BROWN BUTTER MAPLE PECAN BANANA BREAD

The more sophisticated, older sister to the basic banana bread. It’s maple pecan banana bread with brown butter, cinnamon, and ripe bananas.

It’s finally Autumn! And this is how I’m kicking it off – by loading all the fall flavors into one loaf pan and making the most delicious brown butter scented maple pecan banana bread. I feel like a bear that’s been in hibernation just now coming out.

This is absolutely my favorite food season.

I’m overzealous at the grocery store. I see a bunch of bananas, and I think, sure, the two of us can polish off ten bananas in a week! That’s just a banana a day. Have we ever finished them off? NEVER. More times than I can count, on Friday’s I’m peeling speckled, ripe bananas, loading them up on a sheet pan and flash freezing them. They go into a ziptop bag and stay in the freezer with the rest of the ambitiously purchased, now ripe, bananas.

So it was about time I cleaned out the freezer and what better way to do it then banana bread?

Todays naturally sweetened banana bread recipe is heavily adapted from the banana bread I’ve been making since I was about 15 years old.

But with time, I started experimenting. Nothing too crazy at first. Just swapping the sugar for maple syrup and using pecans instead of walnuts. But this year, I wanted to elevate my banana bread game, and so I took a second to brown the butter. You know what, I must say, I’m probably never making banana bread without brown butter again.

It adds the best caramel, toffee scent to the whole thing and my god is it delicious with a cup of coffee!

INGREDIENTS:

• ½ cup salted butter (see notes)
• ¾ cup maple syrup (or honey)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2-3 medium bananas)
• ⅓ cup buttermilk (or regular milk)
• 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon EACH: baking soda, baking powder, AND kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (+ ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg, optional)
• ½ cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:

1. PREP: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. 
2. BROWN BUTTER: Heat the butter in a medium stainless steel saucepan over medium heat. Allow the butter to brown for a total of 3-7 minutes. Every now and then grab the handle and gently swirl the pan and stir often. You’ll notice it’ll start to foam but keep going. Usually, better quality butter has less water, which means it would brown quicker. Remove the saucepan from the stove when the butter smells like hazelnuts and looks light to medium brown in color. Pour into a large glass bowl and allow it to cool to room temp.
3. ....................................................

for full instruction please see : littlespicejar.com

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