I’ve unpacked the moving boxes of the essentials: sock slippers, gin, loaf pan, spatula, and mixing bowl. I’ve managed to find the fancy candles I love, a few pictures of my family, and the face wash. The cookbooks are lined up on the book shelf, color-coded just like Shutterbean taught me.
I’m just far enough in the whole moving process to miss home. Strange because I am home. It’s just that I have to build up a familiarity to this new space. I don’t yet know its nuances.
What I do know is that I’m mostly responsible for feeling at home where I’m home. It’s a state of mind. It’s coming to understand the different shade of light. It’s the different sounds of the street. It’s the familiar smell of comfort. Banana Bread feels like home, so Banana Bread it is!
We’re not looking to reinvent the wheel here. This banana bread is more about settling in and planting roots. It’s tastes just like home to me, and so it is!
I love that banana bread comes together rather effortlessly. A bowl, fork, and spoon and we’re in business.
Good news for all of us, right?
Mashed bananas are stirred together with granulated sugar and molasses. I realized too late that I’m fresh out of brown sugar. We can make our own…. or just stir it all together with gumption.
Butter is melted until it’s golden brown and smells juuuuust nutty. I love the depth that brown butter adds to the banana bread. Extra goodness, that’s all it is.
Oh! I don’t have buttermilk either. I squeezed a big wedge of lime into a bit of milk. Buttermilk substitutions are key.
Eggs and butter into the banana mash.
No nuts. No toasted coconut. Nothing too fancy. Just cinnamon spiced, brown butter magic banana bread.
The smell that fills the kitchen is home exactly.
I thought about sharing this loaf with my neighbors, but there’s plenty of future for that. I just needed to sit in from of this warm loaf and breathe it in. The texture is dense but soft. It’s lightly cinnamon spiced and hearty in the way that feels just right in the morning. This banana bread is sweet and I find it’s best paired with a cup of milky coffee. Slice into thick wedges. No need to be coy. We’re home.
Brown Butter Banana Bread
makes 1 9×5-inch loaf
6 ounces unsalted butter, melted and browned to just over 1/2 cup of butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cup mashed banana (from about 3 medium bananas)
2 teaspoons molasses
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Butter will begin to foam and crackle as it melts. When the crackling subsides, the butter will begin to brown. Swirl the pan as the butter cooks. When the butter browns and begins to smell nutty, remove the pan from the flame and transfer the butter to a small bowl. Taking the butter out of the hot saucepan will stop the butter from overcooking and burning. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, vanilla extract, and buttermilk. Whisk in the mashed bananas and molasses. When butter has cooled, whisk in the browned butter.
Add the wet ingredients, all at once to the dry ingredients. Fold together, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to reveal any hidden pockets of flour. Fold together ingredients, but try not to over stir.
Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 15 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Bread will last 4 days, well wrapped at room temperature. This loaf also freezes well.
Carlinne @Cook with 2 Chicks
I hope I still have those over ripe bananas. This recipe looks delicious. I’m super excited to hear about your new adventures in New Orleans. Beautiful writing and pics, as always :)
Synne
Lovely! The familiar scents of baking always make me feel at home, and I love how these pictures look very …you, even though you’re in a new place.
I also love how you can follow your own advice on buttermilk substitutes, haha.
I hope you (and Tron) will settle in and feel at home and be truly happy in your new apartment!
Terri
Sending you warm, happy thoughts from CA! Here’s to all the new adventures in your new home and can’t wait to hear about them on the blog/podcast! xoxo
Heidi - Apples Under My Bed
I am in love with the first picture, I cannot stop staring at it! Beautiful. Really lovely post, Joy. x
TaylorMay
banana bread. cinnamon and coffee. absolutely magic. your photography seems to have altered a bit with your move. still totally beautiful and inviting, inspiring,.. but different. but. Im just me and not you. so . you’d know better. :]
thick slices are the only way to go. Happy melding and finding.
Amy M.
Hi Joy! I tried to leave a comment Friday but my work computer decided to leave for the weekend before I did (unusual). Your blog was one of the first I ever followed (along with SmittenKitchen’s)! I actually live in New Orleans now (moved here about two and a half years ago) and ride my bike through the quarter to get to work every day (actually, the view out your window looks familiar, as creepy as that sounds.) Let me know if you need a buddy to enjoy the city with, or even just some tips on biking/ parks/ festivals/ po boys, etc! Also, I live right near the entrance to Jazz Fest so feel free to swing by if you need a beer/ pit stop. There’s always a party or crawfish boil happening on the street and sometimes I think it might be more fun than the fest itself! I hope you love it here as much as I do!
Melissa Karras
Oh Joy. You are SUCH a brave woman! Making a new city into your new home is an unbelievable feat. I didn’t think it was a big deal, until I moved to a new city. It’s been two years and I still haven’t made it “home” in my heart, so I’m still terribly sad. I know its a mental shift, so I’m working on that. Banana bread helps too ;) Enjoy your new home!
Kristiana
I love the lighting in your new kitchen, Joy!
foodlikecake
You’re so brave (moving practically across the country) and you take such beautiful pictures!
megnewhall
I just made a loaf of this with the help of my 1 1/2 year old son! :P We did not make as much of a mess as I anticipated…haha. Thanks for the recipe! Good luck in your new place—I moved away from family a year and a half ago, and after the first year, the homesickness mostly disappears. :)
sasa
Looks so yummy! I have to try this:)
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Dixya @ Food, Pleasure, and Health
im so happy that its starting to feel home Joy :)
Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar
So happy to hear you’re settling in joy! Wishing you all the best as you unpack and start living your whole new life! xx
Rocky Mountain Woman
for some odd reason i have a feeling that you will love your new home and it will love you…
carla
Something about banana bread that absolutely feels like home, doesn’t it? Glad to hear that you’re settling in nicely. Moving always takes awhile…
brown butter banana bread recipe looks delicious. Just the right amount of cinnamon does it for me!
Carla @ love cartista