Brown Butter Banana Bread
A jazzed-up Brown Butter Banana Bread that gets a ton of flavor from the combination of brown butter, muscovado (you can also use regular brown sugar), espresso/coffee and chocolate. This is banana bread but on steroids. The bread is a cinch to throw together but allow time for the low and slow bake that really brings out a ton of banana flavor.
Print
Save
Servings: 2 Loaves
Ingredients
- 78 grams unsalted brown butter (about 7 tablespoons (99 g) unsalted butter before browning)
- 3 ripe bananas (peeled and mashed + 2 bananas cut lengthwise for the top of the bread)
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (110 g) muscovado or brown sugar (packed)
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- ½ teaspoon all spice
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 large eggs (room temperature)
- ¾ cup (180 g) buttermilk (room temperature, shaken)
- 2 tablespoons (26 g) espresso or fresh-brewed strong coffee
- 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon (212 g) all-purpose flour (how to measure flour)
- ¾ cup (102 g) white whole-wheat flour (or more all-purpose flour)
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 275°F (135℃) and place a rack in the top third of your oven. Butter and flour your 8 X 4-inch (20 x 10-cm; 4 cup capacity) loaf pans. If you’re feeling it, add some parchment paper to the pans (see photo) to make it easier to pull the loaves out of the pans when done.
- Place 7 tablespoons (99 g) butter in a small sauce pan and melt over medium heat. Once melted, crank up the heat to medium high. Stand by, continuously stirring and watching. Small golden bits will start to settle on the bottom of the pan. Once this happens, take it off the heat and pour into a medium, heat-safe bowl to cool until closer to room temperature, but still liquid.(For more details on browning butter, check out my How to Perfectly Brown Butter tutorial)
- To the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the 3 peeled + mashed bananas, granulated sugar, muscovado/brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, all spice and nutmeg and mix on medium high for about 1 minutes or until everthing is well blended and the banana is broken up into small bits. Add the cooled brown butter, eggs, buttermilk, espresso and vanilla and mix on low for 1 minute more or until combined.
- Add the flour to the banana mixture and mix until just barely blended. Take the bowl out of the mixer, add the chocolate chips and fold until mixed in as few strokes as possible.
- Pour the batter into your prepared bread pans and place your banana slices cut side down. Take care not to fill them more than 1/2 to 3/4s full. Bake on the top rack of the oven for 90 minutes to 2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean. Some bits of chocolate on the toothpick are fine.
- Let the bread cool completely before removing from the pan. If you added the parchment to the pan, you may be able to get them out sooner…because a warm slice (fresh from the oven) is sublime.
Notes
Mixer
Instructions use a mixer, but feel free to use a spatula and your arms to mix this delicious banana bread!Loaf Tins
More important than the size of your bread tin, is how high you fill it with batter. Fill your tins somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 full (and not a hair more). This beauty is going to rise and you don’t want to have it spilling over…like it did during one of my tests. All over my oven. Disaster. You can make two bread loaves like I did here or during another test, I used half of the batter for muffins (and reduced the bake time for those). Because sometimes it’s fun to mix it up. …Sometimes. In terms of bread tin size, I used my NordicWare which is about 8 X 4-inch (20 x 10-cm; 4 cup capacity). Thanks for baking with me! Please rate + comment this recipe and tag me on social @displacedhousewife #displacedhousewife so I can see your beautiful treats! xo