Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread
The spicy, aromatic flavors of chai tea come together with everyone’s favorite baked good, banana bread, to create a loaf that is moist and super rich in flavor! This Chai Spiced Banana Bread is also topped with a buttery, rich streusel topping that adds a nice crunchy texture to the banana bread! The gorgeous chai spiced comes in 2 forms – chai tea that is infused into the buttermilk, as well as with the combination of a few aromatic spices: cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, and ginger. This chai banana loaf is rather simple to make, and doesn’t require any stand mixers or other fancy equipment.
INFUSING THE BUTTERMILK WITH THE CHAI TEA
The first step in creating this Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread is infusing the buttermilk with the tea. This process starts by heating up the buttermilk in a small saucepan until it just barely gets to a simmer. Remove it from the heat and place 3 Chai Tea bags into it. It may seem like a lot of tea for such a small amount of milk, but the flavor has to be extremely concentrated to properly flavor the cake! Next, place a piece of plastic over the surface of the milk (to prevent a skin from forming), and place the saucepan into the fridge to cool down and infuse, for at least 2 hours. After the buttermilk has cooled and infused, remove the tea bags and press on them to release any milk that is still within the tea bags, then discard the tea bags.
MAKING THE Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread
1.Whisk together the dry ingredients: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and allspice.
2. Whisk together the wet ingredients: In a separate large bowl or large measuring cup, add the eggs, sugar, melted butter, mashed bananas, chai-buttermilk, and vanilla. Whisk the wet ingredients together until they are well-combined and smooth.
3. Add wet to dry: Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, mix the batter together until it smooth and well-combined, but be careful not to overmix!
4. Bake: Add the batter evenly into a 9×5” prepared loaf pan, then place into the oven to bake for 30 minutes.
4. Top with streusel and finish baking: After about 30 minutes of baking, carefully sprinkle the streusel topping on top of the cake, then cook for an additional 20 minutes.
HOW RIPE SHOULD THE BANANAS BE?
It is crucial in this Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread recipe that you use overripe bananas – they should actually be verging on black! Why you ask? Well because the texture is better and they are sweeter! The ripening process for bananas turns the starch molecules into sugar molecules, and the results of this are twofold. Most apparent, is that the bananas become significantly sweeter, but the breaking down of the starch structures also cause the banana to become softer and mushier, which is needed to achieve the right texture for your Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread!
Don’t have overripe bananas? Well, really, the only way to ripen them quickly is to put them in a brown bag and let them sit. The brown bag allows moisture to escape, while still trapping the ethylene gas in the bag, leading to faster ripening. This should quicken the ripening process by a day or two. Some people suggest that you can put the bananas in the freezer to ripen quickly, but sadly, this doesn’t work. Freezing the bananas will actually completely stop the ripening process in its tracks! Definitely not what you want. As well, some suggest that baking the banana in the oven until the peel turns black will also result in properly ripe bananas, but this doesn’t work either. Baking the bananas will get you the proper texture (mushy), but the process of baking does not turn the starch molecules into sugar, and as such you will not have the proper sweetness or flavor. So, sadly, there is no quick fix for unripe bananas, you must just sit and wait.
How to Make Streusel Topping
To make the streusel topping for this Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread, you want to start by whisking together the flour and brown sugar in a large bowl. Next, add in the cubed cold butter and begin working the butter into the flour/sugar with your hands until it begins to form into little pea-shaped bits. Place the streusel into the fridge for about half an hour to resolidify. This cooling period in the fridge causes the butter to reharden, which is essential to a perfectly crunch streusel topping.
Get the Recipe: Chai Spiced Streusel Banana Bread
Ingredients
Streusel Topping
- 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp (75g) All Purpose Flour
- 1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
- 1/4 cup Cold Unsalted Butter,, cubed
Chai Spiced Banana Bread
- 1/2 cup Buttermilk
- 3 Chai Tea Bags
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter,, melted
- 1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 3 Overripe Bananas,, mashed very smooth
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups (180g) All Purpose Flour,, measured correctly†
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp Ginger
- 3/4 tsp Allspice
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom
Instructions
Streusel Topping
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and brown sugar until well-combined.
- Add cold, cubed butter to the mixing bowl, and work the butter into the flour/sugar with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work until all the butter has been worked in and the mixture is crumbly and resembles a bunch of small peas.
- Place into the fridge for at least 30 minutes
Chai Spiced Banana Bread
- Add buttermilk to a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring the buttermilk to a simmer then immediately remove from heat. Place the tea bags into the milk and gently stir. Place a piece of plastic over the surface of the milk and place into the fridge to cool and steep for about 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Meanwhile, add the melted butter, brown sugar, eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla, and chai-buttermilk, to a large mixing bowl, and beat with a handmixer or a whisk until it has formed a smooth consistency.
- In a separate bowl, add the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cardamom. Whisk until well combined, then add this dry mixture to the wet mixture. beat until just combined, ensuring not to overmix.
- Place batter into a 9×5” loaf pan fitted with parchment paper, and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, very carefully (if you’re not careful it could deflate the banana loaf) sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the loaf. Return to the oven for an additional 20-25 minutes, over until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
It was ……… okay.