Brown Butter, Chai Spice Banana Loaf
I love banana cake, I love brown butter, I love chai lattes and I also love dulce de leche. Put all of those things together and you have this lovely, comforting slice. The chai-spice is delicate and compliments the caramel notes from the brown butter. You can simply make the loaf or you can make it a bit special with the dulce de leche cream. It’s delicious. I recommend making a double batch of the banana loaf and keeping one frozen for days when a sweet treat is needed and time is lacking.
Ingredients - makes one loaf
Banana Cake:
140g unsalted butter, softened
100g soft light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
320g ripe banana, mashed (approx. 3 large)
250g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp each ground all spice, ground clove, ground nutmeg
Dulce de Leche Cream:
100g dulce de leche, plus more for decoration
300ml double cream
pinch of flaky salt
Toppings (optional):
toasted, chopped pecans
dried banana chips
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin.
For the brown butter; place 80g of butter into a saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook, whisking occasionally, until it starts to smell nutty and a speckled foam forms on top. Remove it from the heat, pour into a container and refrigerate until cooled but not set, approx. 15 minutes.
Once the brown butter has cooled, pour it into a mixing bowl along with the remaining 60g of butter, the sugars and vanilla. Cream until pale and fluffy. Add in the eggs, beating them in one at a time before stirring in the mashed bananas. Finally, mix in the remaining dry ingredients, salt and spices. Spoon the batter into your prepared loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes - 1 hour or until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before demoulding.
Once your cake is cooled, you can whip up the dulce de leche cream. Simply whisk together all of the cream ingredients to soft peaks. Spoon a dollop of the cream onto each banana cake slice and top with a drizzle of dulce de leche, pecans and banana chips.