My husband loves to snack on bananas, so we usually have them on the kitchen counter. Most of the time he eats them before they get too ripe, but not always. Recently, he had a few leftovers and suggested I make them into banana bread. I loved the idea and made a loaf of Cream Cheese Banana Bread. It’s my go-to recipe, but that got me wondering what else I could do with banana bread. I found several recipes on Pinterest, but this Brown-Butter Banana Bread really stood out to me. Brown butter is amazing in sweet and savory foods, but what about in banana bread? I need to know!
An upgraded version of one of my favorite treats. The brown butter adds a rich nuttiness and dark brown sugar is used to add a deep molasses flavor to the bread.
The Ingredients
Banana bread uses a lot of ingredients I typically have around which is super convenient. Sure enough, I had baking powder, kosher salt, all-purpose flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and dark brown sugar in my pantry. I even had 3 eggs in the refrigerator.
All I had to buy was bananas and butter. I normally go for the store-brand butter, but I splurged since butter is a key part of this recipe. I bought a 2-pack of Kerrygold. It was about the same price as a 4-pack of generic butter, but the flavor really is so much better.
The Process
I’m no banana bread expert. In fact, I have only ever made cream cheese-filled banana bread a couple of times, but this Brown-Butter Banana Bread recipe didn’t sound a whole lot different. At least the banana bread part.
Browning the Butter
As I mentioned earlier, butter is a central ingredient in this recipe, and browning it is the first step. I used a 10-inch skillet and popped in a stick of butter to brown. I have done this many times, and I got sloppy.
A lot of nothing was happening, and I stepped away from the stove. When I turned around my butter had gone from gold to brown and all the way to black. There were blackened chunks floating in my pan. I’m not gonna lie, it hurt a bit.
I had to dump a whole stick of expensive butter/charcoal down the drain and start again. But I did make sure to watch the pan the whole time. Browning is slow to start, but it happens very fast once it becomes noticeable.
Making the Batter
With the butter safely browned and off the heat, I turned my attention to the banana bread batter. This part was much less risky. All I had to do was mash 3 of the bananas, add eggs, then mix.
Next, I mixed up the flour and other dry ingredients making sure to break up the lumps of brown sugar. I’m glad the recipe said to use my hands because it went fast that way. Once done I combined it with the banana mixture to make the batter.
Once the wet and dry ingredients were combined I added the slightly cooled brown butter to the batter, mixed it up, and poured it into a prepared 8″ x 14″ loaf pan.
A banana sliced lengthwise went on top. Mine was very ripe and soft, so I had to handle it very carefully to keep the pieces from breaking. A generous sprinkle of dark brown sugar was the final step before the pan went into the oven to bake.
I let my Brown-Butter Banana Bread bake for 70 minutes before giving it the toothpick test for doneness. It wasn’t quite done, so I let it bake for another 10 minutes. It passed the second toothpick test, so I let the bread cool before slicing and devouring.
Timing
This recipe lists a prep time of 15 minutes and a cook time of 1 hour 10 minutes (70 minutes), for a total time of 1 hour 25 minutes. However the instructions say to cook/bake for 70 to 80 minutes, and my banana bread took all 80 minutes. Here’s how my time broke down:
- 16 minutes to prep
- 80 minutes to bake
- 1 hour 36 minutes total
I came close to the total time listed even with that extra 10 minutes of baking.
