Felicity Cloake’s banana bread recipe puts very ripe fruit to work

Felicity Cloake’s banana bread guide, published by the Guardian on 8 November 2026, centres on fruit with predominantly brown skins and soft, sweet flesh. The recipe uses 350g of peeled bananas alongside flour, baking powder, butter, light brown sugar and eggs. Nuts or chocolate chips are optional, with walnuts, cashews, peanuts and pecans among the suggested additions.

The method calls for mashing most of the bananas smoothly while leaving the remainder chunkier for texture. The batter is baked in a loaf tin at 200C, or 180C fan, for about an hour, until a skewer comes out clean. Cloake says the cooled loaf can be frozen for up to three months.

For home bakers, the guide offers flexibility around ingredients already available: different sugars can replace light brown sugar, and alternative fats can replace butter. That flexibility has limits, however. Cloake explicitly notes that the batter still contains eggs, so substituting a dairy-free fat alone does not make this a plant-based recipe.