Join Chef John as he unveils the secrets to creating luscious banana-infused brownies. From his useful all-around baking tips to the unique banana bread twist, improve your dessert options with this gooey brownie delight. Follow along for an indulgent experience, and learn how to make truly delicious banana bread brownies.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with banana bread brownies.
00:08 That's right, we're making brownies that taste like banana bread, which were as good as they
00:12 sound.
00:13 Plus, as an optional garnish, I'm also going to show you how to brulee banana.
00:18 Or maybe I'm going to show you how not to brulee banana, since there was a little bit
00:21 of an incident.
00:23 But we'll get into that later.
00:25 And for now, we'll start these amazing brownies by generously buttering a 9x9 square pan.
00:29 And then, if we want to be extra safe, we can cut a piece of parchment to fit the bottom.
00:34 And we can lay that in and turn it over, and then press that down smooth.
00:38 And you probably don't need that if you're just going to serve them out of the pan.
00:42 But I wasn't sure how I was going to present this, so I decided to put that in.
00:47 And then once our pan's prepped, we can mix up our dry ingredients, which are the ingredients
00:51 that aren't wet.
00:53 And that will include some all-purpose flour, some salt, some baking powder, as well as
00:59 its good friend, baking soda.
01:02 And what we'll do is take a whisk and give that a good stir, just to make sure everything's
01:06 evenly distributed.
01:08 And once we feel like that's happened, we will set that aside.
01:11 And we will move on to the not-dry ingredients, including the star of the show, some ripe
01:16 banana.
01:17 And I'm going to use two, which I'm smashing into this measuring cup, just so I can give
01:22 you some kind of accurate measurement.
01:23 And yes, we do have a few black spots, since these were very ripe and very sweet.
01:29 But unlike, say, banana bread, the bananas don't have to be super dark and super, super
01:33 ripe.
01:34 Or as long as they're sweet, they're going to work.
01:36 And what we'll do before we use these is mash them up with a fork into a fairly fine puree,
01:42 which is going to take a minute or two using this method.
01:45 But there's no way I'm going to dirty a blender for this.
01:48 So I just kept mixing and a-mashing, smooshing and a-smashing with the fork, until the mixture
01:52 looked like this.
01:54 To which point we'll set that aside and move on to another star ingredient, some beautiful
01:59 dark chocolate.
02:00 And what we'll do is break up a couple ounces into a bowl, since we're going to need to
02:04 use this in its melted liquid form.
02:07 And for me, the easiest way to do that is to zap this in the microwave for like 20 seconds
02:11 at a time, until it's nicely melted and very stirrable like this.
02:16 And by the way, we'll want to do this right before we make the batter, so it doesn't harden
02:20 back up.
02:22 And then speaking of the batter, once that prep's done, we will add some white sugar
02:26 to some room temperature butter.
02:28 We don't want melted butter, but the softer the better.
02:31 And then we'll take a whisk or an electric mixer, and we will blend that until we have
02:34 a nice light fluffy mixture.
02:37 And do I wish my butter was a little bit softer here?
02:39 Well, yes.
02:40 Yes, I do.
02:41 But as long as it's at least this soft, everything will eventually blend together.
02:46 And in a minute or two, you should end up with something that looks like this.
02:49 At which point we will stop and add one large egg, plus a small but important addition of
02:54 vanilla extract.
02:55 Oh yeah, the pure and the real.
02:58 And then we'll also at this time add our ripe fresh banana puree.
03:02 And we will mix all this together until everything's incorporated.
03:05 And fair warning, visually speaking, this is going to be the least attractive step,
03:11 since banana puree does not love to be mixed into this much butter.
03:15 So the mixture is going to have kind of an odd look to it, and look a little bit grainy
03:19 and possibly separated.
03:21 But it does not matter, since once we give that an initial mix, we will stop and add
03:25 our melted chocolate, and then continue blending.
03:29 And you'll see as if by magic, everything will come together into a beautiful gorgeous
03:33 smooth mixture that's going to sort of resemble chocolate cake batter.
03:37 Oh, and if you didn't work fast enough, and your chocolate hardened back up, just melt
03:41 it again.
03:42 But anyway, once we have that all mixed together nicely, we will stop.
03:47 And we will add some chopped walnuts, which are a key banana bread ingredient, as well
03:52 as some chocolate chips, since we really do want these to taste and feel like brownies.
03:56 And what we'll do is take a spatula and give that a quick mix before we add our flour mixture,
04:01 which a lot of people might dump in at the same time.
04:04 But I learned the hard way as a young cook, that flour can get stuck in the nooks and
04:08 crannies of a walnut.
04:09 And then after whatever you're making bakes, you'll see little spots of white where the
04:13 flour didn't incorporate into the batter.
04:15 So I prefer to add the dry ingredients last.
04:18 And we will carefully mix, fold, and stir all that together.
04:21 And then we're going to use the same technique used for pretty much all batters that include
04:25 flour.
04:26 We are only going to mix until the flour just barely disappears, since any mixing after
04:31 that point is officially over mixing.
04:34 So like I said, as soon as that flour disappears, we will transfer that into our prepared pan.
04:39 And we'll make sure we're spreading that out nice and evenly, paying special attention
04:43 that we're getting that pushed into the corners.
04:46 And then eventually we'll smooth the top out as best we can.
04:49 And once that's been accomplished, we could just bake these, and we would have some beautiful
04:53 brownies.
04:54 But us chef type people, we're famous for trying to make things look better.
04:58 Especially things that don't need to look better, like a pan of brownies.
05:02 But anyway, I decided to add some sliced banana to the top.
05:05 And since I'm going to cut these into 12 portions, I laid those down in a 3 by 4 pattern.
05:10 So each brownie would have one slice of banana.
05:13 And that's it.
05:14 Once we have our batter banana-ed, this is ready to transfer into the center of a 350
05:19 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so.
05:22 Or until it looks like this.
05:25 And like all brownies, it's a little tricky to tell if they're done by poking it with
05:29 a bamboo skewer.
05:31 Since if it comes out clean, it's probably overcooked.
05:33 All right, what we want to see is just a little bit of chocolate on the bottom.
05:36 All right, see that?
05:39 That is pretty much perfect.
05:40 If that skewer is covered with batter, it would be still undercooked.
05:44 And you want to give it a couple more minutes.
05:46 But anyway, once we've determined it's cooked long enough, we will definitely let this cool
05:49 down before we try to serve it.
05:51 In fact, I always like to serve my brownies cold.
05:54 And at this point, I think this looks perfectly beautiful.
05:57 And I would have no problem serving it like this.
05:59 And you probably should.
06:01 Maybe just brush over some honey or some maple syrup to shine those slices up.
06:05 But I really wanted to try to brulee the bananas, which means burning some sugar over the top.
06:09 All right, if you've ever had a creme brulee, and I really hope you have, you'll know exactly
06:14 what we're talking about.
06:16 So what I did is sprinkle about a half teaspoon of sugar on each banana.
06:19 And then I fired up my blowtorch and turned it down to the smallest flame I could.
06:24 And I started to brulee, trying to be super careful that I was only burning the sugar.
06:29 And I actually did very good until I got to that middle one in the back, which due to
06:34 a momentary lapse of concentration, I did too much.
06:38 And I'm sorry, that was done between shots.
06:40 But anyway, once that happened, I had a choice to make.
06:43 Have one that's too dark and 11 that aren't, or torch the other 11 more so that they might
06:48 match, which for better or worse, was the way I went.
06:53 And because I had charred some of the crust around that one in the back, I actually went
06:56 around intentionally burning some of the crust around the other bananas, just to give the
07:00 surface a more uniform look.
07:03 And even though it looks like things are burning, the reason I wasn't really concerned is because
07:07 I knew it was not going to affect the flavor in a bad way.
07:10 It's the bitterness of the bruleed sugar on a creme brulee that makes everything taste
07:14 so amazing.
07:15 So I was not concerned I'd ruin things.
07:17 My only concern was the visual appearance.
07:19 I mean, generally, we don't want to hand people a brownie with a burnt surface.
07:23 But because of the bruleed banana in the middle, I thought people would understand.
07:28 But anyway, once I was finally done fussing around, I wrapped those up and let them chill
07:31 completely before I pulled them out so I could cut them up and go in for a taste.
07:37 Oh, and I think next time I make these, and there will definitely be a next time, I think
07:41 I'll try to brulee the banana before these are baked, so that just the bananas are bruleed
07:47 and we do not have to worry about torturing the crust.
07:50 So I'll probably try it that way next time.
07:52 But anyway, let me go ahead and serve this up.
07:55 And that, my friends, despite that little bit of issue with the bruleeing, really ended
07:59 up being a tremendous bite of brownie.
08:02 OK, the flavor of this is very much banana bread, but the texture is surprisingly close
08:07 to a brownie.
08:08 And in these shots, it might look a little bit on the cakey side, but they really did
08:12 have a fairly fudgy texture.
08:15 And I thought just the right amount of chewiness to them.
08:18 And then because we did brulee those bananas, we get that little bit of burnt sugar bitterness
08:22 coming through.
08:23 And if I only teach you one thing in these videos, it should be that a little bit of
08:27 bitterness, as long as it's not overpowering, will make all the other flavors taste better.
08:33 But anyway, having said that, as I mentioned, the bananas are optional.
08:37 And whether you add them and try to brulee is going to be up to you.
08:40 I mean, you are after all the Howard Stern of whether your banana gets burned.
08:44 But whether you garnish the top or not, if you're a fan of banana bread and you enjoy
08:49 a good brownie, you are going to absolutely love these.
08:54 Which is why I really do hope you give these a try soon.
08:58 So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much
09:03 more info as usual.
09:05 And as always, enjoy.
09:08 [music]
09:11 [music]
09:16 [music]
09:19 [music]
09:22 [music]
09:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]