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Bananas – Natural Grown Sweeteners

by | Oct 12, 2023 | Articles, Basics, Ingredients

Bananas on yellow background.

I was never particularly fond of bananas. Yes, I had heard how amazingly healthy they are but bananas are such an impractical fruit! You can’t take them anywhere because they turn brown. You can’t keep them for long because they ripen really fast. And when they are very ripe they taste, well, like bananas. Not my favourite fruit. Until…

The universal sweetener

… I realised I can sweeten pretty much any recipe with bananas. Now that I have figured out a few guidelines, I can create desserts and cakes in a wide range of sweetness. They are super-cheap. Even the organic and fair-trade versions are affordable. And you find them everywhere!

Why don’t I just use artificial sweeteners? Short answer: don’t like the flavour. For the longer answer click on the link.

And now drumroll please:

Ripe yellow banana on the left. Bunch of greenish bananas on the right.

How to sweeten anything with bananas

Here are a few guidelines you might find helpful when you pick your bananas:

  • The more banana mash the sweeter your recipe.
  • If you use a banana that is still a bit green and just about to turn yellow you get the sweetness without the strong banana flavour.
  • If you prefer your desserts really sweet and like/don’t mind the banana flavour, use a very ripe banana. We’re talking on the verge of going bad.
  • Yes, the amount of bananas you use makes a difference but how ripe the banana is impacts the sweetness a lot more. So a tiny very ripe banana will be much sweeter than a huge still green one.
  • In my experience, anything sweetened with a banana tastes sweeter the next day. So no more freshly-baked cakes and biscuits. The good news: If you follow my recipes, you’ll use nut flours anyway so nothing goes stale. If you can’t wait a day, wait at least a few hours. The taste really is a lot sweeter.
  • I roughly use 1 banana = 60g refined sugar but I always round down. So if a recipe asks for 150g sugar, I just use two bananas.

Mash up your banana(s) with a fork until you get a smooth-ish mash.Then mash some more with a flexible silicon spatula. Don’t use a blender. Blenders completely hack the water-insoluble fibre in fruits to pieces.

Then just replace the sugar in any recipe with your banana mash. Mix it in in the same way you’d mix in the sugar.

And enjoy!

Mashed banana.

Extra Tips

Add a pinch of salt to any dessert or sweet dish you are making! Salt enhances flavour and as long as you only add a small amount you won’t taste the salt but it will bring out the banana’s sweetness even more.

If you are using butter, slowly melt it and mix the mashed banana in before you add both to the other ingredients. Make sure the mixture is cool again if you want to add it to real eggs.

Always mix the mashed banana with cocoa powder first, no matter what chocolate cake you are baking. I use a flexible silicon spatula and keep mashing while I mix the two ingredients. Take your time. The smoother the mixture, the sweeter your cake!