I’ve made a lot of banana bread in my life but this one might be my new favorite.
It’s extra moist. It’s got tons of pecans in it. Plus… it has browned butter! Funny thing about the browned butter… I kind of did it by accident. I left my butter unattended on the stove while I was measuring ingridents and the butter had started to brown a little… so I figured I’d just do it all the way.
I needed the butter to cool, so I stuck the metal pot it was in (a mini metal butter warmer pot, no joke) into the freezer and the bottom started to solidify. So I got these semi-soft browned butter chunks into my banana bread… oh man. It made it taste SO GOOD.
Don’t the brown bits sort of look like chocolate? Maybe I should put chocolate in here next time…
This one has browned butter (yum) and buttermilk to make it extra moist. I baked it low since the last time I did banana bread I burned it and dried it out and I did not want that to happen again. The browned butter also kind of made it… extra nutty? Extra nutty is a big old PLUS in my book. Moisture is the name of the game here (moisture and nuttiness, anyway) and this one is so good – I hope you try it!
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 mashed ripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 6 tablespoons browned butter
- 1 1/3 cup pecans
- Prep your loaf pan with cooking spray (or butter) and a dusting of flour (like you would a cake pan). Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together the first four (dry) ingredients. Toss/mix to make them happy and homogenous.
- Make your browned butter - set on a stove in a pot on medium-low heat. Watch carefully - the butter can burn easily! It'll start to foam up right before it starts to brown. You'll want to turn the heat down a touch so it doesn't spill over. When it starts smelly nutty, remove from the heat to cool it down.
- Mash bananas in a separate bowl - leaving them a little chunky. Add eggs and beat them in. Add buttermilk, browned butter, vanilla and mix to combine.
- Add wet stuff to the dry stuff and mix it all together so it's in happy harmony. Add in your pecans (or other nuts). I didn't chop my nuts, I wanted to get a bigger crunch with each bite. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake for about one hour at 325 degrees. Use a toothpick (or a butter knife, if you're like me) to test the bread to ensure doneness (it should come out clean with no batter sticking to it).
- Remove from pan and let cool. Or, again, be like me and slice off a piece ASAP. Pfft, who wants cold banana bread anyway?
Oh how I love recipes with no yeast! Your recipe looks delicious. I’ve never made brown butter before b/c I’m always nervous about burning it. I’m going to add chocolate chips if I attempt your recipe though. Can’t wait!
Hi Faye – Yeah, the quick loaves get their rise from baking powder/baking soda so no yeast required, but they are much denser and cake-like. But delicious! As long as you don’t walk away from the stove and watch the butter, you should good. Once it starts to get color you’ll want to watch closely and remove once it smells nutty. It’s easy, I swear! I think I’ll do chocolate chips next time, too.
LOL at the accidental butter browning 😛
Hehe, happy accident! 🙂
This, I have to try!!!!! Browned butter for the win!!!! Your banana bread looks so good!
Hi CC – Yes – definitely try it! It was nice and moist and was really tasty. One of my favorites!