I'd been meaning to try Claire Saffitz's recipe for Almond Butter Banana Bread from Dessert Person for a while, and finally got around to it yesterday afternoon. It was a decent enough distraction from some horrible tinnitus so for that it earns 5 stars. But honestly, it gets high reviews for other reasons, and I wish I'd tried it sooner. It's an interesting twist on regular banana bread and I love the almond butter swirl on top!

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Dessert Person

First, a plug for the cookbook, Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz. I did not receive a free copy, this is just me calling out great books which I want to do more often. I am not one to follow recipes by the letter and read cookbooks mainly for the personality of the author and ideas. Claire's a good writer and her recipes work. The book includes weights, so if you're kind of new to using a scale and looking for books where the authors measure with volume and a scale, check this one out. I'll write more about the book after I try more recipes.

Flavor and Texture Notes

But on to this recipe. The Almond Butter Banana Bread reminds me of the Cream Cheese Swirl Banana Bread, but with an almond butter swirl instead of cream cheese. But they're both completely different recipes. This one has a lot less sugar than the other and is less dense and sweet. Both are good for different reasons. The almond butter bread is definitely prettier when sliced.

My overall thoughts on the flavor and texture are basically that it doesn't taste a whole lot like almond butter (except for the swirl part) and the texture is super moist. If you like banana bread and almond butter, you will like this. Neither of the flavors compete. I barely tasted the cardamom at all, so if you are a cardamom lover you could add a little more.

Ingredients for Almond Butter Banana Bread

Here are the ingredients which I laid out, including the leavening agents plus salt and cardamom displayed oddly but in a way that made sense yesterday afternoon. I hope this is helpful for someone.

Almond Butter
Sugar
Coconut Oil
Eggs
Yogurt
Bananas
Flour
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Salt
Cardamom

See recipe card for quantities. Also, in Dessert Person Claire Saffitz mentions adding chopped almonds. I left them out and think I would do so in the future. The bread is so soft the almonds might seem out of place. Then again, she probably wouldn't have recommended them if they were. But it was fine without.

Instructions

Here's a rundown on the basic steps. If you've made banana bread before, you might recognize a few things. The almond butter swirl is the unique selling point.

Grease the loaf pan with coconut oil and line with parchment paper.

Grease a loaf pan and line with a strip of parchment paper. I like to grease pans with a silicone pastry brush and coconut oil.

Claire Saffitz Almond Butter Banana Bread Swirl Mixture being mixed.

Mix together 3 tablespoons of almond butter, 1 teaspoon of coconut oil and 1 tablespoon of sugar to make the swirl.

Mixing wet ingredients for Claire Saffitz Almond Butter Banana Bread

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, almond butter, coconut oil and yogurt. Stir in the bananas.

Flour being added to batter for Claire Saffitz Almond Butter Banana Bread

Separately, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom. Stir into batter.

Dessert Person Banana bread batter in the pan with the almond butter swirl on top

Pour into pan. Drop dollops of swirl mixture on top and drag a knife through.

Loaf of quick bread cooling in a loaf pan.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes and let cool for about 30 minutes in the pan. Remove from pan. Let cool completely.

Note: You can always leave off the parchment paper if you need to. I use it for extra insurance, but this bread should come out of the pan just fine with grease and flour only. If you use parchment, you can skip the flour.

Substitutions

Banana bread is almost always open to subtitutions. It may not be exactly the same, but it will still be good. As you know. As we all know.

Almond butter substitute -- I didn't have quite enough almond butter for the batter, so I incorporated some Kirkland mixed nut butter. It worked well. Tahini and peanut butter have been mentioned on the Dessert Person Reddit thread.
Yogurt substitute - Instead of yogurt you can use about 4 tablespoons of sour cream diluted with a tablespoon and a half of milk.
Coconut Oil -- I used refined coconut oil. For a coconut flavor, you could used refined. I'm guessing any neutral oil would work here
Flour -- A gluten-free blend at a 1:1 weight should work
Sugar -- You could try a sugar substitute in this bread since there's only ⅔ cup This Magic Baker is pretty good and doesn't contain sucralose.

Equipment

For the loaf pan, be sure to use one that's 8 ½ by 4 ½ inches rather than 9x5 so that the loaf will be tall rather than wide. But for the most part, you don't need any special equipment for Almond Butter Banana Bread. Everything is just stirred together in bowls. This is another plus for Dessert Person. The recipes don't involve a lot of equipment.

Storage

Store the banana bread at room temperature for a day or in the refrigerator for up to two days. For long term storage, cut into slices, wrap slices individually and freeze.

Other Recipes

If this recipe is not quite for you, here are a few others you might consider. The Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips is pretty traditional. If the cardamom caught your eye and you don't have bananas, how about some Cardamom Apple Bread? Or maybe you just need some Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Brownies. If you're just here for a Claire Saffitz recipe, I have one other one to recommend. It's behind a paywall, but her New York Times recipe for Croissants is really good. Fuzz made it a while back. There was a lot of swearing, but everyone loved the croissants.

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