Moist Buttermilk Banana Bread
Are there enough B’s in that title for you? I can think of more. Brown sugar, beautiful, bouncy, beyond good. Anytime you take the tenderizing and fluffing effects of buttermilk, combined with the richness, nuttiness, and depth of browned butter, add sweet ripe bananas, cinnamon, vanilla, and brown sugar, the results won’t be bad. In fact, you’ll be happy when your bananas start to turn brown! Although I would not change a thing about my go-to Banana Bread with Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze, I had some leftover buttermilk after making some Carrot Cake Loaves and it had bread-making written all over it. So I decided to deviate from my usual recipe with this. Normally I use yogurt or Greek yogurt in my homemade banana bread and using buttermilk is different, yet the same. They’re both cultured milks and tenderize and moisten the bread, but buttermilk seems to make it fluffier, whereas yogurt (or sour cream) makes it denser. Both make it scrumptious. Kerrygold was nice enough to send me some butter and it’s burning a hole in my refrigerator. I’m inventing recipes that use butter, just to use butter. And buttermilk. Help. The bread is full of rich flavor. The bananas are complemented by the browned butter and it really adds another dimension, and it’s something that the more I make with it, the less I want to make without it. Butter, buttermilk, brown sugar, bananas. All those B’s add moisture and softness, which is the only way I want banana bread, or any kind of bread or doughy pastry. Who says, oh I would love to have a dry, hard, cardboard-tasting muffin for breakfast? Oh wait, I know. The people who like biscotti. This bread is the opposite. So bouncy and springy. I love the big crack that formed down the center from the steam as it escaped while baking. The crust that’s right near the crack, which is all shiny and smooth, is the bread equivalent of a muffin-top. I love that part and would love to dismantle the loaf, just for those parts.
What’s in This Buttermilk Banana Bread?
For this banana bread recipe with buttermilk, you’ll need:
Unsalted butter Large eggs Buttermilk Granulated sugar Light brown sugar Vanilla extract Ground cinnamon Bananas All-purpose flour Baking powder Baking soda
And for the homemade strawberry butter, you’ll need:
Unsalted butter Strawberry preserves
Many banana bread recipes call only for granulated sugar, but I like to add a bit of brown sugar to boost both the moisture content, softness, and overall flavor. I also can’t imagine not including vanilla and cinnamon in my banana bread. Any sweet bread, quickbread, muffin, pancake, waffle, pastry, or danish is fair game for vanilla and cinnamon. I love both of them, probably more than the average person, but I didn’t go overboard. They just round out and complement the existing flavors rather than adding any telltale taste.
How to Make Buttermilk Banana Bread
I started by browning butter. I’ve talked at length about how to brown butter in here and here. It’s a three- to four-minute process of heating the butter over medium heat, and after the butter melts, stops being noisy, foaming and hissing at you, tiny brown flecks will appear. That’s crunchtime. Remove the pan from the heat while continuing to stir or swirl the pan so that the butter doesn’t continue to cook and go from browned to burnt. Pour the browned butter into a large mixing bowl and to it add the sugars, eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, cinnamon, and whisk until it’s smooth. Stir in the bananas along with the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. I didn’t add salt, because buttermilk is already salty, but add salt to taste if desired. If you’re using salted butter (I used unsalted), you may wish to omit the salt because between salted butter, salty buttermilk, and added salt, you could end up very thirsty. Stir everything together and then divide the fluffy, golden batter into two 8-by-4-inch loaf pans. Baking the batter in various assortments of mini loaf pans, muffin pans, or in a Bundt pan would all work. Baking times will vary based on the sizes used. I baked at 350F for 37 minutes for one loaf, and 40 minutes for the other. One had a little more batter in it than the other and my oven runs hotter on one side than the other. Bake until domed, golden, and a toothpick comes out fairly clean. It’s banana bread, so it’s not going to come out perfectly dry.
How to Make Strawberry Butter
While the bread baked, I combined softened butter with strawberry preserves and whipped them vigorously by hand for strawberry butter. Of course, you could just put a layer of butter on your bread, then top with a layer of jam, but something about whipping the butter and aerating it, and having it coat the strawberries made the combo taste better than if I kept them separate. I told you I’m making things with butter, just to use butter.
Do I Have to Brown the Butter?
Technically, no. In my usual banana bread recipe, I use melted butter. Although regular melted butter is fine, the whopping four minutes it takes to brown the butter first is highly recommended because it adds unparalleled depth, richness, and flavor.
Can I Make This Recipe with a Buttermilk Substitute?
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand and don’t want to buy it for a recipe that calls for a small amount, you can make a cheater’s version by adding one tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to one scant cup of milk. Let it stand for about 10 minutes. The milk will sour, and then use it as needed in place of buttermilk. I wouldn’t suggest this homemade buttermilk for a fancy cake, but for 3/4 cup for a loaf of banana bread, it’s perfectly fine.
Tips for Making Buttermilk Banana Bread
The darker your bananas are, the sweeter the bread will be, but they don’t have to be pitch black and on their last leg. Your bread will be extra luxurious if they’re extra dark, but sometimes it’s hard to wait for them to get to that point when you just want to bake. If you like extra banana-ey banana bread, consider using 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas. In doing so, you may need to increase the flour by one-quarter cup, for 2 cups total, give or take. Also, I generally shy away from baking powder because I can usually taste the chemical components in the finished product and it makes things almost too light and airy for my taste. But it’s an obvious choice in a recipe that uses buttermilk because baking powder and buttermilk react to form big, fluffy, puffy dough like a fluffy stack of buttermilk pancakes. In turn, I reduced the amount of baking soda I generally add by half. Although you probably could use one 9-by-5-inch pan for this buttermilk banana bread recipe, by looking at the volume of batter, and knowing that buttermilk-based batters rise quite a bit, I knew two pans was a safer choice. I didn’t want to press my luck and have to clean my oven. Or worse yet, waste butter and buttermilk to the bottom of my oven. Plus, with two smaller loaves, you can freeze one and later when you unthaw it, you can relive the party, minus the work. Or give the second loaf away to someone special. Or happily eat both loaves within a few days.
More Banana Bread Recipes:
Pineapple Banana Bread — This Banana Pineapple Breadis incredibly moist and is ever so slightly coconut flavored thanks to the coconut oil in the batter. Six-Banana Banana Bread — Not sure what to do with overripe bananas you have on hand? Make this Six-Banana Banana Bread! This is the best banana bread recipe EVER! Brown Sugar Blueberry Banana Bread — Super moist blueberry banana bread made with Greek yogurt and dark brown sugar. Smear some homemade blueberry butter onto a slice of this blueberry brown sugar banana bread and prepare to fall in love! Cream Cheese-Filled Banana Bread – Banana bread that’s like having cheesecake baked in! Soft, fluffy, easy and tastes ahhhh-mazing!! Zucchini Banana Bread — It’s just sweet enough to taste like a dessert and not like you’re eating vegetables. It really is the BEST zucchini bread recipe!!
Even More Quick Bread Recipes:
Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Glaze — I will never tire of pumpkin recipes and this one pairs pumpkin bread with banana bread for a soft, tender loaf that’s subtly pumpkin and molasses flavored Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes! Carrot Zucchini Bread — The bread is soft, tender, uber-moist, dense enough to be satisfying, but still light. It’s just sweet enough to taste like a dessert and not like you’re eating vegetables. Apple Fritter Bread — The bread tastes as decadent as the apple fritters of my childhood, no deep frying required and it’s more like cake disguised as bread. Carrot Apple Bread — This is carrot cake that’s been infused with apples and baked as a loaf. It’s an easy, no mixer recipe that goes from bowl to oven in minutes.
