Admit it: when you’ve had bananas sitting around too long, you look at them and think, why compost them when I can make banana bread? (You could also peel and freeze them for smoothies, but that’s another story.) There’s just something about banana bread, isn’t there? Especially when it involves chocolate chips.
This is the banana chocolate chip bread recipe you’ve been looking for: a soft cake-y crumb with a delicately crunchy crust, and all the chocolate you can handle. We’ve even created a gluten-free variation that’s almost as good as the gluten-full original. You might want to bring both.
Serves 1 loaf
Ingredients
Gluten-full variant
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour Plus 3 tbsp more for greasing the pan.
Gluten-free variant
- 1/2 cup superfine brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup almond meal see recipe notes below
- 1/2 cup potato starch Plus 3 tbsp more for greasing the pan. Note: do not use potato flour.
- 1/8 cup coconut flour
- 1/8 cup sweet white rice flour
Dry ingredients
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
Wet ingredients
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter Plus another 1 tbsp for greasing the pan.
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups overripe bananas about three bananas
- 1/4 cup plain yogurt or labne
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Melt butter and set aside to cool.
- Grease a 9x5 loaf pan with 1 tbsp butter and flour the pan either with all-purpose flour or potato starch if you're doing the gluten-free variant.
- In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the all-purpose flour OR the gluten-free flour mix with the rest of the dry ingredients.
- In a medium bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Do not puree; some lumps are good.
- Beat the eggs slightly and add to the bananas. Add the rest of the wet ingredients, including the cooled melted butter and the chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly.
- Make a well in the bowl with the dry mix and pour the wet mix in, folding gently with a spatula until dry mix is just incorporated. Do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake at 350° for about 55-60 minutes or until nicely browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove pan from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes, then remove loaf from pan and let cool on a wire rack.
Notes
If you can't find almond meal in the market, you can place about a cup of slivered almonds in a food processor and let it run for about 3-5 minutes until it becomes soft crumbs.