Caramelized Banana Bread with Cinnamon Swirl

Free time is such a beautiful thing! All of a sudden, napping after lunch, watching movies at all hours of the day, and having unscheduled hangouts with friends have become daily activities rather than something I dream about during lectures. You would think that with all this time on my hands, I would be baking up a storm, but clearly that hasn’t been happening. We went on a cruise recently, and in order to offset the gluttonous dessert consumption during our vacation, I have avoided baking at all costs. Alas, the allure of combining simple ingredients into a sweet masterpiece is too strong to resist!

In order to feed my need to bake, I made an extra special banana bread. We do already have a classic banana bread recipe on the blog, but this one is a little more amped up. There’s a boost of flavour from the caramelized bananas and cinnamon swirl-this is no plain jane banana bread!

This recipe has been adapted from a blog called Some Kitchen Stories, which has great recipes, all accompanied by beautiful photographs.

Caramelizing the bananas in sugar and butter adds an extra depth of flavour; this essentially applies to any fruit that you cook over heat. As the sugars cook, their flavour develops, and becomes more intense. At this point, you know how I feel about cinnamon, so do I really need to justify the cinnamon sugar swirl? 😉 If you look carefully, you can see that I also sprinkled some white sanding sugar on top, for some sparkle!

Eat a warm slice with Nutella or peanut buttah-your tummy will thank you.

Bake some today!

It was great to see you today, come back soon!

-G

Caramelized Banana Bread with Cinnamon Swirl

Adapted From: http://somekitchenstories.com/2012/09/26/caramelized-banana-bread-with-browned-butter-glaze/

Makes one 9×5” loaf pan

INGREDIENTS

4 TBSPs of butter, softened and divided
3/4 Cup of packed dark brown sugar
3 Medium-sized, ripe bananas, sliced
1/2 Cup of buttermilk
3 TBSPs of oil

1 tsp vanilla
2 Large eggs
2 cups AP flour (whole wheat or white)
3/4 Teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon of salt

1 tbsp sanding sugar (optional)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

Make bread:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

3. Add brown sugar and bananas; sauté 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Remove from heat; cool 10 minutes.

5. Place banana mixture in a large bowl.

6. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

7. Combine buttermilk and next 3 ingredients (through eggs).

8. Spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.

9. Mix wet and dry ingredients

10. Scrape 1/3 batter into a 9 x 5-inch metal loaf pan coated with butter and flour.

11. Combine cinnamon and white sugar.

12. Add about half of cinnamon sugar, layer another third of batter, followed by remaining cinnamon sugar and batter. Sprinkle top with sanding sugar.

13. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging.

14. Cool for 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

15. Remove bread from pan, and cool on wire rack.