So what is Banana Foster Bread? Well, to explain it we first need to look at the original Banana Foster which is a dessert that originated from New Orleans, USA. It is made by cooking banana in caramelized butter, brownsugar and cinnamon. Dark rum or cognac is added and finished off by using a cooking technique called flambé. The dessert can be served with vanilla ice cream or as a filling in a crêpe.
In this recipe I have used the same ingredients but incorporated it into a banana bread with a delicious maple and cinnamon infused butter.
Bon appetit!
You’ll need
- • For the bread
- ¾ cup x brown sugar, divided into ¼ and ½ a cup
- 100g x salted butter
- 2 Tbs x dark rum
- 2 x large eggs
- 1 tsp x vanilla extract
- 5 x mashed ripe banana
- 1 ¾ cup x flour
- 3 tsp x baking powder
- • For the Maple Cinnamon Butter
- 225g x unsalted butter (200g at room temperature, 25g for melting)
- 1 tsp x ground cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp x brown sugar
- ¼ cup x maple syrup
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line a loaf tin with parchment paper.
- Melt the butter in a frying pan and add ¼ cup of brown sugar. Allow this to bubble away until the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the mashed bananas and mix until it all turns a lovely golden caramel colour.
- At this stage you add the rum and although you are meant to flambé or ignite it, it is quite okay to add the rum and let it bubble for another minute or so to burn off the alcohol.
- Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- Using your stand or electric mixer, beat the remaining ½ cup sugar with 2 eggs until pale and fluffy and doubled in volume.
- Add the vanilla extract.
- Add the banana mixture and stir by hand to combine.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and fold this into the batter.
- Pour the banana bread batter into your loaf tin and bake for 70 minutes or until golden brown and a testing pick comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven, let it stand for about 10 minutes and then remove from loaf tin to cool on a wire rack.
- For the Maple Syrup Butter, melt 25g of the butter in a pan.
- Add the sugar and mix until the sugar has dissolved and caramelised.
- Add the cinnamon and maple syrup, give it a stir and remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.
- In your stand or electric mixer, beat the remaining 200g butter until light and fluffy, add the cooled maple syrup mix and whisk until everything is well incorporated.
- Store in a lidded container in your fridge.
Tips : If you see that the top of the banana bread is getting brown too much, lightly cover it with a piece of foil.