Brown Butter Banana Bread
Four overripe bananas and brown butter. The loaf that actually improves every day for three days. Tested 14 times to get the crumb right.
Coconut oil toasted until fragrant substitutes for brown butter almost perfectly. Flax eggs do the work. Tested 4 times.
Preheat oven to 175C. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
Brown the butter: melt in a light-coloured pan over medium heat, swirling constantly, until it smells nutty and the milk solids turn deep amber. Pour into a bowl and let cool slightly.
Whisk brown butter with both sugars. Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Stir in mashed bananas.
Fold in flour, baking soda, and salt just until combined — a few streaks are fine. Overmixing makes it dense.
Fold in walnuts if using. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake 60-70 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. The top should be deep brown and cracked.
Cool in pan 10 minutes, then on a rack for at least 1 hour. Better the next day. Will keep 3 days at room temperature.
Four overripe bananas and brown butter. The loaf that actually improves every day for three days. Tested 14 times to get the crumb right.
Add 200g dark chocolate chips. Swirl 2 tbsp cocoa in the batter before the final fold. The brown butter keeps it from being cloying.
Replace 30g butter with tahini. Swirl more tahini and honey on top before baking. Sesame and banana is an underrated combination.
The extra step of browning the butter adds a toasty, nutty depth that elevates these from good to obsession-worthy.