12 Weeks Of Christmas | Week 11: Spiced Banana Bread

Banana bread is a favourite with me. Since I don’t have access to raspberries and blueberries and nice berries in general, banana bread is my standard fruit cake. The Joy Of Baking recipe was my go-to for a long time, until I was initiated into the world of brown butter via Melissa Clark’s blondie recipe.

This one comes from Joy The Baker, and it’s called brown butter banana bread. I like it because it doesn’t require creaming butter, just folding the wet and dry ingredients together. And the brown butter adds a lovely colour and a nutty taste.

I wanted to Christmas it up a little, so I added every possible spice I could- cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger and a hint of cloves. I decided to pack it all in, with a healthy dose of walnuts. And I drizzled some caramel sauce over it too, because aren’t bananas and caramel a gorgeous match?

SPICED BANANA BREAD (Adapted from Joy The Baker.)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup castor sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup buttermilk ( I used some yogurt thinned with water)
• 1 1/4 cup mashed banana (about 3 medium bananas)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to to 175 C.
• Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
• Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. The butter will start foaming and bubbling.
• When the foaming and crackling subsides, the butter will begin to go brown.
• When the butter browns and start to give off a nutty aroma, pull the pan off the heat and set aside to cool.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder and clove powder and walnuts.
• In a separate medium bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Add the mashed bananas and whisk. Then whisk in the cooled brown butter.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and add the wet ingredients all at once.
• Fold everything together till evenly combined and no streaks of flour remain in the batter.
• Pour batter into greased loaf tin.
• Bake at 175 C for 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Cool on a wire rack and unmould.