brown butter banana banana bread

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Brown Butter Banana Banana Bread.

I highly recommend getting a 13 X 4 X 4 Pullman pan. Not only is it great for making traditional loaves of yeast breads, but also for quick breads. I’ve now made this banana bread a few times using this pan, and I’m always pleased with the results.

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Today, I decided to bake it wrapped with a wet towel around the pan fastened with a safety pin. This is to ensure evenness with baking, so that the resulting cake doesn’t have a dome or crack in the middle.

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I learned to do this from youtube, but this was usually for shallower cake pans, not a Pullman. But, lo and behold, it worked! It was incredibly level and better still, there was no large crack down the middle, Unlike the first time I made this.

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I also decided to enhance the flavor by browning the butter. If you are not familiar with this process, it’s quite simple, and the effects are usually well worth it. You simply place the butter in a sauce pan and boil on medium-high heat, until the milk solids brown. You will need to watch it closely for several minutes, so that you can be sure that you do not burn it. (The milk solids will turn black, if burned, and it will be bitter tasting, so don’t leave the saucepan, no matter how tempting that may be.)

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brown butter banana banana bread (adapted from an allrecipes recipe)

ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted brown butter*, or regular

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 T vanilla

4 cups banana (about 11 or 12 bananas)

one 13 x 4 x 4 Pullman pan, or two 9 x 5 rectangular loaf pans

method

Prepare the Pullman pan by using slightly soft butter to grease the pan, followed by sprinkling a little all-purpose flour, then tapping out the excess. Set aside.

*Prepare brown butter, if desired. If you want to skip this and just use regular butter, skip down to the next paragraph. Place one cup unsalted butter into a sauce pan, and boil on medium-high, until milk solids turn brown. This looks like little brown specks in the bottom of the sauce pan. Remove from heat, scraping down the bottom of pan to get all the milk solids. Scrape into a small or medium bowl and cool completely in the fridge until solid. You can speed up this process by putting the bowl in a ice water bath and stirring until mixture cools down, then letting the fridge completely cool it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and whisk in a bowl until completely incorporated. Set aside.

Cream the butter with the brown sugar, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl, as needed. Add vanilla, and mix until incorporated. Add bananas and mix until well incorporated. Sift flour into the batter and mix on slow for about 30 seconds, until flour is well-incorporated. Do not over-mix.

Pour into prepared Pullman pan. Place pan in center of preheated oven, for about 70 minutes, if using 9 x 5 loaf pans, or 90-100 minutes if using a Pullman pan, or until a toothpick o skewer comes out clean with not raw batter. (Be careful NOT to do this from the top, because sometimes the cooked top surface will make it hard for the raw batter to remain to cling to the skewer, thus giving the false impression of being done. Do it from the sides, and in a diagonal manner).

Let cool in pan for 15 minutes before turning out. Serve toasted, or at room temperature, if desired.

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Please accept this, Fiesta Friday goers, as my offering for this weeks Fiesta Friday. I hope you all enjoy!

19 responses to “brown butter banana banana bread”

  1. Dave how many people ate this cake? It’s so big…and what does the brown butter do? I’ve never used it for baking. Very curious to know how it affects flavour too! thanks!

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    • Hi Liz! It IS HUGE! I usually bring it to work the next day, so it depends how big the slices are cut as to how many people eat it. Some just slice a small slice. Others might take larger slabs of it. This pan, is double a 9 x 5 loaf pan, so I would say it could easily feed 20 people. As for the brown butter, it really adds a nutty, caramel-like flavor to the butter. The milk solids have separated and caramelized, making the butter have little golden brown specks. I love it, and it can be used in many recipes.

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  2. Ooh, love the tea towel tip, I often have that cracking issue with loaf cakes. Will look out for one of these mega-pans too! 🙂

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    • I didn’t think it would work. I was also worried it would burn up but I guess the soaking of the towel in water beforehand helps. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Wow this looks good and moist! Looks much better than a strange banana cake recipe I tried tonight, oh well, can I have a slice of yours? Thank you for bringing this huge loaf to Fiesta Friday!

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    • Thanks! It was moist. I tend to be impatient when it comes to banana bread, especially when it calls for such a long baking time. Pulling it out too soon can be the difference between moist in a good way, or moist in a gummy, raw, way. So glad I let it bake. Your gazelle’s horns look amazing!

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  4. Neat trick with the towel going to have to try it, that banana bread looks amazing and browned butter makes everything better.

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  5. This was really, really, really good! Thanks so much for sharing! My kids and I had fun following your recipe and using our pullman loaf pan!

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  6. I made this recipe yesterday and added 2 tsp cinnamon and a cup of chopped walnuts. Browning the butter is genius! It is easily the best banana bread I have ever had! I wish for more information about the wet towel. My kitchen towels are not big enough to go around the perimeter of the large Pullman pan. How’d you do that? Thanks for your recipe!

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Love the brown butter in this recipe. FYI, if you have the Pullman pan with the lid, the bread will turn out perfectly flat on top and looks beautiful!

    Liked by 1 person

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