Sweet and squidgy white chocolate banana blondies with crunchy caramelised brazil nuts for contrasting texture and flavour. When you’ve got overripe bananas and need something sweet, just whip yourself up a batch. They don’t take long.
Bananas
When it comes to bananas, CT and I are not fans. Strange, therefore, that I ended up buying a whole bunch of cheap bananas the other day. My eye for a bargain has let me down on numerous occasions, as a box full of ready made pasta sauces languishing at the back of a cupboard will testify.
I worked my way through a load of apples and then pumpkins and now it looks as though it’s the turn of bananas. This may be the first of many posts on the subject!
If I’m going to eat bananas, baked in cakes is one of the best ways, so I dutifully leafed through my baking books. Being in the mood for something sweet and comforting, Dan’s Lepard’s banana blondies in his brilliant book Short & Sweet sounded just the ticket with lots of sugar, white chocolate and caramel. You couldn’t get much sweeter than that.
p.s Turns out this recipe for banana blondies was a turning point for me. I now really like baking with bananas and you’ll find many banana recipes here on Tin and Thyme to prove it.
Banana Blondies with Caramelised Nuts
Dan Lepard is the king of baking. But despite that, I tinkered with his recipe. I just can’t help myself. Even though these banana blondies aren’t meant to be in any way healthy, I do like to get a bit of roughage in when I can. Thus wholemeal flour found its way into the mix rather than plain. To mitigate against the slightly heavier flour, I upped the quantity of baking powder too. And I reduced the sugar a little, though you’ll find there’s still plenty in there.
As I found out when I cut this first batch of banana blondies, they weren’t really quite cooked enough. I reckon another three minutes would have been a good idea. The ones around the edge were just about perfect, but the middle was decidedly on the squidgy side.
However, as I infinitely prefer under cooked to overcooked brownies, I wasn’t going to complain. Oh no, indeed not, these were just the scrumptiously sweet little bites of delight I was hoping for – even with the banana. The crunch of caramelised nuts is excellent for both contrasting texture and flavour and they’re really delicious in their own right.
You don’t have to use brazil nuts of course, you can include whatever ones you fancy or have to hand. I really like them though and they seem to work particularly well with bananas.
Other Blondie Recipes You Might Like
- Blondies
- Caramelised blueberry blondies
- Coconut & ground cherry blondies
- Matcha blondies
- Peanut butter blondies
- Raspberry blondies
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these banana blondies, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more banana recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Banana Blondies. PIN IT.
Banana Blondies – The Recipe
Banana Blondies with Caramelised Nuts
Ingredients
Brazil Nut Caramel
- 75 g golden caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
- 2 tbsp water
- 75 g Brazil nuts – roughly chopped
Banana Blondies
- 100 g unsalted butter
- 200 g vanilla flavoured white chocolate
- 200 g golden caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (I omitted this as I used vanilla sugar)
- 2 ripe to overripe bananas – peeled and finely chopped
- 225 g wholemeal flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
Instructions
Brazil Nut Caramel
- Place a large pan over a low heat and pour in the sugar followed by the water.
- Allow the sugar to dissolve then up the heat until the sugar is boiling. Let it boil for about five minutes until the colour starts to darken and a drop plopped into a glass of cold water sets hard. Getting this bit right is always tricky as you want a hard caramel but not a burnt one.
- Stir in the Brazil nuts then quickly pour out onto a piece of baking parchment to cool and set.
- Once set, break into small pieces.
Banana Blondies
- Melt the butter and white chocolate over a low heat in the same pan that you make the caramel in. I’m a great believer in saving on washing up.
- Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar.
- Beat in the egg and vanilla extract followed by the bananas.
- Sift in the flour and baking powder, discarding any particularly large bits of bran left in the sieve.
- Add the caramelised nuts and mix until just combined.
- Spoon into a 23 cm (9") sq silicone cake mould or lined tin and bake at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for twenty five minutes or until the top is just firm to the touch, but there's a slight wobble in the centre. Underdone brownies are much nicer than overdone ones.
- Leave to cool, then cut into sixteen squares.
Didn’t realize these were meant to be like brownies, and pleased to hear that they can be eaten if slightly undercooked, as unsure if I could eat mine 🙂
Wow, these sound sooooooo good!
I have a Banana hater in my house too! I have this book, so I’ll have to try these and see if Mr Riverside can stomach them, surprisingly he had no problem with chocolate banana bread!
These sound delicious! May have to try..
I love banana cake but I’d never heard of banana brownies. I’d leave out the nuts (as my kids don’t like nuts).
These were really good Maya, but they wouldn’t be the same without the caramel. I guess you could substitute the nuts with pieces of fudge?
I don’t know how this post passed me by last year, but these look delicious! And I do exactly the same thing with bargains – my local shop had mars bars on sale for 20p – I would never ever buy one to eat but now I have 6 waiting to be baked into something!
And somehow, I missed your comment. I’m now intrigued as to what you used those mars bars in.
WLM – squidgy brownies are yum – just wishing I had one to eat now!
Jill – he he. I guess there are worse things than bananas to get cravings for. These were really good (if very sweet) and they’ve gone onto my to make again list.
Wow – they do sound sweet but definitely comforting and perfect for this time of year. Isn’t that funny about you shying away from bananas? I ate so many when I was first pregnant that I’ve never touched one again but by the sound of your quest here, you’ve convinced me to give them a go again. Love the look of their texture!
oooh how lovely.I also prefer slightly undercooked brownies and cookies. nice ideas.
Aveen, don’t tell him they’ve got banana in and see if he notices – or is that too naughty?
I haven’t made these yet, but my copy of the book seems to fall open at this page and I stare at it drooling – sadly my husband refuses to eat anything containing banana. I’m going to have to make them and feed them to my workmates just so I can try one myself!
Dom – it’s not the flavour I object too, it’s something to do with the starchy texture. So I’m happy with them in cakes and smoothies -it’s just not up there with my top list of flavours. Dan does have his own forum, as it happens and it seems to be quite popular – no surprises there!
Katie – me too, I have cupboard loads of “bargains” that sit there whilst I scratch my head as to what to do with them.
MCB – thanks. Made another banana cake with some and some banana porridge, but still have a couple left that are looking decidedly ropey!
Gary – as long as you are after something sweet, these are delicious.
Little Loaf – these are very sweet. They were very much like fudge, both in sweetness levels and texture, but seriously good nonetheless. I love brownies, but sometimes it’s good to do something a little different – still have two brownie posts to put up from way back – both of those were seriously good too!
Claire – I like sweet treats you can kid yourself that the good balances out the bad 😉 The pictures only show the cooked bits around the edge, not the liquid bit in the middle. But the next day they had solidified and were just like pieces of fudge.
FoodyCat – that man Dan seems to have lots of clever ideas!
Kath – the caramelised nuts worked really well and not something I’d have thought of. I am happy to take the blame for any number of pieces of cake 😉
Jude – these did firm up the next day and were really delicious. Very sweet so a little goes a long way – kept us going for the week.
Anna – thank you. Nothing worse (well perhaps there is really) than an over baked brownie.
JW – strange isn’t it, how certain foods can do that.
Baking Addict – now there’s a co-incidence. I think you’d love these. Sounds as if we might be expecting a brownie from you for WSC. You can never have too many brownie recipes 😉
Helen – Thank you. I do a lot of that!
Laura – this post has made me feel a lot better for feeling iffy about bananas. Now realise I’m not in the tiny minority I thought I was.
Karen – you need quite a sweet tooth for this one as well as a love of bananas. But they are well worth making.
Tori – he he, this is always my problem with brownie type bakes – dangerously good indeed.
GG – Thanks. Your oreo blondies sound most intriguing.
Johanna – oh yes, mushy bananas are really horrible unless baked in a cake. These do come with a high sugar warning though.
AVP – these were definitely ones for the sweet toothed. But we just had a little bit each day and it lasted us the week.
I’m not partial to bananas or the by product called white chocolate. A sugar buzz overload – although my Dad (aka)Victor Meldrew would be partial. Thanks 🙂
Oh I know that feeling – I am very fussy about bananas and once they get too ripe i go off them – assume that this might be a way to use up bananas that aren’t so yellow any more – if so it could be just the recipe for me
Great looking blondies, I’ll have to try them. I have just made Blondies with Oreos. Zeitgeist. GG
Banana, white chocolate and caramel- what a great trio. I think these might prove dangerously good.
Now I DO like bananas, and so this recipe LEAPT right out at me! They look totally divine and what a great way of using those “bargain” bananas too!
I had noticed this recipe in Dan’s book and your description of it now confirms to me they are as good as they look/ read in the recipe. I sort of like bananas but think they always taste better in cakes and I am not keen on their smell either!! X
Sound delicious, you could almost convince yourself they’re healthy. Almost.
I love baking with bananas and almost always have a bunch waiting to ripen. Coincidentally I saw this recipe in his book a few hours ago when I was debating if I should rustle up something for National Brownie Day but have decided to make my We should cocoa entry instead, unless I get distracted by something else! These look amazing, must must try them.
I think I like Blondies even better than brownies and I can imagine how moist the banana would make them. Will mark up that recipe from Dan for future reference!
I’m also not a huge fan of bananas, especially in baked foods. There’s something about a mushy banana that just turns my stomach. However, despite my reservations, these look terrific! I’m loving the color and texture achieved here…
They look simply gorgeous! And you’re sooo right, better to be under than over cooked!
Perfect, I’m always buying bananas for healthy eating and then as no one touches them they are ready for a lovely weekend bake, so I’ll try these. Thanks for the tip about leaving them in, though I’m with you, I prefer squiddgy brownies and blondies!
I like the sound of the crunch of the caramelised nuts very much. I like bananas, but not so much in a cake. I reckon I could probably eat one, or two, of these though, but only if you made me 😉
Banana blondies, what a clever idea!
Do these count as one of your 5 a day? Yeah, I thought so! Love the idea of the caramel nuts, I never saw that before. They look great, even if you think they’re under-cooked 🙂
Yum yum yum! I’ve been eyeing up those blondies and wondering if they might be a little sweet with all that caramel and white chocolate, but they do look seriously good in the pic. Am impressed that you made blondies over brownies – would have thought you’d opt for the maximum chocolate factor 🙂
these look lovely, always liked bananas in cakes, may have to give them ago.
Love blondies! These sound delivious. Good luck with using up the bananas!
These sounds yummy. Not seen a banana blondie before. Love the sound of the caramelised nuts inside.
I always find it hard to resist a bragin. Soemtimes I buy things without a clue what I’m goign to do with them. Baking often come to the rescue though 🙂
This Dan fellow should start his own blog! They look so good. I can’t believe you’re not a banana fan. They’re so very good for you, well not so much when surrounded by sugar and white chocolate but even these blondies must have made you smile!!