How to Bake Huge Batches of Banana Bread
At Home Ever After, we’re always looking for ways to be more efficient with time as well as money. Today we’re going to examine yet another way that batching can be used at home: how to bake huge batches of banana bread. This batching method for baking in bulk doesn’t just have to be limited to banana bread. In fact, it would be a great way to use up zucchini from the garden in the fall by baking huge batches of zucchini or other homemade breads for freezing.
We can apply the principle of batching to all areas of life, including running a home. Today we’re talking about how to do batch baking with banana bread to save time and have homemade healthy food on hand for when you are busy and don’t have time to bake.
Learn how to set up your baking batch process, including how to delegate parts of the baking process to family members during a baking day, as well as what to do with 14 loaves of banana bread and how to conveniently store them in the freezer with no time-consuming wrapping. Batch baking is a great way to stock up your freezer and save time and money!
Watch my video below, How to Make Huge Batches of Banana Bread | Freezer Cooking Using the 4 Hour Work Week Principles, to get started.
Why Batching?
If you haven’t read Tim Ferriss’ New York Times bestseller The 4 Hour Workweek, you may not have heard of batching before. One of the cornerstone principles of efficiency is batching. Batching is when you do a lot of same task at the same time.
For example, saving all your dirty dishes until the same time and then loading them in the dishwasher is considered batching. If you washed each dish by itself immediately after you used it, that would not be batching (and would be less efficient).
Batch baking in bulk saves so much time because:
- you only have to set up your baking area once
- you only have to dirty the dishes once
- you only have to shop for the ingredients once
- you only have to pre-heat the oven once
- you only have clean up the area once when you’re finished
If you baked a loaf of bread every time you wanted to eat one, you’d complete all of those steps every time. When baking in bulk, you complete all of those steps one time only, no matter how many items you’re baking. For 4 loaves of bread or 24 loaves of bread, you do all the steps only once! That is why the time savings is so significant with batching for bulk baking. 
How to Bake Banana Bread in Bulk
Ahead of Time
When doing any kind of bulk cooking or freezer cooking, the most important thing is to make sure you have adequate space to store the food! For freezer cooking, make sure you have enough space in your freezer first and enough storage wrap or containers (in this project, we’ll be wrapping our banana bread loaves in gallon size Ziploc bags.
Preparation
Find your recipe. Make sure you like the banana bread recipe you’re using and have used it before. Having a dozen loaves of bread that you don’t like is much worse than having just one!
Modify your recipe. Write out all of your measurements ahead of time and calculate the new measurements based on how many loaves you are cooking.
Shop for ingredients. Take your modified list to the grocery store and buy sufficient quantities for the entire batch. You might have to buy 10 pounds of flour, but you won’t be storing it since it will be used immediately.
Multiple bread pans are essential to bulk baking. If you want to bake 2 to 4 loaves in the oven at a time, you’ll want to have multiple bread pans.
**Tip ** You don’t have to use overripe bananas to make banana bread. Any bananas will work just as well. If using regular bananas, put them in the freezer and make sure they freeze solid (overnight is usually long enough). The next day, take them out of the freezer and set them in large mixing bowls on the counter. Let them thaw out until mushy. Using kitchen scissors, cut the tip of each banana peel and squeeze the liquefied banana into a clean bowl!
Baking
- Preheat the oven as indicated on your recipe.
- Set up all ingredients on the counter or table.
- Make a check mark next to each ingredient on your recipe as you add it to the mixing bowl for the current batch.
- Mix well, pour all of your loaves in the bread pans to the same height so they will finish cooking at the same time.
- Put the bread pans in the oven, set your kitchen timer, and immediately start mixing up the batter for the next batch.
- When the timer goes off, remove the loaves from the oven.
- Tip out loaves onto cooling racks and pour the next batters in the bread pans.
- Repeat these steps until all batches are baked!
Using a permanent marker, write the date on each Ziploc bag so you’ll know what day they were baked. Once the loaves are cooled, you can put each loaf of banana bread into a gallon size zipper storage bag. Press out the excess air and seal it up tightly. Then you can neatly stack the bread loaves in the freezer.
To defrost frozen banana bread, simply remove the bag from the freezer before bed and let the loaf sit out at room temperature overnight. When you wake up, you’ll have a wonderful homemade banana bread to slice, heat up in the microwave and serve with butter and coffee!
Why Bulk Baking is Frugal
Bulk baking for the freezer will save you money because you won’t have to spend money on prepared food from the grocery store. Buying bread, muffins, and other baked goods from the store can be expensive, plus you can never be sure of the ingredients or preservatives they use.
You’ll also be less likely to head out to a restaurant if you don’t have time to cook if you have ready-made healthy meals in the freezer.
Lastly, buying the ingredients for your baking in bulk will definitely save you money! Often, the larger the quantity, the lower the unit price.
What will you batch? Have you done freezer cooking before? If you’ve never done a baking day to bake in bulk before, plan one with your family for this weekend and see how nice it can be to have freezer full of homemade food you prepared ahead of time! Make sure you share your batching photos with us on our facebook page.
If you liked this article, please remember to pin the pictures to your food or kitchen boards on pinterest!