On Monday, in honor of National Banana Bread Day, I baked a loaf of banana bread for my son’s Monday Box care package. It was no ordinary loaf. It was a Chocolate-Maple Banana Bread; moist and dense, sweetened with maple syrup, and made extra chocolaty with mini chocolate chips.
It’s been cold here in the Midwest. That is an understatement. In Chicago, where my son goes to college, the waves in Lake Michigan froze in the middle of waving. The good news is that this wintery blast is perfect banana bread mailing weather. In a previous post, I described my moldy banana bread care package experience. The high moisture and sugar content of banana bread, combined with warmth, can very quickly produce some very green mold. Consequently, I am cautious about sending loaves with high mold potential, and will only send banana bread in the winter.
When the weather is warmer, or when banana bread doesn’t sound appealing but chocolate-maple bread sounds divine, this is a versatile go-to recipe. Just leave the bananas out and double the sour cream. You get the same dense, moist crumb and rich chocolate flavor as in Chocolate-Maple Banana Bread, just minus the banana. Directions are included in the recipe.
The inspiration for Chocolate-Maple Banana Bread came from a non-banana version I found in my daughter’s Vegetarian Times magazine. I was innocently flipping pages, looking for a low carb veggie dish to make for dinner, when I stumbled on a group of recipes using maple syrup as the sweetener. As soon as I saw the photo of this dark chocolaty brown loaf, I stopped flipping pages and made plans to bake. So much for low carb.
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds of viewing this blog to understand that my recipes don’t avoid granulated white sugar…or vegetable shortening…or food coloring. I wasn’t intrigued by this maple syrup sweetened quick bread by any misguided thoughts of health food. Ultimately, the body processes sugar, regardless of the source, the same way. What intrigued me was the maple flavor.
The thing about baking with maple, is that it’s very hard to actually taste the maple in the finished product. My first loaf made with the original magazine recipe was minimally sweet and only mildly chocolaty (even though it was a deep dark brown). I couldn’t taste the maple at all. I made a few tweaks. I added vanilla (to bring out the chocolate flavor), natural maple flavoring, and mini chocolate chips. For a banana bread variation, I added two mashed bananas in place of half of the sour cream. The resulting loaves (banana or not) were delicious; a tad sweeter, with obvious maple, chocolate, and banana flavor.
If you want to send Chocolate-Maple Banana (or not) Bread to someone special, do it now. Being able to mail this loaf is one of the very few advantages of freezing cold weather. Is this is a banana bread masquerading as a chocolate cake? Or is it a chocolate cake masquerading as banana bread? Take a bite (or two) and decide.
Chocolate-Maple Banana (or not) Bread
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder I used Hershey’s Special Dark
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup butter softened
- For Chocolate-Maple Banana Bread use: ½ cup sour cream room temperature and 2 mashed, ripe bananas
- For Chocolate-Maple without banana use: 1 cup sour cream room temperature
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon natural maple flavoring
- 1¼ cups maple syrup
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat the inside of a 9”x5” loaf pan with butter or cooking spray and lightly coat with flour.
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In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
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In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sour cream and continue mixing until combined. If using bananas, mix in the mashed bananas.
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Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly. Beat in the maple syrup, vanilla, and maple flavoring.
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At a low mixing speed, gradually add the flour mixture and continue mixing just until combined.
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Stir in chocolate chips.
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Put the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes. The loaf is done when a toothpick/cake tester comes out clean of batter (some melted chocolate from the chips is ok).
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Cool for 20 minutes in the pan then remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely before wrapping.
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Store in an airtight container or wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature for up to 3 days for Chocolate-Maple Banana bread (longer if refrigerated) and 5-7 days for Maple-chocolate without banana.
Packing Tips
PLEASE NOTE that banana bread should only be used in COLD weather care packages. The high level of moisture and sugar provided by the bananas will mold easily in warm weather. The Chocolate-Maple Bread with no bananas is a better choice for shipping. Both versions will retain freshness better if shipped unsliced, wrapped in one layer of foil, followed by one layer of plastic wrap.
Monica says
I have really come to love banana bread and banana-baked goods in the last few years but I love how you give an option for with and w/o bananas here. It’s also a good point about not shipping banana bread in warm weather. All things duly noted, Wendy! This reminds me of the chocolate banana bread from Smitten Kitchen…so good! You can’t go wrong with everything you have going on. The maple factor is so interesting. I just baked some oatmeal cookies that have maple syrup in them. You can’t taste the maple flavor but the liquid sugar does something for the texture, I think…
themondaybox says
Maple in an oatmeal cookie sounds really good to me, Monica! You found the same elusive flavor issue with the maple syrup in your cookies. I have worked with a handful of maple syrup recipes now and all of them had no maple flavor with just the syrup. It took maple flavoring or King Arthur maple flavor bits to bring the maple-y flavor to anything I baked. Interesting about the texture though. More chewy? I didn’t know Smitten Kitchen had a chocolate banana bread! I would have started there. I love Deb’s recipes! Now I am going to have to bake her’s also and compare. 🙂 But first oatmeal cookies. For some reason, I have an oatmeal cookie craving! 😉
Paula K. says
Wendy, off topic but I just wanted to let you know the soldier I sent the 3-2-1 Hot Chocolate microwave cake let me know that they really liked them, microwaved it 45 seconds and she and her friends thought they were great!
themondaybox says
Fantastic, Paula!! It makes me smile just imagining the soldiers zapping and enjoying their fresh and gooey 3-2-1 Hot Chocolate Cakes!! You are so kind and thoughtful to send them the ingredients for a party! Any suggestions and/or tips you may have for my future care packages are very welcome! Thank you so much for sharing ! 🙂
Paula K. says
Wendy how about a spice cake cake mix with the angel food cake mix, add apple pie filling and drizzle with caramel topping? Sounds good to me.
Paula K.
themondaybox says
I love that idea, Paula! I have a “recipe” Caramel Apple 3-2-1 cake on the blog, but I made it with vanilla cake. The spice cake version with caramel on top sounds great, plus it’s all shelf-stable ingredients which makes it care package perfect! There are so many 3-2-1 possibilities! Thanks for the delicious suggestion!
Tricia @ Saving room for dessert says
This is soooo pretty! The chocolate is so deep and rich looking – I don’t think I would care if it had banana or not! Yum, yum, yum!
themondaybox says
Thanks so much, Tricia! I used the Hershey’s Special Extra Dark rather than my usual Droste’s Cocoa and was delighted with both the color and the flavor. The yum, yum quickly turned into munch, munch around here!
Ashley says
I’ve been on such a banana bread kick lately – which is so unexpected since it’s not usually my thing! I haven’t made a chocolate version yet though – this sounds just wonderful!
themondaybox says
Thanks, Ashley! Maybe you are low on potassium and that is why you are craving bananas? I would take banana bread over a vitamin pill any day! Or maybe you just know delicious when you see/taste it! 🙂
shannon says
for whatever reason, i’ve been on a chocolate kick lately: this almost never happens to me, and I can only blame the cold weather, the snow, and the sight of waves freezing mid-wave (that’s SO FREAKY). That being said, this bread is on my short list of things to make me and the wee one: she’s also been on a chocolate kick, and I like to throw something halfway decent for her in there, and you said banana, soooo…done. 🙂
themondaybox says
Chocolate is comforting. Whether its life stress or weather stress, chocolate soothes the soul. Banana and chocolate is just down right tasty. I hope the Wee One gets to eat this for breakfast. 🙂