Martha Stewart’s Secret Ingredient for the Best Banana Bread

Some people avoid the speckled brown and yellow bananas at the grocery store, but not me. I make a beeline straight for them, because I love making banana bread. I consider it a perfect food, and I’m always looking for delicious ways to enjoy it. While I typically rely on at least four or five super-ripe bananas as my “trick” for perfect banana bread, I recently learned about Martha Stewart’s secret for making banana bread, and it has nothing to do with bananas.

Martha Stewart’s Banana Bread Upgrade

Quick bread recipes tend to use many of the same basic ingredients, including flour, eggs, a leavener like baking powder, a liquid (often milk), and a sweetener. They all work together to create tender, flavorful loaves. These breads are “quick” because, unlike yeasted breads that require time to rise, they can be mixed and then baked right away. Each ingredient plays a specific role to contribute to structure and flavor, but like with all good recipes, there’s always room to play. That brings us to Martha’s key banana bread ingredient: sour cream.

While sour cream isn’t a traditional ingredient in your average banana bread recipe, using it makes sense. Chef Susan Reid of The Well Plated Life explains that sour cream can be a good swap for the oil or butter in the recipe since it contains not just fat but protein and acid, which reinforce the bread’s structure.

Reid adds that besides playing a structural role, sour cream also contributes a tangy flavor, balancing the sweetness of the fully ripe bananas. So, adding sour cream creates a bread with an outstanding texture and flavor that’s easy to slice. What’s not to love about that?

How to Add Sour Cream to Your Favorite Banana Bread Recipe

If your recipe doesn’t call for sour cream, don’t worry: It’s an easy swap. Reid suggests adding 3/4 cup full-fat sour cream and then decreasing the butter or oil by 1/4 cup and the bananas by 1/2 cup. As for when to incorporate it, Reid recommends mixing it in when the bananas are added, following the baker’s strategy of keeping “wet with wet, and dry with dry.”

Finally, for best results, if you’re using butter in your recipe, use room temperature sour cream. This will help create a smooth, aerated batter that’s perfect for baking up a satisfying loaf.

There are plenty of ways to get creative with quick breads, but Martha Stewart’s addition of sour cream produces an easy-slicing, moist loaf that’s balanced in flavor. It’s a secret ingredient that makes any quick bread recipe, especially banana bread, better.