Brown Butter Black Sesame Banana Bread Cake

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Hello!! Happy Saturday. Today is the day that I’ve realized no matter how much you talk about your wedding, it doesn’t correlate to making the seating chart any easier. That has been my hobby for the past week and honestly, who needs knitting anymore.

But anyway, we are full-swing into the spring season. Meaning: we are all craving banana bread for reasons we cannot explain. Two weeks ago I saw my banana bread recipe trending on my blog, and all I could think was: ooooohhh girl, if only they knew what was coming.

So with that, I’m excited to share this week’s episode of “Cooking for Fun”! Brown Butter Black Sesame Banana Bread Cake, which you can watch here.

The video!

What I like about cakes, especially hand-whisked batters, is that the work-to-reward ratio is off the charts. A cake, even a single-layer one, is just always a showstopper. It signals time and care, and the communal aspect of slicing into something tops cookies every time. (But don’t worry, I still love cookies)

Black sesame is the big differentiator in this cake, with toasted black sesame mixed into the batter as well as incorporated into the not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting. When it comes to the white-sesame-vs.-black-sesame debate, I say it depends on what you are looking for. White sesame doesn’t have the exterior hull, making it softer, sweeter and more peanut-butter-nutty. Black sesame’s hull gives it a slight bitterness that I equate to coffee-nuttiness. Try black tahini and white tahini side-by-side and you’ll see what I mean.

In this cake I think that espresso bitterness plays nicely with the toasted brown butter, but you can easily swap for white sesame seeds if that’s a better fit for you. The one thing I will ask is that you toast the oblivion out of either.

Brown butter is basically tattooed on my body at this point (there is a butter tattoo on my arm so…we’re nearly there), but it has been a real pain for me in baking recipes lately. Maybe it’s coming with age, but lately I just do not have the patience to let it cool.

In this cake I streamlined the cooling, making it so that you mash the bananas into the brown butter - creating a toasty, caramelized banana flavor, while also cooling the brown butter quickly so you don’t have to wait to start the rest of the recipe. Corporate efficiency. Synergy.

When filming this video we had to make a swap cake (not mandatory, but so useful when filming) and it was about 48 hours old by the time we filmed. I’m thrilled to say our banana cake stayed as moist as ever, and that’s partially due to the greek yogurt or skyr mixed in. I call it “moisture reassurance,” - no matter how ripe your bananas are, a small amount of yogurt mixed into a batter will make sure you get an evenly cooked but moist cake every time.

Because a dry banana cake? Torture. Scary. Unfair to bananas everywhere.

The salt head in me would also like to request that you don’t skip the flaky salt on top.

Okay, thank you and ily.

The Recipe!

***If you missed the announcement, two weeks ago I shared that all “Cooking for Fun” recipes will be behind my Substack paywall and viewable on YouTube. All of my short-form video recipes and additional newsletter content remains paywall-free on JustineSnacks.com. Thank you for your support <3

INGREDIENTS

For the banana cake