One of the downsides to trying to balance keeping up with recipe development jobs and making sure I have fresh content to post here is that I rarely have time to make recipes created by other people. (I’m not complaining – I love what I do and can’t get over the fact that big companies are actually willing pay me to play in the kitchen!)
Then I heard about the Secret Recipe Club, which pairs up bloggers each month and has them make, test, and write about another blogger’s recipe – meaning not only that I’d get to make something created by someone else, but I’d also get feedback on my recipes. Win-Win, right? Unfortunately, a lot of people agreed that it was a great concept – I’ve been on the waiting list for months. But I finally made it into a group, and I couldn’t be more excited!
For my first month participating in SRC, I was assigned to The More Than Occasional Baker. I considered making something sinfully decadent like Peanut Butter Toblerone Cheesecake (!!!) but ultimately settled on the Earl Grey Banana Bread. What can I say? I’ve been searching for a better banana bread recipe, and I adore Earl Grey.
This recipe is definitely a keeper! It’s light and fluffy, but also super moist – it’s totally not the kind of banana bread that requires a smear of butter to make it edible. The tea flavor is subtle, but it adds a really interesting layer of flavor that I loved. Same for the brown sugar, which adds slight caramel notes, and the turbinado sugar on top, which gives the crust a sticky toffee-like crunch.
All in all, this is a great bread to either grab for a quick breakfast or to enjoy mid-afternoon with a mug of tea.
Earl Grey Banana Bread
Ingredients
- ½ cup Water
- 5 bags of Earl Grey tea
- ¼ cup packed Dark Brown Sugar
- ¾ cup Sugar
- ½ cup Butter
- 1 cup fat free Sour Cream
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 2 Eggs lightly beaten
- 2-1/4 cups all purpose Flour
- 3 very ripe Bananas mashed
- 2 tablespoons Turbinado Sugar Sugar in the Raw
- Preparation
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F.
- Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the tea bags. Allow the tea to steep for 5 minutes, then discard the tea bags. Add the sugars and butter and return the pan to the heat. Cook until the butter and sugars have melted into a thick syrup, about 2 minutes. Let cool.
- Combine the sour cream and baking soda in a large bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes. Stir in the cooled tea syrup and the eggs. Sift in the flour and fold gently to combine. Fold in the mashed bananas.
- Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans. Sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar.
- Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Doesn’t the tea make you completely high, though? has anyone fed this to children?
high? I don’t know about that… there’s some caffeine, but not a ton. You could always use decaf tea though if you wanted. 🙂
When I read this recipe, I immediately thought of chia tea! I bet using chai instead of earl grey adds an amazing spicy dimension. Add a few extra spices…yum! You should come up with a recipe for chai tea banana bread and share it on your site!
My comfort food for breakfast!
Thanks for letting me know!
And a question – any idea what the sugar content is out of the 32 grams carbs? I have to watch both carbs & sugars so it would be great if I could know whether this is something I can not just bake for the family but also enjoy myself. Thanks in advance!
16.2 grams if you skip the sugar on top; 17.3 grams with the sugar on top.
Tea in banana bread sounds so intriguing & I’m currently banana-bread-obsessed so this is another one to bookmark and revisit later.
I meant to comment the very day you published, to welcome to the SRC club (I’ve been a member for 4 months only and LOVE IT!)
you picked a winner of a recipe – I am always searching for ways to incorporate tea in recipes, even bought a book recently on the subject (called Culinary Tea, in case you are interested, and NO, I don’t work for the publisher! 😉
Welcome to SRC, look forward to your next post on it!
my coworker loves Earl Grey tea. I should make this for her to have with our 3 o’clock tea.
This is the second recipe I’ve seen in this month’s src that used tea. Pretty interesting. Your banana bread looks delicious.
Wow, what an amazing bunch of recipes this month!I love cooking with tea whenever I get the chance.