Transform Your Banana Bread With A Little Cream Cheese And Your Air Fryer

Banana bread is a dish made with fruit that you might otherwise throw away, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the royal treatment. One of the easiest ways to upgrade this recipe isn't to consider how to switch up the batter with new ingredients (although we won't say "no" to a slice of brown butter banana bread) — it's to consider how you're serving it. 

When it comes to topping banana bread, most people will reach for butter (if anything). But, instead of schmearing on the sweet cream, you'll want to swap it for another dairy product: cream cheese. Cream cheese has a fatty mouthfeel that will elevate the plushness of this quick bread. Whipped cream cheese is far easier to spread than the brick form, which is why we would recommend using it for this hack. We'd also suggest making this treat more decadent by serving the cream cheese-topped slice with a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Alternatively, you can also try to bake the cream cheese into the banana bread itself. Swirl it on top before baking it for a beautiful marbled design and soft, squishy bite.

Once you've sliced and schmeared your banana bread to your heart's content, you'll also need to complete one final step to give you the best banana bread you've ever had: Putting it into the air fryer. This hack will not only give you a warm and decadent slice of banana bread with melty cream cheese on top, but it will also crisp up the edges so you get a positively decadent textural contrast. 

While you can spread cream cheese on a slice of banana bread and eat it cold, you'll want to warm it up a little bit for a soft, decadent bite. So, pop your banana bread slices into the air fryer, rather than the oven or microwave, to encourage the edges to crisp up while the middle stays decadently soft. You don't even need to crank the heat here; a few minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit will do the trick. This extra step will give you tantalizingly soft and flavorful banana bread that tastes like it came straight from the oven.

While trying this hack out with homemade banana bread is a top-tier upgrade, you can also use it for store-bought banana bread. And in theory, you could also use it to hack other quick breads — like the ever-popular zucchini bread. Depending on the ingredients in your banana bread base, you can switch out your plain cream cheese with another flavor. Whip a block of cream cheese in your stand mixer with some cinnamon and honey or add a little bit of maple syrup to give it a sweet, warming flavor.