Recipe #10: Chocolate Banana Bread

With a toddler and 6-month-old in the house plus the current great price on bananas, there is no shortage of this versatile fruit in our house.  I often try to buy extra bananas so I will have some nicely ripened ones for baking, but we tend to eat through them all rather quickly.

This last week I finally had some well-ripened bananas that were just waiting to be baked, so I decided to try this Chocolate Banana Bread recipe I found on the Money Saving Mom website.

Typically, I do not have much luck with banana bread, but this recipe came out perfect on the first try.  It even came cleanly out of the bread pan!

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 5
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• Mix together the dry ingredients; mix together the wet ingredients; mix the two together--it does not get much easier than that.

• Taste
• Rating: 5 (great)
• I don't recall having ever mixed chocolate and bananas before, but I found the flavors combine together well.
• The chocolate does not overpower the banana; instead they complement one another and both flavors come through.

• Texture
• Rating: 5 (great)
• The bread came out with the perfect quick bread texture.  The bread is moist from the bananas, but not mushy.

• Hints and tips
• I am a Pampered Chef fan and I love using their stoneware.  I found that I had to add about 5 minutes to the cook time to get it completely cooked.
• Instead of mashing the bananas, I cut them up and added them to the wet ingredients.  I then mashed them as I stirred the ingredients, but I left some little chunks.
• If you happen to be using the Weight Watchers point system, one twelfth of the bread equals 5 points.

• Would I make this bread again?
• Definitely.  I look forward to playing with the recipe by using whole wheat flour and either applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of some of the butter to see if I can make it healthier.