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Whenever I purchase bananas, I always seem to have one left over that never gets eaten in time and turns brown. The upside to this is that I can make two small loaf tins of banana bread from just one banana. As well as a banana, I like to add some chopped dark chocolate, but nuts or raisins can be used instead. The beauty of the banana bread recipe I follow is that you don't need a fancy mixer. A mixing bowl, a whisk for whisking the eggs, and a spatula for folding the batter are all you need.

As with all cake recipes, my go-to method for baking banana bread is to bake it in the oven. However, I've recently found many people online and on social media raving about using an air fryer instead. To test out which is better, I put half of the banana bread mixture in a tin in the air fryer and the other in the oven.

I love cooking savoury dishes in the air fryer, but I never seem to use it for baking things like cookies or cakes.

After whipping up a batch of banana bread batter, I put half of the mixture into a mini greased and lined loaf tin, then preheated my air fryer to 150C.

Once preheated, I placed the loaf tin in the air fryer and left it cooking for just over 20 minutes. If you're using mini loaf tins, I'd recommend checking on the banana bread after 15 minutes, as these are smaller and the air fryer cooks them faster than an oven. I then took the loaf tin out of the air fryer and allowed it to cool inside the tin for 10 minutes before transferring the banana bread onto a wire rack to cool completely.

The air fryer performed surprisingly well, though it left the top somewhat hardened, almost like a crust had formed. I also observed that the chocolate had become slightly burnt.

While the inside of the banana bread remained soft, it lacked that moist texture one expects from banana bread.

For this approach, I preheated my oven to 160C Fan before placing the second banana bread loaf tin in.

I baked the banana bread for just over 25 minutes, checking it after 20.

When the 25 minutes elapsed, the banana bread was done. The moment I removed it from the oven, the cake appeared moist, and the chocolate pieces had melted beautifully.

In contrast to the air fryer version, the top remained soft, and the interior was incredibly moist, practically melting in my mouth upon tasting. The superior melting of the chocolate significantly enhanced the banana bread's flavour.

While the oven is undoubtedly the superior method for baking banana bread, if time is of the essence, the air fryer produces a respectable result in considerably less time.