Brown Butter Rum Raisin Banana Bread with a Steady Rise

Brown Butter Rum Raisin Banana Bread with a Steady Rise keeps the shopping list focused on raisins, rum dark rum, and unsalted butter cut in pieces. It serves 16 people.

Count on 15 minutes of prep, 45 minutes of cooking, about 1 hour from the first measurement to the plate.

Ingredients Method

What goes in the bowl

• ½ cup raisins
• 2 tablespoons rum dark rum
• ½ cup unsalted butter cut in pieces
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt Don’t leave this out! Please.
• 4 medium very ripe, bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¾ cups dark brown sugar packed
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• Extra butter and granulated sugar for the pan

How the cooking goes

1. Heat the oven to 350°.
2. In a small bowl place raisins and rum; soak until the raisins are plump and the rum is almost completely absorbed. You can speed up this process by placing the raisin and rum in a small saucepan over a gentle flame. If you choose to use the heating method, add an extra tablespoon of rum. You don’t want to boil them and make sure they are cool before adding to the batter!
3. Coat a standard loaf pan with butter; sprinkle the pan with some granulated sugar, and tap the pan on each side to completely coat in sugar. You can also use flour instead.
4. In another small saucepan melt butter over a moderate flame and cook, swirling occasionally, until it begins to brown. Take it off the heat and pour into a small bowl when it takes on a nutty aroma and little brown bits get stuck to the bottom of the pan. Make sure you scrape out all the brown bits!!! That is flavor! Allow it to cool slightly before mixing the rest of the batter.
5. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt; keep it to one side.
6. In a mixing bowl mash the bananas with a fork until there are no large visible pieces left; add the raisins, vanilla, brown sugar, and browned butter; whisk to combine. Add the eggs and whisk until there are no visible streaks of egg and you have a homogeneous mixture.
7. Add the flour mixture and fold through until just mixed. Be careful not to over mix or the bread will be tough and chewy.
8. Oven-bake in preheated oven 45-60 minutes. This time will vary greatly by oven – start checking on it after about 40 minutes. The bread is done when a cake tester inserted into the center comes out with only a few clinging crumbs. There should be no wet streaks .

After it comes off the heat

Wait until the loaf is cool before slicing. Wrap it at room temperature, and freeze slices you will not eat in a couple of days.

If you want another plate from Quick breads, open Traditional Irish Soda Bread with Raisins with a Steady Rise and Pumpkin Banana Bread with a Steady Rise.