Recipe: Chocolate and Spice Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of those classic, fairly easy-to-make treats. Plus, it’s relatively healthy.

At least, that’s what I like to tell myself.

This banana bread is a bit of a twist on the classic banana bread, though.

Don’t get me wrong, I love regular banana bread. But I also love chocolate, cinnamon and nutmeg. So I figured, why not bring them all together?

The result is a banana bread that has just a little bit of a punch from the cinnamon and nutmeg, along with a slight chocolate flavour and the creaminess of the bananas.

And I’m sure that it would be easy to amp up the punch or chocolate flavour, if you want to. Just add more chocolate, cinnamon or nutmeg, and you’re set.

This banana bread will last for a few days, as long as you keep it covered. And, you know, not eat it all right off the bat.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 medium mashed ripe bananas
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 square (grated) semi-sweet baker’s chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until smooth. Blend in the mashed bananas.
3. In a second, smaller bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients, including the chocolate.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stirring only to moisten.
5. Pour the batter into a greased 9x13x5-inch loaf pan. Bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
6. Let stand for about 10 minutes before removing the loaf from the pan.