Name: Self-Rising Flour Banana Bread
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 65 min
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour (190 grams); 2/3 cup sugar (132 grams); 2 large eggs; 3 tablespoons buttermilk; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 1/2 cup vegetable oil; 2 large bananas (8 oz/230 grams); 3/4 cup chopped roasted pecans

This recipe for self-rising flour banana bread might come in handy when you're looking for ways to use self-rising flour. Perhaps you bought some for biscuit-making and have over-ripe bananas? That was my situation when I first tried the recipe. Now I buy self-rising flour just to make this banana bread. This is a really good basic and easy banana bread recipe. It gives you a nicely shaped loaf with a domed top and a lovely crack down the center.

Self Rising or Self-Rising Flour Banana Bread, cut so you can see the texture. — Texture shot of the Self-Rising Flour Banana Bread

Self-Rising Flour Brands

The original banana bread recipe with self rising flour is from Martha White brand flour, but I actually used White Lily self-rising flour, which you can buy on-line. Any brand will do. This recipe gives you a nicely shaped loaf with a lovely crack down the center. Because self-rising flour is somewhat acidic from the baking powder, the non-crumbly banana bread bakes up paler than usual. It has a golden brown crust, and if you follow the technique carefully without over-mashing the bananas or using too much flour, you should get a domed or slightly rounded loaf. It should definitely not be flat. Also, you may notice there is no salt in the ingredient list. That's because self-rising flour includes salt.

Self-Rising vs. Self-Raising

The flour I grew up with and which grocery stores here in the Southern US are stocked with is self-rising flour, which is a mixture of flour, baking powder and salt. I only recently learned that self-raising flour contains only flour and baking powder and does not contain salt. So if you are in a country where they sell self-raising flour, you may want to add ¼ teaspoon of salt to the banana bread batter.

Ingredients for Self-Rising Flour Banana Bread -- Salt needed only if using self-raising.

Buttermilk Substitute

This recipe calls for buttermilk. To make one cup of buttermilk, you generally mix 7 ½ oz of milk with 1 tablespoon (which is ½ oz) of lemon juice or vinegar and let it stand for 10 minutes. For this recipe you would use 3 tablespoons of that mixture and have some buttermilk substitute left over. If you only want 3 tablespoons of buttermilk, you can measure out 3 tablespoon of milk and add about ¾ teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar. By the way, if you are always scrambling for a buttermilk substitute, do yourself a favor and buy a canister of powdered buttermilk. I use a brand called Saco, but I'm sure there are tons of other good ones. I keep the canister of powdered buttermilk in the refrigerator and it seems to last forever.

All-Purpose Flour Banana Bread

If you'd rather just make banana bread using all-purpose flour, I recommend the Starbucks Banana Bread Copycat recipe. Another good one (again, made with all-purpose) is the Diamond Walnut Banana Bread recipe from the back of the Diamond Walnuts bag. I only recently found this one but love it.

Self-Rising Double Chocolate Cookies

By the way, if you have self-rising flour in the house you might as well try these Self Rising Flour Double Chocolate Cookies. This is kind of an overlooked recipe, but the cookies are very good. They're super fudgy -- almost like fudge in cookie form, though they do have a nice cookie shell.

One Banana Half Batch Version

My daughter and I had one very brown banana to use up, so last night we made a quick batch of banana bread using half the ingredients below. The half batch filled one mini loaf pan (about 3x5) and a small souffle type ramekin dish. We baked the small loaves in a Breville toaster oven. The very small (but deep) loaves were done in about 45 minutes. Here's a picture of the one baked in a ramekin. It domed and looks like a giant muffin!

Domed top banana muffin made with self-rising flour. — Domed top baked in a ramekin

Recipe