel Mix.
In my excitement to add the fruit mix, I completely skipped a couple ingredients. You’d think after my kids asking me to make it practically every week that I would have it down. Apparently not!
Before you add the walnuts and fruit mix, you should add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
Phew. That would have been a real doozy if I hadn’t remembered!
Now here’s where you add the flour, and mix it up well. Don’t over mix, but make sure there aren’t any patches of white flour hanging out in there.
Ready to go! Throw that puppy in a greased pan and into the oven.
You’ll want to bake it for 50-60 minutes, but I would check after 50 to make sure it doesn’t overcook. If a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, you’re all set!
After 10 minutes of cooling in the pan, you can pop it out onto a rack to finish cooling.
We broke into it while it was still warm. It was a shame to cut through that pretty brown crust, but man was it worth it!
Yum!
We’ll definitely be making this again.
Banana Fruit Bread
A delicious banana bread with a tangy candied fruit twist.
Ingredients
- 3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup Old English Fruit & Peel Mix
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray 8" loaf pan with cooking spray.
- Add melted butter to bananas in large bowl.
- Mix in sugar, vanilla, and egg.
- Add baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, and mix again.
- Add walnuts, fruit mix, and flour.
- Mix until no spots of white flour are visible.
- Pour batter into loaf pan.
- Put loaf pan in oven for 50-60 minutes. Check after 50 minutes, and if a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, remove from oven.
- Cool bread in loaf pan for 10 minutes before removing and cooling completely on a baking rack. Cut and serve.
Notes
Feel free to adjust the amount of walnuts or fruit mix to taste.
If you’re interested in another recipe featuring Paradise Fruit Company, check out my next recipe, Candied Cherry Brownies!
Sarah is the founder of Baking Kneads, LLC, a blog sharing guides, tips, and recipes for those learning how to bake. Growing up as the daughter of a baker, she spent much of her childhood learning the basics in a local bakery.