Brown Butter Banana Bread
The bananas need to look past their best before this bread will taste like anything — the blacker the peel, the better the loaf.
Browning the butter first is the one extra step that turns ordinary banana bread into the kind people ask you for the recipe over. It takes five minutes and smells like a bakery.
One bowl, no mixer, and it is just as good the next morning toasted with butter.
Ingredients
Instructions
1. Melt the butter in a light-colored saucepan over medium heat, swirling often, until it turns amber and smells nutty, 4-5 minutes. Pour into a large bowl to cool slightly.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
3. Whisk the mashed bananas, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla into the browned butter.
4. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Fold just until no dry streaks remain — do not overmix.
5. Pour into the pan and bake 50-55 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.
6. Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely before slicing.
Notes from our kitchen
Watch the butter closely once it starts foaming — it goes from browned to burnt in under a minute. Pull it the moment you smell nuts and see brown flecks on the bottom of the pan.
Nutrition per serving
Storage, reheating & swaps
Questions readers ask
Bake unpeeled bananas on a sheet pan at 300°F for 15-20 minutes until the skins are black and soft, then cool before mashing.
Yes. Divide into a lined 12-cup muffin tin and bake at 350°F for 18-20 minutes.
Whole or sliced, wrapped well, up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
★★★★☆Great recipe, mine needed an extra 5 minutes in my oven to set in the middle.