butterscotch-banana bread

Calling all banana bread lovers out there! Have I got an insanely delish banana bread for you. This banana bread will take you to a whole other banana bread level--yes it's that good! Why? Well, the flavor of the butterscotch is so gentle and melds so perfectly with the banana. I think the trick was finding the right amount of butterscotch to put in, and of course the mascarpone cheese adds a lot of smoothness. You know how the flavor of butterscotch chips is kind of strong and chemicaly-testing? Well, I added just the right amount of butterscotch chips to meld perfectly with the bananas, and cheese to give it a wonderful light-sugary, banana taste. The taste is so hard to describe, but trust me, this banana bread is fabulous. No butter or cream cream will be needed on your slice of this. The leftovers, I swear only get better with time. Seriously, you need to make this.





butterscotch-banana bread
kind of, sort of adapted from The Secrets of Baking
print recipe

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup mascarpone cheese
6 ounce unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 fully ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9-x-5-3-inch loaf pan. (I did 2 of these). Make sure to grease and flour, do not skip this step!
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
Combine the buttermilk and mascarpone cheese in a small bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl beat eggs then combine them to the buttermilk & mascarpone mixture.
Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter with the cinnamon on high speed until soft and creamy, about 1 minute. Slowly add the sugar beating continuously on high speed.
The mixture should be light, fluffy and creamy white in color. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Add one third of the flour mixture to the batter and beat until it is just incorporated.
Add one third of the mascarpone cheese mixture and mix until just incorporated.
Add the flour and mascarpone mixture in two more additions, mixing until addition is incorporated before adding the next.
Fold in the mashed bananas and butterscotch chips.
Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (mine was done in an hour, so watch your bread as the hour-mark approaches, but I have a convection oven that seems to have a higher heat than most ovens; so your bread my take longer than an hour. always use a cake tester to judge if it's done or not).
Cool in the pan on a rack for 5-10 minutes, then remove from pan and set on rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature. Note: you might be tempted to add nuts to this - don't! I did and it just didn't taste the same.