Bananas Foster Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of those things that's always good. Whether its piping hot and fresh out of the oven, smeared with butter or cream cheese, or just plain at room temperature- its always delicious. And when there are a lovely bunch of super-ripe bananas sitting in a fruit bowl on my kitchen table, you know I'm going to bake banana bread with them! Extra ripe bananas are key for an amazing banana bread. The ones that are really soft, brown, and aesthetically unappealing make for the best concentrated banana flavor.

Well, then I got to thinking about how I could make one that's not just any ol' banana bread. Somehow it hit me to make one that resembles the classic dessert, bananas foster. That bubbling brown sugar caramel and spiced rum essence would be great on this banana cake bread, since its so yummy on just plain bananas.

I followed a basic banana bread recipe of my Grandma's, with a few of my own additions, bolded.
For the icing, I used a rum glaze recipe which I then added a few things to to chance the consistency of it because I wanted a white icing which would contrast against the dark loaves.

Banana Bread Recipe
(adapted from my Grandma's Kitchen)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed 
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1  tsp salt
- 3 ripe bananas, mashed well 
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp sour cream (you could use milk, but sour cream makes the cake so much lighter)

Rum Glaze
(inspired from here)
- 1 stick butter
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 4 tbsp water
- 1/2 cup spiced rum
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x5 in loaf pan. 
In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, beat sugar and butter until fluffly and creamy. Add each egg one at a time, until well incorporated

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda & powder, cinnamon, and salt.

In another bowl, mash together the bananas. You could use a fork, but I prefer to use my hands. As they say, a chef's best tool is her hands :) Add the vanilla extract to this mixture after mashed up good.

Add bananas to stand mixer and blend until thoroughly incorporated. Next, add the flour mixture and sour cream- alternating each in 3 increments, starting and ending with the flour.

Pour into the prepared pan, and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for 10 or so minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack.
*tip- place tin foil until the rack for easy clean up after glazing the breads.

While the bread is cooling, make the glaze. Bring the butter, sugar, and water up to a boil in a small saucepan. Once it boils, quickly turn the heat to medium low and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Watch it, if it starts to grow then stir it to bring it down.

*tip: when making any kind of hot sugar mixture, you must always keep an eye on it. Its not the time to get involved with anything else because in one second it can boil over or burn.
After 5 minutes, turn off the heat and add the rum and vanilla extract.

This next step is purely optional and based on each persons preference. If you do not like a strong alcohol flavor in your glaze, then you can put it over heat again and let it boil for about 2 minutes. This should cook off some of the alcohol flavor, but it will still taste like a rum sauce.

I did this because I tasted it after the first step and thought it was just too strong, but again this is purely optional.


If you want a clear, thin glaze then you can stop here, but if you want to turn it into an icing then let the rum glaze cool for about 30 minutes. Then whisk in about 1/2 cup powdered sugar and keep whisking until there are no lumps and it turns into a thick, white icing.

I like the use a spoon and drizzle the icing over the cake, there really is no right or wrong way to do it. Make any design you want to.

....and voilà! my version of a bananas foster banana bread


enjoy! :)

*Note- I doubled the bread recipe and made two loaves because I had 6 bananas to use.