Banana Bread With Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze

Black History Month begins and New Hope AME's calendar fills. This year I am not doing a cooking demonstration — I suggested that Kezia do one instead, as a closing celebration before she leaves for her culinary program in September. She agreed immediately, the way she agrees to challenges when they are exactly the right size for her. She will make the cast iron cornbread. Her cornbread. With the history she knows and a few stories I haven't told her yet that I will tell her before the event so she can tell them herself.

I have been cleaning out my kitchen this week — not a deep purge, just the kind of organizing that February requires, when the pantry has accumulated things since Thanksgiving and the spice shelf needs inventory. I threw away three spice jars that were old enough to be from the nineties, which is too old, and which raises the question of what I was doing those years when I should have been using those spices. The answer is that I was using the spices from the bulk bin at the market and buying small amounts frequently, and these jars in the back were duplicates acquired and forgotten. Clean pantry, clear mind. Bernice cleaned her pantry every February also. I didn't know that until I started doing it and recognized the impulse as hers.

Caleb will be six months old next week. CJ sends photographs of the occasion foods Shanice is starting to introduce — soft vegetables, a little rice porridge, his first taste of sweet potato which CJ filmed and which I have watched many times. The face he made — the face of a person tasting sweet potato for the first time — is a face I know from the inside. It is the right food. It was always going to be sweet potato first in this family.

Watching CJ’s video of Caleb and that sweet potato — that face, the wide eyes, the slow blink of recognition — I kept thinking about the foods that greet us first and stay with us longest. I couldn’t make sweet potato for a baby across town, but I could bake. I found two very ripe bananas in the pantry during my February clean-out, the kind that were past snacking but exactly right for bread, and it felt like the kitchen was answering something I hadn’t quite asked yet. This banana bread with vanilla browned butter glaze is what came out of that afternoon — unhurried, fragrant, the kind of thing Bernice would have had wrapped in a cloth on the counter by the time anyone came through the door.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 60 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 10 slices

Ingredients

3 very ripe medium bananas, mashed (about 1 1/4 cups)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
For the Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2–3 tablespoons whole milk

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with butter or nonstick spray and set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a large bowl, stir the mashed bananas and melted butter together until combined. Add the sugar, beaten egg, and vanilla extract and stir until smooth.
Add the dry ingredients. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the banana mixture and stir to incorporate. Add the flour all at once and fold gently until just combined — do not overmix; a few streaks are fine.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 55–65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 40 minutes.
Cool the loaf. Let the bread rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack and cool for at least 20 minutes before glazing.
Brown the butter for the glaze. In a small light-colored saucepan over medium heat, melt the 4 tablespoons of butter, swirling frequently. Continue cooking until the butter foams, then turns golden and smells nutty, about 4–5 minutes. Remove from heat immediately.
Finish the glaze. Whisk the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons of milk into the browned butter until smooth. Add the third tablespoon of milk if needed to reach a pourable but not thin consistency.
Glaze and serve. Drizzle the warm glaze over the cooled loaf, letting it run down the sides. Allow the glaze to set for 10 minutes before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Banana Bread With Vanilla Browned Butter Glaze — The Sweet That Follows a First Taste