Banana Bread with Streusel Topping is a classic moist and sweet banana bread with a thick and crumbly streusel topping.This banana bread is made with sour cream to give it an extra moist texture. It is coffee cake-like in style, but with lots of banana flavor.
Preheat the oven to 350℉. In a medium bowl, add the butter, flour, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and cinnamon. Use your hands to combine the ingredients, scrunching them up together to form large crumbs (some will be smaller, some larger). Place in the refrigerator while you make the batter for the banana bread.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the mashed bananas and mix to combine. You can mash the bananas with a beater in a large 4-cup measuring cup to ensure that you have precisely 2 cups.
Add the eggs and vanilla and combine.
Add the sour cream, baking soda, and salt and combine.
Lastly, add the flour and mix in with a spoon until just combined. Incorporating the flour with a spoon helps to prevent overmixing, which helps prevent a dense loaf.
Pour the batter in the prepared baking dish. Top with the streusel crumb topping.
For a ceramic 9x5 loaf pan bake at 350℉ for 1 hour 5 minutes up to 1 hour and 10 minutes.For a metal 9x5 loaf pan bake at 350℉ for 50 minutes up to 1 hour and 5 minutes.If the streusel topping starts to burn, tent the pan with aluminum foil midway through baking.
Notes
Choosing Bananas: If you like a very strong banana flavor choose overripe bananas that are more brown than yellow. If you like a nice, but not too strong flavor go with bananas that are between ripe and overripe. These are bananas that have plenty of brown spots, but are more yellow than brown. See notes above and the link to my Guide on Baking Banana Bread.Mashing Bananas: Use a hand held mixer to mash the bananas in a 4 cup measuring cup. Check to make sure that the mashed bananas are at the 2 cup line. It's an easy way to mash the bananas and will give you a precise measurement for 2 cups.Loaf Pan Material: A ceramic loaf pan will take 5-15 minutes longer to bake than an aluminum loaf pan. Adjust the timing accordingly. Baking times also vary by oven type. If you want to be precise you can use an oven thermometer to monitor the temperature inside the oven.Dish Size and Shape: This recipe can be made in a variety of oven safe dishes. You will just need to adjust the timing. If the dish is shallower and wider it will require less baking time. See baking times for reference below: