The next best thing to homemade banana bread is Chocolate Swirl Banana Bread made with melted chocolate chips. I love it with my morning coffee.

I don’t know about you, but we go through banana phases in our house. We either love eating them and then run out before my next visit to the store, or they just sit on the counter and get those magical brown dots that prevent you from peeling and eating them but at the same time motivate you to make something wonderful like banana muffins or a banana upside down cake.

Chocolate and banana go together about as good as banana and peanut butter… or chocolate and peanut butter, for that matter. I’ve added chocolate chips to banana bread before and its downright wonderful, but this time I wanted to do something a little bit different and melt down those chocolate chips to make somewhat of a swirl pattern. Who doesn’t love a good chocolate swirl, after all?

The chocolate portion of this banana bread is different than you might think because the chocolate didn’t come from cocoa powder – it came from real dark chocolate that I melted down. Huge difference, in my opinion. The kids loved having a little slice of this in their lunch and I quite enjoyed warming it up with a bit of butter and enjoying it with a hot cup of coffee before everyone else woke up. Its the little things, right?

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon ceylon recommended
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups banana mashed , about 3 large bananas
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan by coating with cooking spray or lining with parchment.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle blade attached, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy (about 1 minute). Add banana, eggs, and buttermilk. Beat until blended. Add flour mixture and beat at low speed just until moist.
To melt chocolate, place chocolate chips in a medium sized microwave safe bowl and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined.
Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into prepared pan. Swirl batters together using a knife.
Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

Notes

makes 1 loaf

Nutrition

Questions about the nutrition information?Check out my Nutrition Disclaimer

Love banana bread recipes?

You’ll definitely want to try these:

Chocolate Swirl Banana Bread