One Egg Rule Separates Perfect Banana Bread From A Crumbly Mess

Supposedly banana bread is easy to make, so how can it ever go wrong? In all the usual ways, actually. Maybe you forgot an ingredient, mistakenly doubled another, or just took a shortcut around best baking practices. And an often unwritten egg temperature rule can make or break your banana bread's appeal.

Eggs should be at room temperature for optimal banana bread. Those sticky whites and yolks mix into your batter better, aerate better, and lead to a lighter, more buoyant finished product. Colder proteins are more likely to cling together, causing the dreaded crumbles. Those who mise en place with a sheet pan – or even just a mental border — are already ahead of the game, as this should give the eggs a little extra time to warm up as you gather your butter, sugar, and other ingredients before you begin. But they really need a good 30 minutes to reach room temperature.

You may have some fleeting notion that some households keep their eggs out of the refrigerator to begin with. Outside the United States, this is more common. But here, the Department of Agriculture's sanitization guidelines also strips the exterior of a natural barrier, making eggs ironically more susceptible to salmonella if they're left outside the fridge for too long. That said, those same regulators advise that you can leave eggs out at room temperature for up to two hours.

There's also a safe way to bring eggs to room temperature a little quicker. You can cover eggs in a bowl with hot water for about 10 minutes to get them banana bread ready. You can also obviously replicate this process for any preparation that calls for room temperature eggs. But don't fly too close to the sun: any hotter and you might end up serving them cooked instead.