Raspberry White Chocolate Banana Bread

The flavor combination of raspberries, white chocolate, and bananas is the banana bread you never knew you needed. Indulge your taste buds with this raspberry white chocolate banana bread.

Homemade banana bread is an irresistible dessert for anytime. Making and baking banana bread feels, smells, and tastes like you have reached the peak of baking. But this raspberry white chocolate banana bread will let you know you have reached the epitome of banana bread. It is moist, sweet, crispy, flavorful, and melt in your mouth delicious banana bread.

Adding 1 cup of sweet, ripe, fresh raspberries to banana bread is a real flavor enhancer. But adding almost a full cup of white chocolate chips to banana bread along side the raspberries will make sure your taste buds are experiencing a burst of scrumptious flavor.

Yes, the raspberries and white chocolate chips are making this raspberry white chocolate banana bread so good. But there are two additional ingredients that really boost the moistness and crispiness of this banana bread; browned butter and a sprinkle of sugar on the top just before baking.  I have never baked with browned butter before and it was a game changer, believe me I will be doing it again. Browned butter brings a nutty flavor with it and adds this great flavor to anything it is baked with.

How to brown butter?

This is fairly simple, especially if you are watching your butter and not being distracted by anything else.

In a light colored saucepan, (so you can see the butter change color), over low to medium heat, add your sliced butter. Yes, slice the butter so it will melt evenly.

Melt the butter, stirring occasionally. Once the butter is melted, set a timer for 2 to 3 minutes. Continue to stir the butter occasionally until the timer rings. Add an additional 30 seconds or so if you feel it is needed. But it really isn’t. Remove from stovetop and cool in another bowl. The color will be golden, the flavor will be wonderful, and the butter will be perfect to add to the raspberry white chocolate banana bread batter. Plus it will smell so heavenly.

INGREDIENTS NEEDED FOR RASPBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE BANANA BREAD

ripe, sweet bananas
raspberries
white chocolate chips
flour – all purpose and wheat (the wheat flour is optional)
baking soda
baking powder
salt
sugar
eggs
yogurt
butter
vanilla

STEPS TO MAKING RASPBERRY WHITE CHOCOLATE BANANA BREAD

Number 1, spray the bottom and sides of a loaf pan, do not forget to do this or you will be leaving half your banana bread in the pan.

Preheat the oven, then brown the butter (see tips above for browning butter.)

Mash the bananas in one bowl – and make sure you are using the ripest sweetest bananas in your home. You will be stirring in the yogurt, eggs, and vanilla with the mashed bananas. Set this aside for a moment while you whisk together the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, add the flours (if you don’t want to use whole wheat or have whole wheat flour you can use just all purpose flour,) baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar – whisk this all together.

Gently add the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients until it is fully mixed. Now you will fold in the brown butter.

Dust the white chocolate chips with a tsp of flour, this is so the chips don’t just sink to the bottom of the batter and pan. Fold the chips in.

Now ever so gently fold all but 6 to 8 raspberries into the batter. This is just to mix the raspberries all around the batter, but if you whisk or stir the raspberries you will get more like raspberry jam and not whole sweet raspberry bursts of flavor in your banana bread.

Finally pour the batter into the loaf pan, tap it down a couple of times on the counter top to flatten the top. The extra raspberries set on the top of the batter, this adds a little beauty to the bread. There is another sweet tip you will want to do right here, sprinkle the top of the banana bread with a tablespoon of sugar. This sugar will add a burst of crisp to the top and is a real bonus to the raspberry white chocolate banana bread.

Bake the banana bread until a knife or toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean, about 55 to 65 minutes. Be sure to check the bread at the 55 minute mark and then add a little bit of time as needed. The toothpick should not have any wet banana batter on it, but a crumb or two is okay.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack. Here it can get a little tricky but I take a butter knife and completely go around the outside of the banana bread to make sure it is not sticking to the loaf pan. Turn it on the side to let the banana bread gently fall out. If it doesn’t come out easily use a flat spatula and gently nudge the bread out of the pan onto the cooling rack.

The bread slices best if allowed to cool completely, but believe me this is difficult to do with all that luscious smell coming at you.

Raspberry white chocolate banana bread was originally published on October 20, 2010. Photos and recipe was updated on April 2020.