Apple Butter Banana Bread

I’m a big lover of farmer’s markets and/or the small stores you see generally attached to small orchards, and every time I go to one, I always find myself going straight to the jarred goods section, where the vendors typically sells their in-house made preserves, jams, pickles, etc.

I tend to get a bit giddy when/if they have a wide selection to choose from, as I think jams/preserves/jellies and pickles are such a great way to use fresh produce, especially when it’s starting to lose some of its freshness. They keep for a very long time, and they can be used in a LOT of different ways.

I typically love to use pickles, gherkins, cha-cha/chow-chow (if you know, you know) as a tangy addition to my salads, mixed into collard greens, or even on deli sandwiches.

Because I bake a lot of biscuits and scones, I’m always looking on the aisles to see what kind of preserves or jams the vendor has. It’s not always common, but always very appreciated when I see that in addition to making fruit jams and preserves, they make fruit butters.

Fruit butters come from when a fruit is cooked for a very long time over low hear until its and its flavors becomes caramelized and it breaks down into a spreadable consistency–like spreadable butter. The name is a bit misleading, as there is typically no butter in fruit butter. But don’t let that disabuse you of its qualities: it’s fantastic stuff.

You can make fruit butter out of a number of fruits (heck, you can even make it out of pumpkins/squash), but my favorite will always be apple butter. It’s one of my favorite foods to eat during the autumn, but I’ve also experimented with it a few times in cooking and baking, to really tasty results. Today’s recipe adds another tasty experiment to the list.

Banana bread is already great by itself, but pairing it with apple butter gives this batter an added boost of both moisture and flavor. It comes together in minutes and can be made entirely by hand. And while apple butter is, typically very sweet, that sweetness gets mellowed in this loaf to the point that it doesn’t overpower the flavor of the mashed bananas at all.

Now, this recipe does specify apple butter, but honestly, it would work with whatever butter you’ve got on hand right now. That includes pumpkin butter, or even peach/nectarine butter (yes, that’s a thing, and it’s delicious. I’ll make a recipe for it here soon!).

Enjoy!

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Apple Butter Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 slightly beaten eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup mashed ripe banana (2 small)
½ cup apple butter
¼ cup canola or cooking oil

Directions

Grease and flour the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Make a well in center of the flour mixture; set aside.

In a medium bowl combine eggs, sugar, banana, apple butter, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven about 45 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.