Dark Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread with Walnuts

After posting a picture of this to Instagram, I had some requests for the recipe, and so (no less than a week later), here it finally is. The girls absolutely LOVE banana bread, and they love to help smashing the bananas for it, so it was a win-win for them. While I’m not typically a baker, we more than occasionally have bananas that get too ripe around here, so I’m somewhat practiced in making banana bread. Truth be told, if you have enough ripe bananas in your recipe, it’s hard to go wrong with a morsel such as this. It’s a moist, dense (like good pound cake) delectible treat that you can convince yourself is an appropriate breakfast food for anyone in your household. Afterall, dark chocolate has antioxidants and walnuts are brain food, right?

Dark Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread with Walnuts

Prep time: <10 minutes, Total time: 65 minutes, Yield: 1 large loaf

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 bananas, mashed (or if you’re banana-nuts, FOUR!)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 cup of walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips or about 2 oz. of dark chocolate bar, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add eggs and mashed bananas and mix well.
3. Sift together (or mix with a fork, if you’re me and don’t want to clean your sifter) your flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to your liquidy banana mixture, along with vanilla.
4. Stir JUST until incorporated. Add your chocolate and walnuts and again, stir as little as you need to.
5. Spoon the batter into a loaf pan lined with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out without liquid on it.
6. Allow to cool as long as you can make yourself wait (it will slice MUCH better).
7. If you have any left over, store in the fridge.

Note: I always use parchment paper for things like this at this point, because it makes clean up easier and it is SO much easier to get the loaves out in tact:

I serve this to the girls throughout the week after I make it with peanut butter (adding protein eases my guilt at making this a breakfast food) and fruit. And, if you’ve never tried it…making french toast with banana bread is RIDICULOUS.

 

Advertisement