HACK: How To RIPEN BANANAS in Just Minutes
It can take days for bananas to ripen enough to bake with. This clever hack will make them banana-bread-ready in less than an hour!
For anyone who loves baking, you probably know the struggle of underripe bananas. They're impossible to bake with! Waiting for them to ripen, though, means scheduling your banana bread cravings around the whims of the fruit gods.
But did you know you can speed up this natural process with the help of a little modern technology?
If you didn't... this hack is going to blow your mind!
The secret? Baking them in the oven.
The heat brings out the sugar in the fruit, giving them that delicious ripened taste that we all love and that you need to sweeten the recipe that you're making. It also changes the texture, transforming firm yellow bananas into the perfect squishy consistency for slicing up and dumping into the mixing bowl. It's like magic!
And it takes less than an hour.
Here's how you do it:
- Heat your oven to 300°F.
- Lay out a few yellow bananas on a baking tray lined in parchment paper. (This is because they might leak a bit during the baking.)
- Let them bake for 30-45 minutes, until the skins have turned black. Check on them often to make sure you don't leave them too long.
- Give them a few minutes to cool. You can put them in the fridge to speed this process up.
- Get baking!
This handy trick can be used to ripen up bananas for all kinds of recipes, from bread to pancakes to muffins – you name it! We recommend this Starbucks-inspired Banana Walnut Bread for a crunchy, nutty treat to enjoy with your tea or coffee.
Need more excuses to eat bananas? Find out 9 surprising health benefits of this delicious fruit.
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Ingredients
- 2 large water or soda bottles (empty)
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 sticks butter
- 6 eggs
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
Method
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Ready 2 large plastic bottles, cleaned and dried.
- Add 1 cup of flour to each bottle.
- Add 1/2 cup of sugar to each.
- Melt butter, then add equal halves to each bottle.
- Add 6 eggs, 3 in each.
- Add 1/2 tbsp of baking powder to each.
- Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream to each.
- Shake the bottles thoroughly until the contents are well mixed.
- In one of the bottles only, add the cocoa powder.
- Beginning with the cocoa powder mixture, add a dolop of batter to the center of a circular
- baking tin. Do the same with the other mixture, placing the dolop directly in the center of the previous one.
- Continue with alternating additions of each mixture until all batter is used and the tin is full.
- Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
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