The 3-Ingredient Combo That Will Make Your Banana Bread 10x More Delicious

When you want a delicious homemade baked good without worrying that it will turn out dry and underwhelming, banana bread is the ultimate low-stress treat to whip up. The bananas themselves supply moisture and flavor to the loaf, which gives it some insurance against drying out. However, if your bread still ends up less soft and moist than you'd like, it's time to break out a three-ingredient miracle formula: sour cream, brown sugar, and melted butter. These baking staples form the ultimate secret weapon against dry or tasteless banana bread, and can also make a recipe you already love ten times tastier.

Sour cream is the creamy ingredient you need for ultra-moist banana bread because it's extra fatty – which contributes to a rich crumb — yet thick in consistency. It won't make your batter thin and runny, which would produce a flat loaf. The acid in this ingredient also creates a softer texture by tenderizing the gluten in the flour, and its slight hint of tangy flavor adds a delicious depth.Meanwhile, brown sugar not only has a deep, rich caramel taste, but it contains more moisture than white sugar. This further ensures your bread won't be dry or bland. 

Lastly, melted butter can actually be better than room-temperature butter for rich, dense baked goods like banana bread, as it contributes to an even moister crumb with a bigger buttery flavor. All of these items are clearly top ingredients to improve your banana bread, and their power only increases when you use all three.

To taste the glory of these three powerhouse banana bread ingredients, make our best brown butter banana bread recipe, which already contains the whole trio. However, if you want to tweak a recipe that doesn't contain these ingredients, you'll need to make some adjustments.

Subbing in melted butter is the easiest change: Just melt the amount called for in your recipe and thoroughly let it cool to room temperature before use. If the recipe calls for a creaming step, know that science says you can't cream sugar with melted butter – so just skip that part and mix the butter in with the rest of your wet batter ingredients. You can also swap in brown sugar for the same amount of white sugar, but if your bread turns out too dense or you want a slightly lighter flavor, try only replacing half the white sugar in your recipe. This way, you get the best of both worlds.

Lastly, most recipes for banana bread with sour cream use ⅓ cup to ½ cup of the dairy and exclude milk or water. To change up your recipe, get rid of all the liquid ingredients besides the melted butter and replace them with the sour cream. If your loaf comes out with a less-than-ideal texture, try reducing the amount of butter and/or eggs to make room for the sour cream's extra fat. It may take a test loaf or two, but once you successfully pull off this tip for making the best banana bread, you won't go back.