Brown Butter Banana Bread Blondies
I recently went on a trip to Glasgow, where I essentially ate my my through the city. One of the most stand out dishes I had was the banana bread at Outlier (everything there was incredible). Usually I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a slice of banana bread, but we ordered it and it was glorious. Theres was made with rye flour, butterscotch, and had a lovely demerara crunchy top.
That phat slice of cake in the middle is the glorious banana bread in talking about. We also had the perfectly baked, buttery croissant, pork, sage and apple sausage roll, and cardamom & custard bun.
I took inspo from that and created these blondies since I wanted something chewier, less formal and really easy to whip up. I never really undertood the term ‘snacking cake’, but I now get it. These blondies are thin - so texturally, they’re chewier, but still retain that cakey, fluffy quality a slice of banana bread has. They’re magical and you genuinely can’t only have 1 slice. Also, don’t skip the dark brown sugar, demerara and flakey salt combo - this replaces the butterscotch that was in the Outlier version. It perfumes the blondies with a salted caramel flavour, without making it sickly sweet.
The best part about making these blondies in a larger tray is the edges get even more chewy than if you would bake them in a brownie tin. More surface area= thinner blondies, chewier edges.
Prep/Baking time: 35-45 minutes
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
200g Butter
150g Banana
210g Plain Flour
30g Malted Milk Powder
80g Dark Chocolate, cut into chunks
½ tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Sea Salt
1 Egg
2 Egg Yolks
1 Tbsp Vanilla
200g Dark Brown Sugar
50g Caster Sugar
30g Demerara sugar
Flakey Salt, for garnish
Method:
Preheat the oven to fan 180°C. Grease and line a baking tin (i used a 30x20cm) with baking paper - I would recommend going for a tin larger than a brownie tin for chewy, thin slices.
Add the butter into a saucepan and place onto medium heat. Cook, stirring, until it smells nutty, and has browned, 10-15 minutes. Once browned, tip into a large bowl and leave to cool down.
Meanwhile, peel and mash the bananas. In a bowl, mix the flour, malted milk powder, dark chocolate, baking powder, sea salt together. Set aside.
Add the eggs and yolks into the butter with both sugars. Whisk the mixture until pale and fluffy, 5-10 mins. Then, stir through the mashed banana and vanilla.
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet, until just incorporated and pour into the prepared tin. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and finish with as much flakey salt as you’d like.
Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the edges are set and cracks are beginning to form. Once ready, take it out and lightly tap the tin onto a counter. Leave to cool fully before slicing and serving.
