Chocolate Banana Bread

A couple of days ago, I noticed “yet another” crop of overripe bananas languishing in the fruit bowl.  I had recently made Banana Bread, Banana Cake, Banana Oatmeal Muffins, Banana Chip Bread and although I love all banana related foods, I was in the mood for something different and I was craving chocolate…hmmm….Chocolate Banana Bread!

So, basically what I did was take my grandmother’s Banana Bread recipe, substitute 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup cocoa, white sugar for brown sugar and add some chocolate chips.  The resulting Chocolate Banana Bread is a deliciously, decadent chocolate loaf with a hint of banana flavour.  It was so good and would be perfect with a hot cup of coffee/tea or an icy cold glass of milk.

You may notice that my mashed bananas look quite dark. That’s because I had planned to make this bread the day before, and life happened…lol. So I just covered the bananas that I had already mashed with plastic wrap and stored them in the refrigerator overnight. That is what caused them to oxidate and turn a darker brown, it doesn’t affect the flavour at all.

I used dark brown sugar because that’s what I had on hand. You could use golden brown sugar and that would also work perfectly fine.

I like to stir everything with a fork. I find it is a more gentle way to incorporate the ingredients and results in a lighter texture in the bread. You could also use a spoon or a spatula, but definitely NOT an electric mixer of any type.

 

It is a good practice to always sift your dry ingredients. Sometimes there are little lumps and sifting helps to not only more evenly distribute the ingredients, it also gives you an opportunity to rub any lumps through the sieve.

 

Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture and stir gently to incorporate.

If you are using a fork or a spoon, I find it helps to switch to a rubber spatula to stir in the chocolate chips.

 

As you can tell, I am a big fan of using a plain old, ordinary table fork with this recipe.  I find it makes for a much lighter texture. I do use a spatula to stir in the chocolate chips, as well as, scrape the batter from the bowl to the pan.

The next time you have some ripe bananas that need attention, I definitely recommend making this dark, rich Chocolate Banana Bread, you won’t be disappointed!

As always, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask and I will do my very best to answer them.