Brown Butter Cinnamon Banana Bread with Brown Butter Honey Drizzle

I love banana bread a lot of ways–nuts, chocolate chips, peanut butter, spices, fruit, plain? SURE! But, my favorite banana bread iteration probably involves streusel because I cannot resist a crumbly, sugary, buttery topping. I just can’t.

This version involves lots of cinnamon and everyone’s favorite darling–brown butter. It’s sweetly spiced with a crumbly topping and toffee-like notes from the browned butter. And, I went even further, I gilded the banana (that’s the saying, right?) and added a super simple brown butter + honey drizzle. It takes this bread over the top and makes it something extra special…I mean, what’s more special than a triple-brown-butter (streusel! batter! drizzle!) situation?

Print Recipe

Brown Butter Cinnamon Banana Bread with Brown Butter Honey Drizzle

Adapted from Betty Crocker

Makes 1 loaf

Topping:

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

dash of salt

2 tablespoons browned butter

Batter:

3 very ripe bananas

6 tablespoons browned butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup greek yogurt

1/4 cup milk

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350ºF and spray a 9×5 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

Brown the butter for the topping and batter in a skillet by melting 1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons) over medium heat until the butter foams. As the foam subsides, continue heating, stirring occasionally until the milk solids become deep brown and the butter smells like toffee. Remove from the heat and scrape into a heatproof dish to cool.

In a small bowl stir together the topping ingredients, including 2 tablespoons of the browned butter.

In a bowl, mash the bananas and whisk in the remaining 6 tablespoons browned butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, greek yogurt, and milk. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and fold until just combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle evenly with the topping mixture. Bake in the center of the oven for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Brown Butter Honey Drizzle

This drizzle is totally optional, but pushes this bread over the top.

Brown 2 tablespoons of brown butter in a skillet (go ahead and brown 2 additional tablespoons with the 8 mentioned above, 10 tablespoons total). Stir the 2 tablespoons of brown butter with 4 tablespoons of honey, warm in a skillet if it doesn’t seem to be coming together. Drizzle over the whole loaf of bread or on each slice as you serve it.