Chocolate Banana Bread

Banana bread was one of the first things I learned to bake. I immediately fell in love. The sour cream and mashed bananas make banana bread almost foolproof. You’re guaranteed to have a beautifully moist loaf. If you’re a chocolate lover like me, you’re going to love this chocolate banana bread even more than the original.

My number one tip with all baking unless specified otherwise: make sure your ingredients are at room temperature. For the longest time I thought I could get away with not letting my ingredients come to room temperature. And oh did my baked goods pay for it. Eventually, I started letting my butter come to room temp because cold butter was pretty hard to cream. But just in the past year I realized you truly need to have all of your ingredients at room temp so they can emulsify (combine) better.

Another mistake I made for the longest time: I didn’t realize how long I needed to cream the butter and sugar. I would mix just until the sugar granules disappeared into the butter. That only takes about 30 seconds and isn’t nearly long enough. When you beat the sugar into the butter, the sugar cuts through the butter and creates small air pockets. These air pockets are what the baking soda/powder need to produce lift. They release gases into these pockets while baking. This will give you a more even and tender crumb. Cream your butter and sugar for about 3 minutes on medium speed, taking the time to pause the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom to make sure you’re getting everything.

This is where I disagree with 99% of the internet. A lot of people say “the browner the better”. I’d say, you want anywhere from heavily speckled to brown blotches. You do not want to wait for the bananas to get completely brown. I have found that the bananas start to have a fermented flavor when you wait that long. Waiting for heavily speckled still gives you that great sweet flavor. Whatever you do, don’t use lightly speckled or yellow bananas. The texture and taste just isn’t there yet.

See the recipe here.