Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe

Hello everyone! I have another easy recipe to share. Last week I went to visit my niece's family, and my grand nephew asked if we could bake something, and of course, being the doting grand aunt, I was happy to indulge.

Since they had overripe bananas, we decided we would bake banana bread, and we wanted to add chocolate chips to it. The outcome was pretty delicious, if I may say so myself.

First, butter the baking pans by brushing melted butter on the sides and bottom, or if you have baking spray, spray it with that and warm up your oven at 175 degrees (or 375 F).

This is the finished product. I used 2  5 x 9 baking pans, because I wanted the baking time to be faster, otherwise one is enough. And since I was baking with a little boy, the process was a bit messy and disorganized, and I wasn't at home, so let me humor you this time.

Here's a look at our ingredients then:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp ground all spice

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1/2 cup brown sugar ( you can also use coco sugar, derived from coconuts)

3 large overripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Before we started baking, Lucas (that's his name and he's gonna be 4 years old in a few weeks time) asked me to wait and I asked him why. He said he was 'reading' the instructions for baking, and when I looked at him, he was looking at this! Cute!!!

                  

The first thing I asked him to help me with was to mash the bananas. He did it with gusto with matching grunting sounds. After about 6 pushes with a fork, he proudly declared, "Done!"

We then measured the flour, the ground all spice, the salt, the baking soda and the cocoa powder and mixed them well. They actually did not have cocoa powder, but they had the cocoa tablets, so his nanny helped us pulverize the tablets in a mortar pestle.

Next we added the sugar to the melted butter and mixed it with an electric mixer, then in went the egg and the vanilla extract.

It looked like this afterwards. It looked like this because some of the butter was not totally melted. My bad.

We added the mashed bananas into the mixture and mixed it up again just for a few seconds.

We then added the flour mixture into the mixing bowl, and by this time I get rid of the electric mixer and start using the wooden spatula. I asked him to mix it and he did it delightedly.

When it's almost all mixed together, we added the chocolate chips and mixed until they were totally incorporated into the dough.

Your batter should look like this by this time.

Pour the batter into the baking pan. I used 2 here because I wanted the baking time to be shorter, otherwise you can just use one baking pan.

When I told him I had to take a picture, he said "take me toooo!" He had flour all over his body, but he was so happy he was able to help his Tata bake something.

I adjusted the temperature to just 170 degrees, and I asked his nanny to let it bake for an hour. By the time I finished reading him 4 story books and put him to sleep for his afternoon nap, the whole thing was baked, it actually almost burned that's why it looks dark on the sides. So using just one pan would be perfect for an hour or so.

 To check if it's done, sticking a toothpick in the middle won't do you any good since there are chocolate chips that melt. A better option would be to gently press the middle part with your finger and if it bounces and comes back up automatically, that basically means it's done. Plus, if you bake regularly, the smell tells you as well.

The bread was moist and not very sweet, which was to my liking, and Lucas and his younger sister loved eating it! 

Well, that's all for now, and for more recipes, you can go to this page. Enjoy baking!