Baking is a great activity to do with your family and banana bread is a kid-friendly recipe that keeps tummies of all ages happy. Our banana bread recipe is low in sugar to help manage energy levels and contains simple kitchen ingredients, helping you to make something delicious out of old bananas.
This tasty banana bread is also extra special as it helps your household tackle food waste and it’s a great opportunity for you to teach your kids about how to look after the environment.
How does banana bread help with food waste?
When you see bananas going mushy or brown in your kitchen, it can be tempting to throw them away. But making banana bread is a better way to use them. That’s because you’re reducing the amount of food waste that you are creating.
You might be thinking, why is it important for me to reduce my food waste? Well, apart from the fact that you’re basically throwing money away every time you get rid of food that you haven’t eaten, food waste actually has a very bad impact on our environment.
Climate change and global warming is happening because of an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. A lot of people focus on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) but another powerful greenhouse gas is methane. Decomposing food produces methane which is much more harmful to our climate than CO2.
Of course, using overripe bananas will not fix climate change on its own. But every little helps.
How can you stop food waste?
It is important for all of us to reduce our food waste to look after our planet and reduce harmful greenhouse gases. It’s also important to help us become aware of the resources that are used to produce our food.
When we waste food, we waste the resources that were used to grow our food, like water and land space.
Being educated about food waste is also a good reminder that we are privileged to live with easy access to food and water where so many other people in the world struggle with hunger.
Thankfully, there are lots of things that we can do to reduce food waste. This includes:
- Only buying food we know we will eat
- Freezing leftovers
- Using what food we have before buying more
- Composting food that we can no longer eat
Banana bread recipe
Banana bread is a great way to teach your kids about food waste while also making something yummy for everyone to enjoy.
Difficulty: easy
Age rating: 5+
Time: 1 hour
Adapted from Yummy Toddler Food
You will need:
- 115g unsalted butter, melted
- 3 large ripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 225g plain flour
- 100g caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- A pinch of salt
How to make your banana bread
- Heat your oven to 180°C
- Grease and line a loaf tin, then set aside
- In a large bowl, mash your bananas until smooth
- Add melted butter to your bananas and stir. (Top tip: make sure your butter is slightly cool before adding it)
- Whisk your eggs together in a small bowl and add to the bananas and butter
- Pour in your vanilla extract and mix everything together until well combined
- In a separate bowl, add your plain flour, caster sugar, baking soda and salt
- Stir until combined and then add into the wet ingredients bowl
- Give everything a stir until the mixture comes together
- Then, pour your batter into your loaf tin
- Bake for 50 – 60 minutes or until golden brown and you can poke a knife into the centre and it comes out clean
- Wait for your banana bread to cool down a little before you slice. Enjoy!
As always, we’d love to see your photos. Share your banana bread with us on the Not Bored Box instagram @notboredbox