Why Is My Banana Bread Raw in the Middle? (+How to Fix)

In recent years the popularity of banana bread has skyrocketed, with more people than ever trying to create the tastiest and fluffiest banana bread possible. However, many new home bakers end up disappointed when their bread comes out raw in the middle. So why is that happening, and is there anything you can do to fix it?

Banana bread can be raw in the middle due to being cut too early, over mixing the batter, having too many liquids, using the wrong flour type, not using enough leavening agent, using bananas that are not ripe enough, or due to the baking temperature and time.

There are surprisingly more things that can make a banana bread come out raw in the middle, aside from time spent in the oven or the temperature. So let’s take a look at each one of them and see what went wrong, how to prevent that from happening, and at the end we will see what we can do to fix your banana bread.

Cutting the Bread Too Early

Bread smells completely amazing when you take it out of the oven, and it’s impossible not to want to cut a slice and take a bite. But as hard as that is, you have to resist the urge.

When you take the bread out of the oven, there is a lot of heat left on the inside. And that heat is still cooking the inside of the bread. In order for bread to be fully cooked you have to wait for it to cool off at room temperature.

If you try to cool it off faster by cutting it or by placing it somewhere cool, you will basically stop the last step of the cooking process.

Over Mixing the Batter

This is one of the most common reasons why banana bread ends up raw in the middle.

If you overmix the batter you will make the gluten network too strong. If the gluten network is too strong, then the bread won’t be able to rise properly, so it will be dense. And if the bread is dense it will cook unevenly. The outside will be fully cooked and the inside will be raw.

Here is a picture showing the texture of two banana breads. The one on the left has a good gluten network, as you can see the air pockets in the bread. The one on the right doesn’t have any air in it.

The less air is in the bread, the harder it is for the heat to get and travel through the bread, so the longer it will take the bread to cook in the middle. And by the time the middle is cooked, the outside will be burnt.

You can usually get a better picture of how this works when you are working with dough, since it’s solid, unlike batter. If you keep kneading the dough after it’s ready it will start to get a rubber like texture, and if you keep on going even after that your kitchen mixer will get completely stuck and you won’t be able to stretch it even with your hands.

The same thing happens with batter, but not to the same extent, since it has way less flour than dough.

The Leavening Agent

Whether you are using baking soda or baking powder it’s very important that once you add it to the mix you immediately put the bread in the oven.

In most cases what differentiates a fully cooked banana bread and a raw banana bread is the amount of air pockets inside of it.  And the way this air makes its way into the bread is through the leavening agent (baking soda or powder, in this case).

So if you mix the leavening agent, and then wait 30 minutes until you put the bread in the oven, all the gas that formed in the batter will escape.

And make sure to test your leavening agent before using it, if the agent is not good the bread will come out dense.

For baking powder you can fill a glass with hot water and add a pinch of baking powder to it. If it bubbles immediately, it’s good. If not you need to get some new baking powder.

Baking soda will react to vinegar and lemon, so mix a little of both. If they don’t fizz as soon as they come into contact, then the baking soda has gone bad. This can happen due to humidity or or due to being unlucky and getting a bad batch. But in either case you need to get some new baking soda.

Using the Wrong Flour Type

Flour is separated into different categories using a rating system. One problem with the rating system is that it’s not uniform worldwide, a lot of countries have their own, including the US, and Italy, as well as France and Germany, and a few more. Here is the rating system, with the different names each country has for the flour types, and what that actually means.

In the US you will most likely see the US grading system, but it’s not uncommon to see some manufacturers use a different label just because 00 flour can sound fancier than pastry flour.

But regardless of what system you are using to rate the flour, you have to know that there are differences between a flour rated 00 and another rated 0. The biggest one is how fine the flour is 00 being the finest one of them all.

How fine the flour is ground will have a huge effect on how much water it can absorb and what texture the banana bread will have. And if the texture is too dense, the bread will have a hard time cooking properly.

If a recipe calls for 100 grams of all purpose flour and you are using pastry flour, it’s like you will only be using around 80 grams of all purpose flour, and this difference will completely change the recipe.

Another big important difference is the protein content. The table that I showed you contains the average, but some flour will have more or less proteins, this is because different manufacturers have different grain sources, grown in different conditions. The amount of protein in a flour can greatly influence how much water the flour can absorb.

Different flour types can absorb different quantities of water. This is why I would suggest you stick to all purpose flour, also known as 0 flour, this is the type that is usually used for banana bread. Unless the recipe specifically calls for a different type of flour.

Too Many Liquids

One of the main things that make it possible for the banana bread to have air pockets in it is the gluten network. And without it the bread will be dense and it will be impossible for it to cook properly.

The gluten network forms when you mix flour with liquids. If the gluten flour is too weak, the end result will be a bread that collapses onto itself, otherwise known as dense.

As a general rule you want to have 70% liquid and 30% solid ingredients in the batter.

In the case of banana bread, it can be quite hard to get an exact percentage since we are using bananas which have both liquid and solid parts. But if you are using the bananas that are ripe enough you can consider them 50% solid 50% liquid.

If your batter has too much liquid in it you might want to either add some flour or use less flour (or milk).

Bananas Not Ripe Enough

One very common mistake is using bananas that are not ripe enough.

The best bananas for banana bread are the ones that are just starting to get brown. At this point they are soft enough to give the bread its consistency.

Green bananas, or bananas that just turned yellow are way too hard to be used in bread. If you use them like this your bread will turn out dense.

Bananas that are dark brown are too watery, and while this can be solved by adding less water to the mix, the taste won’t be as good.

But what should you do if you just bought some green bananas and you want to make banana bread now. Do you have to wait a few days until the bananas are ripe enough, or is there something else that you can do?

There is one way to use green bananas to make fluffy bread, and that is to put your bananas in the oven for a few minutes on very low heat. The heat in the oven will make the bananas softer. 5 minutes in the oven is like keeping the bananas for 2 days on the kitchen counter.

The only downside of this method is that the change won’t change at all. So the green bananas won’t taste as sweet as ripe bananas. But this is a matter of taste and you might like it more this way.

Wrong Baking Time and Temperature

In the case of baking time and temperature there are quite a few things that can go wrong.

But first. One of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is overlooking the fact that the oven needs to be preheated. This is important for a lot of reasons. One of them being that if the oven is not hot enough, the leavening agent won’t be able to do its job properly, and the result will be a dense banana bread.

Another problem is that most ovens, after a while, will lose their precision, so while you might have set your oven to 350°F (175°C), but the oven there might actually be just 300°F (150°C). This is why I would recommend you to always use an oven thermometer.

The best way to avoid undercooking, or overcooking your banana bread is to use a toothpick and poke the bread. If the toothpick comes out with residue on it, it means that the bread still needs to spend a few more minutes in the oven. If it comes out clean, it means that the bread is ready. No matter what the timer might say.

How to Fix a Dense Banana Bread

Dense banana bread can be fixed, but you can’t really make it less dense at this point. This can only be done if you haven’t already put it in the oven. However there are still a few things that you can do with your dense banana bread.

How to Recook the Banana Bread

A raw banana bread can be recooked, but simply putting it back in the oven won’t do. If you were to do this, the outside will turn to charcoal before the inside will be cooked. What you should do instead is to cut the bread into slices first.

This way the heat won’t have such a hard time to get all the way through the bread. Granted, the slices won’t be as soft, they will somewhat resemble toasted bread to some extent.

And speaking about toast, you can try to put the slices in the toaster, but unless the slices are extremely thin, the toaster won’t be able to cook fully. So the best way to cook them is still in the oven.

Banana Bread French Toast

French toast is a dish of sliced bread (banana bread in this case) soaked in beaten eggs and milk or cream, then fried in a pan.

For this recipe it doesn’t really matter if your bread is partially raw or fully cooked, since you will be cooking it again anyway. 

So simply mix an egg with some milk or cream, add something to enhance the taste, like sugar and cinnamon, soak the bread slices in the mix one by one, then fry them in a pan with butter.

Banana Bread Croutons

Croutons are simply small pieces of bread that have been baked in the oven until they become crunchy. You can use them in salads, soup, or eat them as they are. My favorite way of making croutons is putting a very small piece of cheese on top of each one and letting it melt in the oven. I would definitely recommend you to try this.

And the best thing about croutons is that it doesn’t matter if your bread is raw, dense or stale, you can use it either way.

Final Thoughts

Those are all the possible reasons why your banana bread turned out raw in the middle. And as you can see there is something that could have gone wrong at each step in the making process. But even so, all of those things are easy to avoid, and even correct if you can figure out in time what’s the problem.

And if your banana bread turns out raw there is no need to throw it away, there are a lot of things that you can do with it.

But now you should never have any problem with raw banana bread ever again.