During these strange days, there are approximately one million seven hundred recipes for banana bread floating around (including mine for High Altitude Cinnamon Toast Banana Bread). And it’s obvious why: banana bread is delicious and ensures you won’t waste overripe fruit. It’s also super easy to throw together even in the depths of oh-god-we’re-all-still-at-home despair. Even classic favorites get old after a few batches, though. So let’s take it up a notch and swirl the bananas into a rich background of deep, dark chocolate, shall we? We’re making Dark Chocolate High Altitude Banana Bread.
This banana bread is lusciously dark, featuring a moist interior studded with bits of melted chocolate and a crackly, crispy crust. Banana bread masquerading as cake, you say? That’s fair. It’s a fine line.
I love the flavors of chocolate and banana together. When I was a kid my mom would dip fresh bananas in melted chocolate and freeze them, and we’d eat them like popsicles. Sooo good. That memory actually inspired me to up the ante with a giant scoop of melty dark chocolate chips (I like these 60% cacao chips), which are simply a delight each time you take a bite. And who can’t use a bit more delight these days?
Here’s how you do it: 1) Whisk dry ingredients. 2) Mix in wet ingredients. 3) Stir in some chocolate chips. 4) Bake. Not kidding when I said it was easy.
If you’re feeling creative and/or bored, try mixing in some other goodies, like white chocolate chips, a swirl of peanut butter, or chopped nuts.
This is a moist and heavy batter, so make sure you give this the full 60+ minutes to bake. Feeling greedy, I took one loaf out five minutes too early and it was a little pudding-like in the middle. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re into that (my husband was kind of thrilled with that one, to be honest). But just be aware.
An hour, start to finish, and you can be enjoying a luscious slice of this chocolate-banana heaven. Which I hope might make your which-day-is-today morning just a little nicer.
Edited to add that my sister made this recipe into muffins and I think I like it even better!
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Dark Chocolate High Altitude Banana Bread
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 65 mins
- Total Time: 70 mins
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Description
Blurring the line between bread and cake, this Dark Chocolate High Altitude Banana Bread brings the irresistible combination of bananas and chocolate together in one deep, dark, lofty loaf. Can also be made into muffins!
Ingredients
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (dark chocolate if available)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
3–4 medium overripe bananas (about 1 1/2 cups), mashed
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup neutral oil, such as grapeseed or avocado
3/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract (not imitation)
2 TB strong brewed coffee (optional*)
1 cup dark (bittersweet or semi-sweet) chocolate chips
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a standard loaf pan and line with parchment paper, or if you prefer to make muffins, line a 12-cup muffin tin. with paper liners (if not using parchment or liners, be sure to grease and flour your pan thoroughly).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the mashed banana, brown sugar, oil, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, and coffee, if using.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined and can no longer see any pockets of cocoa or flour. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes, or until a cake tester emerges clean. For muffins, fill the cups to the top and bake 30-35 minutes.
6. Cool fully before slicing. Wrap leftovers in plastic wrap or foil.
Notes
… coffee is used in this recipe only to deepen the flavor of the chocolate. The final product does not taste like coffee, but feel free to omit it if you prefer.
Looks and sounds like something I’d like to whip up, take out of the oven a little early and eat RIGHT NOW!!!
OMG!!! 🤤
Do it! 😄
Made it, and it was soooo good! We were a little low on cocoa powder – only had about half. It was still delicious.
Good to know and thank you!
Can this recipe be baked in an air fryer?
This recipe was developed for baking in a conventional oven. I have no experience with air fryers, sorry!
It’s okay. I’ll bake it in an oven. I can’t wait to try it. It looks delicious!
Good chocolate flavor but I couldn’t taste the banana
For a more banana-forward recipe, try my High Altitude Cinnamon Toast Banana Bread
This recipe is so good! Made delicious banana bread up in Steamboat Springs.
A Gluten free friend has come to visit & I am going to try this recipe with Cup4Cup GF Multipurpose flour. Let me know if you have any additional recommendations!
I’d love to know how your GF version turns out!
Made this last night and baked them as muffins instead and they turned out amazing for breakfasts. Baked for ~19 minutes and it made 18 muffins! Thanks for the awesome high altitude recipe!
Fantastic! 🙂
I made this last night. It is so hard to find a good high-altitude recipe but this was amazing. The family loved it. I’ll be baking this for years to come.
So glad it was a hit!! 🙂
I want to make this (also gf like a previous poster) but am only at 6500′ altitude. Do you know if the leavening will work? I’m fairly drooling reading the recipe!