Warning: this recipe is only for those with a sweet tooth! Caramelized bananas aren’t just for topping off pancakes or oatmeal. We made the best Caramelized Brown Sugar Banana Bread with the sweetest swirls of cinnamon sugar goodness! Plus the added pecan crunch? It’s the best, and easiest, way to reinvent your classic banana bread recipe! Let’s get into this super sweet caramelized brown sugar banana bread!
More banana recipes on the blog:
Caramelized Bananas
Caramelized Bananas are usually diced & fried in a pan with brown sugar and cinnamon. It can be added to a bowl with ice cream, or used as a topping to pancakes, oatmeal, or yogurt bowls. In this recipe, instead of pan frying the bananas, we added the brown sugar topping to the bananas and baked them on top of the loaf. This was a slow roasted caramelized texture that brought an extra layer of sweetness to the banana bread.
BANANA BREAD BAKING TIPS
Bananas are the key flavors in this recipe! It’s a perfect substitute for eggs (which we used as an egg replacer in this recipe), and it carries most of the flavors! Here’s a few things to keep in mind when baking banana bread:
- Use overripe bananas
- The brown spotted bananas you’re thinking of throwing out? Don’t! These are filled with the perfect flavors and ready to be thrown into your desserts!
- Mash bananas before adding it to your batter
- No one wants clumpy bananas throughout their batter. Mashing bananas helps smoothly blend in all of the ingredients
- Use the correct banana size
- Bananas can be large, medium, or small. Each recipe should specify which size of bananas to use. Adding too much banana can give you a longer bake time, or using too little banana can give you no flavor with a shorter bake time.
Our Banana Carrot Cake Loaf is another popular banana recipe on this site!
KEY INGREDIENTS:
Bananas: Use overripe bananas & mash the bananas before adding it to your batter.
Vegetable Oil: Oil in your loaf cakes make the best crumb. I love to pair oil with greek yogurt (or sour cream) because it brings out a softer, moist cake crumb.
Brown & White Sugar: We used a combo to add depth to our banana bread! The brown sugar adds rich flavor while the white sugar balances it out.
Sour Cream: This a richer flavor & great tasting loaf! You can sub greek yogurt or your favorite dairy-free vanilla yogurt.
Brown Sugar Swirl: Similar to a swirl in a coffee cake, however there’s more brown sugar in this base!
Now let’s get into this Caramelized Brown Sugar Banana Bread!
Caramelized Brown Sugar Banana Bread
INGREDIENTS
- 1¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- 2 bananas mashed
- 1 banana for topping
Brown Sugar Swirl
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp espresso powder
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 350°F
- In a large bowl, combine the vegetable oil, sugar, egg, sour cream, mashed bananas, and vanilla together.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the batter and mix until every thing is combined. Fold in the pecans.
Brown Sugar Swirl
- Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and espresso powder together.
- Pour ½ the batter into a loaf pan. Sprinkle about ¾ of the brown sugar mixture on top of the batter. Pour the rest of the batter in to the pan.
- Slice a banana in half and lay it flat on top of the batter. Sprinkle the rest of the brown sugar mix onto the banana*. Swirl the batter around using a knife.
- Bake the loaf for 55-60 minutes. Let the bread cool for 10-15 minutes before removing and slicing!
Notes
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