Brown Butter Banana Bread

My mother had some bananas she'd forgotten about and was about to throw them out. They were black, and the skin gave just by the pressure of holding them. The aroma coming off of them was so banana it was almost artificial. But in the back of my mind I remembered something Alton Brown said once. He talked about how for banana nut bread you needed very, VERY ripe bananas -- basically anything short of fuzzy. I snatched them up and toted them home with me.

And then they sat on my counter for another three days as I insisted I was going to make bread. I think by yesterday even my stalwart John was becoming skeptical they'd end up as anything but garbage.

But today, fighting a broken A/C, waiting on the trim man again, unpacking more boxes, I stopped and said, "I am going to make that bread."

((You may also hear me refer to this as Minion Bread because I'm slightly obsessed with Despicable Me. I'm so excited: They're making a Minions Movie for release next Christmas!!))

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 overripe bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Set the eggs out on the counter and preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour a loaf pan.

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium high heat. Once completely melted, stir gently but constantly until foam begins to turn a deeper golden-tan color but not actually brown. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl to stop the cooking process. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of this part, but a fabulous explanation of the process can be found HERE. Allow the butter to cool.

Mash the bananas and the sugar together until almost a liquid.

Crack the eggs into the cooled butter and whisk together with salt and vanilla extract.

Whisk the butter mixture into the sugar-banana goop. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Add it to the wet ingredients, taking care not to over beat.

Fold in the nuts if you want them. You could put up to a full cup, though I usually prefer half a cup. Any type of nut is fine, though walnut is more traditional. Since this is usually a spur of the moment bread for me, I end up using sliced almonds a lot because I always have those on hand. Chopped pecans are great, too.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out (mostly) clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before removing and allowing to cool on a cookie rack.

If you wanted to get even fancier than browned butter, replace the vanilla extract with the scraped out seeds and insides of a vanilla bean. For a nuttier flavor without the nuts, try replacing 1/2 the flour with whole wheat flour.

To download the 4x6 recipe card, CLICK HERE.