Baking & Breads BAKING

Brown Butter Banana Bread

Name: Brown Butter Banana Bread
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 55 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 10 servings
Cuisine: Baking
Ingredients: 115 g butter; 3 very ripe bananas; 150 g brown sugar; 2 eggs; 1 tsp vanilla; 190 g plain flour; 1 tsp bicarbonate; 1/2 tsp salt; 1 tsp cinnamon

Browning the butter first cooks out the water and leaves toasty milk solids — that is the depth you taste in every slice..

By Dana Reyes

Published 23 Sep 2026 · Tested 2 times · 0 comments

Brown Butter Banana Bread — The brown butter pools into the top crust and makes a crackly, nutty lid.

15 min

Prep time

55 min

Cook time

Serves

4.7

NEW

The one extra step that changes everything

Browning the butter first cooks out the water and leaves toasty milk solids — that is the depth you taste in every slice.

Use bananas with more black than yellow; they mash smoother and taste sweeter. Three medium is about right.

We tested one and two bowls. The one-bowl version (whisk wet, fold in dry) is faster and just as good, so that is what we keep.

Instructions

About 70 min from start to finish

Heat the oven to 175°C / 350°F and line a loaf tin. Brown the butter until nutty, then cool slightly.

Mash the bananas; whisk in the sugar, eggs, vanilla and the brown butter.

Fold in the flour, bicarbonate, salt and cinnamon until just combined — do not overmix.

Pour into the tin and bake 50-55 minutes until a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Cool in the tin 10 minutes, then on a rack.

Testing notes & substitutions

Three rounds of testing turned up three things worth knowing before you start cooking.

Too dense?

You overmixed or the bananas were under-ripe; fold gently and use black bananas.

Add-ins

A handful of walnuts or chocolate chips folded in at the end is fair game.

Questions we get a lot

Freezes?

Yes, sliced and wrapped, for up to three months; toast from frozen.

Why brown the butter?

It adds a toffee note plain melted butter cannot.

Dana Reyes

Dana has cooked professionally for eleven years and has been testing recipes for Hearth & Thyme since 2019. She writes about weeknight cooking, slow breads, and the small techniques that quietly change a dish. Every recipe she publishes is cooked at least twice, in an ordinary home oven.