Banana Bread Loaves with Salted Honey Cardamom Buttercream

These banana bread loaves are a sweet that deserves a spot on your next brunch spread. The salted honey cardamom buttercream is the perfect rich, salty-sweet complement to the springy, moist, lightly spiced banana bread. This recipe makes 5 5.5" x 3" loaves!

I swapped the butter and oil in the batter for greek yogurt. I used both honey and granulated sugar in the batter, but I've made these with only honey or maple syrup before and they've turned out. I love how adaptable banana bread is. I wanted to make this one more of a dessert without fully committing it to the role of dessert. Does that make sense?

Banana Bread

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 bananas approaching overripeness

1/3 c honey

½ cup granulated sugar

1 cup full fat greek yogurt

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

 

Instructions

 Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Step 2: Butter 5 mini loaf pans.

Step 3: In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cardamom, cinnamon, and salt.

Step 4: Add the bananas to the bowl of your stand mixer and beat them until smooth with the paddle attachment.

Step 5: Add the honey, granulated sugar, and the Greek yogurt and beat until well blended (there will be little bits of banana that don't get perfectly smooth).

Step 6: Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then beat in the vanilla.

Step 7: Add the dry ingredients to the stand mixer and stir just until the flour is incorporated (it should be lumpy).

Step 8: Spoon the mixture evenly into the tins. I used a little over 3/4 cups of batter per loaf.

Step 9: Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the mini loaves comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes. At this point, you can get started on the salted honey cardamom buttercream.

Step 10: Let cool for a few minutes in the tins on a wire rack, then turn the little loaves out onto the rack to finish cooling for at least 30 minutes before frosting. 

Step 11: After the loaves are cooled, add the finished buttercream to a piping bag with a medium-sized round tip. Frost the loaves with a simple zigzag like I did in the reference photo. I flipped mine upside-down so I could frost on the flat side, but either way works.

 

Salted Honey Cardamom Buttercream

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 tsp cardamom

 

Instructions

Step 1: Add the butter to the bowl of your stand mixer. Using the whisk, beat the butter on high until it’s pale in color and more voluminous.

Step 2: Gradually add in the honey--pour a little bit, whisk it in at medium speed, then add the rest, scraping down the bowl between additions.

Step 3: After all the honey has been added, whisk on the highest possible speed for 30 seconds.

Step 4: Add half the powdered sugar first, mixing on low speed.

Step 5: You can stop here or add as much powdered sugar as you like. It can handle way more, but remember that the more you add, the sandier the finished frosting will be.

Step 6: Add pinch of salt and cardamom. Whisk on high for a minute.

Step 7: Switch to a paddle attachment and stir on low speed to get any large air pockets out of the buttercream. 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! It was fun to make and *of course* got my husband's stamp of approval.