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Kim and Lauren are the mother-daughter team behind Something New For Dinner. Kim develops the recipes, shoots the photography and writes the posts and weekly emails to our subscribers. Lauren is the Internet marketing guru who developed and maintains our website, leads our marketing efforts, manages our social media and keeps us on track in general.
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Tutu’s Hawaiian banana bread
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EasyBanana bread muffin tops from an old Halekulani hotel recipe
My daughter Margo was digging through my old recipes which go way back to when I was a kid growing up in Honolulu. Margo ran across my mother's banana bread recipe, which I believe was originally from the Halekulani hotel. If you have not been to the Halekulani, please add it to your bucket list, if even only for a drink. I personally recommend their Mai Tai. The Halekulani is a beautiful historic hotel on Waikiki beach built a few years before the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Both hotels offer a glimpse of gracious old Hawaii.Click to download our free e-cookbook: 15 Recipes To Make You Look Like A Star
From recipe cards to digital files
My daughter Margo found my yellowed, typed 5"x 7" recipe card hilarious. (See photo below) In her digital world, she had never seen a typed recipe card before. It is amazing how much things have changed in just one generation. I remember spending hours typing my recipe cards on what I thought I was a really groovy high-tech IBM Selectric typewriter. The Selectric was a huge upgrade from regular typewriters because you could correct your mistakes instead of having to start all over and type your page from the beginning. No one dreamed of "delete buttons" or "spell check." Clearly I needed spell check.From banana bread loaf to muffin tops
Margo updated my mother's recipe and made muffin tops instead of a banana bread loaf. I agree this is a great upgrade as muffin top pans give you more surface area to brown and caramelize. Thank you Margo! PrintTutu’s Hawaiian banana bread
An old-school banana bread recipe handed down from my mother and believed to have originated from the gracious Halekulani hotel on Waikiki beach.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 60 minutes
- Yield: 2 loaves or 25 muffin tops 1x
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
- 6 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
- 4 well beaten eggs
- 2.5 cups sifted cake flour
- 1 t salt
- 2 t baking soda
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or macadamia nuts
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar and butter
- Add mashed bananas
- Blend wet and dry ingredients together. Do not over mix. Add nuts.
- Divide into two loaf pans or muffin top pans. For loaves bake 45 to 50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. For muffin tops bake for about 15 minutes until tops are golden brown.
thank you so much for recipe
My pleasure Gail!
Thank you for sharing recipe. I made it and my family loves it.
So glad your family enjoyed it!
Excellent! I made a 1/2 recipe and used regular flour as I didn’t have the cake flour on hand. Worked fine and is VERY ono.
So glad you enjoyed it!
I have been making this same banana bread for the past 20 years. I got it from a Jr. League cookbook called Private Collection I. They call it the Kona Inn Banana Bread (which is on the Big Island.) The one time I didn’t take the time to sift the cake flour (my recipe calls for sifting the dry ingredient 3 times!) my father asked me if I had made a different recipe this time! I’ve always sifted ever since. It is the best banana bread ever and so happy it’s apparently being served on multiple Hawaiian Islands! I make this as family Christmas gifts every year and everyone counts on it!
That is really interesting Wendy. Are the ingredients exactly the same? That is amazing. My family has been making this bread for 40 years. I’m intrigued as to where this recipe originated. Clearly somewhere in the islands.
I, too, have this recipe. It is in the 1963 ‘Mrs. Hawaii Cookbook’ I found in my mother’s collection, and is entitled “Famous Kona Inn Banana Bread.” The author also states that this recipe is from Chef Max Mori of Kona Inn fame and “dictated by Chef Mori himself.”
Hi Karen, that is very interesting. Is it exactly the same recipe? Thank you for adding to the information on the origination of this recipe. In the old days when recipes were often passed down on handwritten index cards the origination of the recipe was often lost. I will investigate this further. Mahalo!
Hi Kim, I am at my Mother in Law’s and have some over ripe bananas. I was browsing the Internet hoping to find a Hawaiian recipe similar to one I have in a cookbook published by the Honolulu newspaper. This is very similar except it calls for apple bananas. I’m making your recipe this morning.
Hi Nancy, I hope you enjoyed the recipe. It was something we made all of the time when I was a kid. Apple bananas are short, tart apples that are grown by many people in the islands in their yards. Occasionally you will find them at the market in Hawaii. I love them for eating but have never cooked with them. Using them in banana bread is an intriguing idea. Thanks for the tip.
I have a Hawaiian banana bread recipe that my family has used since I was about 8. I don’t know where my mother got it, but it is the best most moist banana bread and the only one I like. Comparing the recipes, the only difference is the quantities and ours uses regular floor and with an emphasis on very ripe for the bananas! My sister will make it with bananas that are so ripe that they almost drip out of the peel and it comes out delicious. This is the best! Glad you have it too!
Thank you Marianne. I would love to see your family’s recipe if you are willing to share.
As a kamaaina who married into the Air Force, I am enjoying your site and recipes so much! I have been looking for my ‘local” banana bread recipe on a 3×5 card, type written, exactly like yours! Thank you so much for sharing! I like the muffin top idea, too! I am sure it is “onolicious”!
So glad you are enjoying our recipes and hope the banana bread recipe is as good as yours. Isn’t it funny how recipe organization has changed in our lifetime? I used to write my recipes all out by hand on cards. Then one year I got inspired and typed them all out. I guess I still type them out, but now online instead of on cards. So maybe we have come full circle!
Hi Kim, I just made this recipe the other day and it was fabulous! In lockdown and had some bananas that were ready to be used, so thought I would give your recipe a try. This will be my only banana bread recipe from now on. It was so good!
Hi Kim, I made this recipe the other day it was fantastic! This is the only banana bread recipe I will use in the future! It was that good!
I’m not a baker, but this was so easy and good. I made mini-loaves, planning to hand out to family. Unfortunately not everyone got a loaf, since I managed to eat an entire loaf in under 24 hours!
Hi Kim, I am glad you got to enjoy the banana bread, even if you got more enjoyment than you had planned!
Hello! We visited Hawaii and went to a banana bread stand on a curvy road. Apple Bananas we’re used, and you can’t take the bananas home. Wish I could have gotten some!
HI Deborah, There is nothing like a great day on Hawaii’s many curvy roads. Any chance you were on Maui? Banana bread is delicious with regular bananas too. I do occasionally see apple bananas at the market here in California. Trust me your banana bread will be delicious with regular or apple bananas. Just don’t use plantains. They will not give you the sweet banana flavor you are looking for.
How many cups of banana is used? Apple Bananas are much smaller (and more flavorful) than the huge “regular” bananas – so what would be the appropriate number (or cups) to use? Mahalo
Hi Kay, I absolutely agree with you, Apple Bananas are awesome. This is an old recipe that comes from my “small kid days” and I do not have weight measurements. We just counted the bananas we had so there was definitely some variation in how big the bananas were, but the recipe always came out. If you want to use Apple Bananas, my guess would be three Apple Bananas would approximate one standard banana, but it will depend on how big the Apple bananas are. Some Apple Bananas are pretty small, so you may need four if that is the case. It is a forgiving recipe, so the banana measurements do not have to be exact. Good luck to you. Please tell me what you finally do and how the recipe comes out with Apple Bananas. Luck you that you have access to them!
Can I substitute the sugar with coconut sugar?
Hi Anna — I don’t know the answer to this question. If you try it out please write back and let us know! I have read that it is a 1:1 substitutions but that you may want to whirl it in a blender or food processor to decrease the size of the granules. good luck!
My college roommate was from Hilo, and her grandma sent the most wonderful banana cake! It has been more than 40 years, and we lost track of one another. I think of her, and her grandma’s cake, I’m hoping this might be the one.
Hi Mikki, I hope this meets your expectations and memory of your friend’s grandma’s banana bread recipe. Let me know please!
Definitely. the original Kona Inn Banana Bread was Chef Mori’s recipe. And as noted above the original recipe was printed in the Mrs. Hawaii Cookbook by Laurie Bachman. Otherwise, it would be the Halekulani Banana Bread! Halekulani’s big winner was their huge breakfast popovers!
Thank you for the history of this banana bread recipe Anuhea. Sadly, I do not recall Halekulani breakfast popovers. I now feel like I really missed out! Nothing like food FOMO!
This is such an amazing recipe for banana bread! I found it after we visited the big island and stopping for banana bread on the side of the road. Came home and googled ‘Hawaiian banana bread recipes’ and this one popped up. we have been using it for the last 6-7 years….big island or Oahu origin? Doesn’t matter because it’s a great recipe and when it’s in a cookbook AND typed out on an index card? you know it’s GOOD! Ha! Mahalo!
Hi Victoria, So nice of you to write in. This was a recipe I got from my mother and we lived on Oahu. It is moist and delicious. I am so glad you enjoyed it.