Brown Butter Banana Bread

Ingredients

• 115 g (1 stick) butter
• 3 very ripe bananas
• 150 g brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 240 g all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• A handful of chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

1. Heat the oven to 175 °C (350 °F) and line a loaf pan with parchment.
2. Melt the butter in a small pan and keep cooking, swirling, until it smells nutty and the bits at the bottom turn golden brown. Let it cool for a few minutes.
3. Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Whisk in the brown butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla.
4. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Fold until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Stir in the walnuts.
5. Pour into the pan and bake 50–60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then lift out onto a rack.

The darker the bananas, the better the bread. Black ones from the freezer work perfectly — just thaw and drain first.