Whole wheat banana bread with brown butter
I’ve always loved banana bread. When I was young, my great-grandmother made it every few weeks and keep it wrapped in wax paper in a kitchen drawer, and I’d sneak slices whenever I could, preferably slathered with a pat of salted butter. After I stopped spending every day at her house before and after school, my opportunities to eat banana bread became more scarce, particularly because most people (and bakeries) fill their banana bread and banana muffins with walnuts or some other lurking nut menace.
All of this means I eat banana bread pretty rarely, and the last few times I made it at home I was always a little disappointed. It was tasty, certainly, but somewhat boring. A little too sweet, and a little too cakey, and a little too simple. It always left me wanting something more complex and flavorful – something toastier and more subtly sweet, that would fit as comfortably on a plate with eggs as with a cup of coffee in the afternoon.
I’ve outgrown the banana bread of my youth. Read more
