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Whole-Wheat Honey Peanut Butter Bread! With how tender this bread is you’d never know it was made with 100% whole-wheat flour. Natural peanut butter adds tons of flavor while honey and a dash of cinnamon and vanilla bring it all together.
Ingredients Needed for Peanut Butter Bread
- Flavorings: ground cinnamon and pure vanilla extract
- Pantry: cornstarch (keeps the bread light and tender) baking soda and kosher salt
- White whole-wheat flour: I’ve tested this recipe with a variety of whole-wheats, and white whole-wheat is best here.
- buttermilk: helps the bread rise and keeps it moist.
- creamy drippy natural peanut butter. Make sure to use natural peanut butter that only contains peanuts and salt.
- honey, more flavor than regular sugar or brown sugar. It also adds a lot of moisture, so I do not recommend swapping the honey out for a different sweetener.
- large egg
- Optional topping: roasted salted peanuts and demerara sugar (sugar in the raw)
Test Kitchen Tip: Stirring the separated oil back into natural peanut butter can be a challenging to say the least. I’ve found if you flip the jar upside down and let it sit for at least an hour, the oil will work its way up into the peanut butter. It’ll need one last stir to evenly distribute the oil but that’s it. SO much easier than trying to stir it in right off the shelf.
How to Make Peanut Butter Bread
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (176ºC).
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
- Whisk together the wet ingredients in a large bowl until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until combined.
- Transfer the batter to prepared loaf pan and smooth the top.
- Combine the chopped peanuts and raw sugar; sprinkle evenly over batter.
- Bake the bread until browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs. You can also check doneness by internal temperature. You’ll know it’s done when an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center registers between 190ºF and 200ºF.
The Importance of Temperature
Over the eight tests I did to develop this bread, I found temperature to be THE biggest factor in whether or not this bread came out to my satisfaction.
If you do not know if your oven is correctly calibrated (i.e. the temperature the ovens says it is, is the temperature it actually is), I want you to stop right now, get yourself a very reasonably priced oven thermometer and check your oven.
Let me repeat myself. Do not make this bread if you aren’t sure your oven is calibrated. I say this for a few reasons.
One, nut butter, honey and baking soda all contribute to browning. If your oven runs hotter two things will happen; you’ll have a taller more domed bread (which is great) but the exterior will be over-browned and verging on burnt.
Two, if your oven runs cool, you’ll end up with a stodgy bread that’s deflated and slightly sunken.
FAQ About This Recipe
I add just a tablespoon or so of cornstarch whenever I’m baking with whole-wheat flour. Cornstarch is a key ingredient in cake flour/cakes because it helps create a tender crumb. An ideal addition to whole-wheat baking!
The ingredient list specifies “natural peanut butter,” this means the kind of peanut butter that contains just peanuts and salt. Don’t use the processed stuff that contains palm oil and sugar (even if it says “natural”).
Natural peanut butter should have some oil separation when you buy it—just stir it in. And it should be drippy. Why not use the cheap stuff? Processed peanut butter is packed with additives and isn’t overly “nutty.” Natural peanut butter has MUCH more peanut flavor, which means the bread has more flavor!
I tested this bread more than eight times and I will tell you, once I honed in on the final recipe I tested it once more with all room temperature ingredients. The results were even better than I could have imagined.
When baked with room temperature ingredients, the crumb of this bread is so much more light and airy than the versions made with cold buttermilk and a cold egg.
Demerara sugar, or Sugar in The Raw, adds a lovely sweet crunch which I think it nonnegotiable.
Honey Peanut Butter Bread
Description
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Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (200g) white whole-wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon (9g) cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (240g) buttermilk, room temperature
- ⅔ cup (160g) creamy drippy natural peanut butter
- ⅔ cup (230g) honey
- 1 large egg (50g), room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons (6g) pure vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons chopped roasted and salted peanuts
- 1 tablespoon Demerara sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F (176ºC) with rack set in middle position. Coat an 8½ × 4½-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides; coat paper with nonstick spray.
- Whisk together flour, cornstarch, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, set aside.
- Whisk together buttermilk, peanut butter, honey, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth. Fold flour mixture into peanut butter mixture with a rubber spatula until combined.
- Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Sprinkle peanuts and Demerara sugar evenly over top.
- Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out with few moist crumbs attached, 55–60 minutes. (You can also check doneness by temperature. The interior of the bread should register between 190ºF and 200ºF on an instant-read thermometer).
- Let bread cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn bread out onto wire rack to cool completely, at least 1½ hours.
I made this exactly as written and it was delicious. My kids loved it! We’ve been enjoying it as a snack lately with some sliced bananas. Thanks!
I’m so glad you and your kids enjoy it!!