Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Banana bread heaven. The cocoa powder packs the perfect amount of chocolate flavor.
Texture: Ridiculously moist and tender and studded with gooey chocolate chips throughout.
Ease: SO easy to make.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: A chocolate lover’s dream come true!
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This may just be my new all-time favorite banana recipe.
It’s insanely moist, deeply chocolaty, and easy enough for even a beginner to bake. If your chocolate banana bread has ever turned out bland, dry, or sunken, this recipe fixes that!
It was actually inspired by an East Village bakery crawl in NYC. The midnight banana bread loaf at Red Gate Bakery was so incredible I knew I had to make my own version of it when I got home.
This perfectly sweet treat is going to become your favorite breakfast/dessert/snack too!
Reader Love
This is such a great recipe and I will definitely be making it again. I took it to work to share with my coworkers and they’ve asked when I’ll be making this again.
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Baking Success Tips
- Use very ripe bananas for sweetness and moisture.
- Measure flour carefully to avoid dryness.
- Don’t overmix once the flour is added.
- Use a metal baking pan. Glass or ceramic will take longer and may result in sinking.
- Cook to an internal temperature of 200°F to ensure no gummy, underdone, or sunken centers.
Recipe Ingredients
The below ingredients do the heavy lifting in this recipe, and were carefully chosen and tested to provide the best baking result.
All-Purpose Flour – Measure correctly, the #1 reason banana bread turns out dense or dry is because of mis-measured flour.
Cocoa powder – I used Dutch-processed for a smooth chocolate flavor and deep, luxurious color. Natural cocoa works, too. Read my cocoa powder guide here.
Mashed banana – The star of the show! Be sure to use overripe bananas and mash well with a fork or potato masher.
Sour cream or plain full fat yogurt – Either one will work to yield a moist banana bread with a beautiful rich crumb.
Butter and Oil– Butter provides flavor, oil creates a moist texture that stays tender for days. Use any neutral oil that’s liquid at room temperature such as vegetable or avocado oil.
Chocolate chips – For folding into the batter and drizzling on top as an optional finishing touch. I used semisweet chocolate chips, but dark or milk chocolate chips will work fine.
How to Make Chocolate Banana Bread
- Prepare the pan. Line a 9 by 5-inch metal loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang. Spray with nonstick cooking spray. Don’t use a smaller size pan; otherwise your banana bread may overflow while baking!
- Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugars, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Combine the wet ingredients. In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sour cream or yogurt, eggs, butter, oil, and vanilla.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Gently fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture until just barely combined.
- Fold in the chocolate chips. Be careful not to overmix. Spread batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until slightly domed and the internal temperature registers at least 200°F with an instant read thermometer. Cool on a wire rack until completely cooled.
- Make the chocolate drizzle (optional). Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or microwave in 20-second bursts, stirring between bursts, until melted. Drizzle over the top of the cooled loaf. Let set before serving.
How to Ripen Bananas Quickly
To speed up ripening, place bananas in a paper bag and store in a warm area for a day or two. The peels create ethylene gas, which fills up the bag and helps them ripen faster.
To ripen bananas today, place whole unpeeled bananas on a baking sheet in a 300°F oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, or until the skins are darkened and the fruit is soft. This doesn’t yield the same effect as allowing the bananas to ripen naturally, but it’ll work in a pinch.
Storage & Make ahead
Room Temperature: Wrap tightly and store for up to 3 days.
Fridge: Wrap tightly and store for up to 5 days. Let come to room temperature for a softer texture, if preferred.
Freeze: Freeze slices individually and thaw at room temperature.
FAQs
I have a recipe for that! Check out my Double Chocolate Banana Muffins Recipe!
Sure! You can add 1 cup of coarsely chopped nuts instead of the chocolate chips. You can alternatively add a mixture of milk, white and/or dark chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips, or even peanut butter chips, if you wish – the fun variations are endless!
Pro tip: if adding nuts, lightly toast your walnuts or pecans before adding them to the batter. Toasting the nuts adds so much depth of flavor!
This means it was underbaked. This is especially prone to happen if baking in a glass or ceramic pan, because those materials conduct heat less quickly than metal.
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Ingredients
For the bread:
- 1 cup (127 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (43 grams) Dutch-process cocoa powder*
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) light brown sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/2 cups (340 grams) mashed banana (3 very overripe bananas)
- 1/2 cup (120 grams) sour cream or full fat plain yogurt, at room temperature
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten, at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons (42 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until just warm
- 3 tablespoons (34 grams) neutral oil (vegetable, avocado, etc.)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
For the chocolate drizzle (optional):
Instructions
Make the bread:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9 by 5-inch metal loaf pan*** with parchment paper, leaving an overhang. Spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugars, baking soda, and salt.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sour cream or yogurt, eggs, butter, oil, and vanilla. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just barely combined. Gently fold in the chocolate chips, being very careful not to overmix. Spread batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake until slightly domed and the internal temperature registers at least 200°F with an instant read thermometer, about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes before using the parchment overhang to remove the loaf from the pan to finish cooling completely. Bread will collapse slightly as it cools.
Make the chocolate drizzle (optional):
- Once the bread has cooled, place the chocolate chips in a double boiler set over simmering water or place in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 20-second bursts, stirring between bursts, until melted. Drizzle over the top of the cooled loaf (coating will be thick). Let set before serving, serve same day for best appearance.
- Wrap leftovers in plastic wrap or foil and store at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the fridge for up to 5 days (let come to room temperature before serving if desired). The banana flavor will intensify the longer it sits, and the chocolate coating will harden as the loaf sits and may bloom (slightly discolor).
Notes
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- Double Chocolate Banana Muffins (the muffin version of this recipe!)
- Butter Pecan Banana Bread
- Classic Banana Bread Recipe
- Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Photos by Joanie Simon.
This banana bread was so delicious!! I really enjoy making your recipes!
Very rich, moist and delicious. I love that the weights are included because my 3 bananas weighed 80 grams less than the recipe weight! I replaced that 80 grams I was short of banana with yogurt. Don’t know if they’d approve of this but it worked okay and was still plenty sweet. I also didn’t add the chocolate drizzle and didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I would definitely make again.
Best banana bread! I’ll be saving my extra ripe bananas for this recipe! It was so rich and delicious!
thank you for the response! i was disapppinted on how mine came out BUT
i was surprised after a few hours the bread actually set up. i made the mistake of being too excited and sliced it up while it was still warm. it was actually very good when eaten at room temp!
Glad to hear that, Vanessa!! 🙂
I made these at work for lunch and oh what a hit! These are rich, moist and the perfect combo of chocolate + banana.
Definitely will be making again!
Excellent. I made this with the dark chocolate cocoa from the Halloween cookies. Very nice! The chips give the bread a creamy feel. I split the chips half-half white and semisweet, but the white disappeared; maybe that’s the creamy feel!
I think the drizzled topping uses about twice as many chips as needed. I also split half white, half ss, and the second layer was overkill. But it’s chocolate, so no problem!
Love this! It’s chocolate yum but not overly sweet! It’s soft and you can taste the bananas. A great bake.
This was ridiculously good. like so good that we ate almost half of it before I remembered I should take a picture to submit the baking challenge hahaha. had to bake mine for 1 hour 10 minutes and it came out perfect.
this was delicious. we omitted tge glaze, but it was stilll everything we could hope for in a double chocolate banana bread.
Great flavor and consistency! Will definitely make it again.
A very rich chocolate taste that’s perfectly balanced with the banana. Banana bread almost cake like texture. I baked mine exactly 1 hour to get to 200°. Turned out beautiful.
Thanks for sharing!
Very very very super easy to make. Tastes delicious. Not crazy about chocolate but I live banana bread. It was really good! I appreciate how everything is explained in such detail so I get the “why” behind the process and learn a bit! Will make more recipes from Handle the Heat in 2024. Cooking more is my new year resolution!