Valentine's Day Banana Bread Recipes

Easy Breakfast Ideas For Valentine's Day!


Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!  Treat your loved ones to a delicious homemade breakfast with these two easy banana bread recipes.  Enjoy!

 

I love the cookbook Two Peas & Their Pod by Maria Lichty!  Being the chocoholic that I am, I gravitate toward anything chocolate.  This Chocolate Banana Bread recipe is amazing and disappears in no time at all in my house!  The link to the recipe, including a short video, can be found here:  https://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/chocolate-banana-bread/.

Chocolate Banana Bread

Chocolate banana bread

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 3 large brown bananas   (1 ½ cups mashed)
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
  • 1/4 cup canola vegetable oil, or melted coconut oil (I use coconut oil)
  • 3/4 cup  packed light brown sugar
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, divided

Instructions

  1. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork. Add the melted butter and oil and stir until combined. Stir in the brown sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Stir until smooth.
  4. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, don’t overmix. Stir in ¾ cup of the chocolate chips.
  5. Pour the batter into a prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup of chocolate chips over the top of the bread (I use mini chips and sprinkle just enough to cover the top loosely). Bake for 50-65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out mostly clean, you might have some melted chocolate chips on the toothpick and that is fine. You just don’t want a lot of gooey batter. Check at 50 minutes, just to be safe. Oven times vary.
  6. Remove the pan from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. Let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the bread and carefully remove from the pan. Let the bread cool on the wire cooling rack until slightly warm. Cut into slices and serve.
  7. Note-the bread will keep on the counter, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 4 days. This bread also freezes well. To freeze, cool the bread completely and wrap in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 1 month. Defrost before slicing.

Notes:

After spraying my 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray (I use Pam with flour), I cut a piece of parchment paper and put it on the bottom only of the pan.  Even though I use a nonstick cooking spray, I often have trouble with baked goods sticking to the pan. This eliminates any sticking.

In Step 2, I mix the ¾ cup of semisweet chocolate chips in with the dry ingredients instead of adding them in Step 4. 

When adding the melted coconut oil to the mashed bananas, make sure to whisk it as you are pouring it into the bowl so it doesn’t harden.  Continue whisking as you add the melted butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla extract.

I love chocolate more than the average person!  In order to have even more chocolate in every bite, I use mini chips on top of the bread instead of the regular sized chips.  I don’t measure ¼ cup.  I just sprinkle enough to loosely cover the top of the bread.

I bake for 55 minutes and it is perfect.  


If you aren’t the chocolate lover that I am, here is a traditional banana bread recipe that was given to me by a good friend many years ago.  It is very easy and quite delicious!

Banana Bread

Banana Bread

Ingredients

  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed
  • ¼ cup melted butter, slightly cooled
  • 1 egg, whisked slightly
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 ½ cups of flour (I use 1 cup white flour and ½ cup wheat flour)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Instructions

  1.  Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  2. Mix the mashed bananas, melted butter, egg, and sugar into a medium bowl.
  3. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl.
  4. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined and no flour is visible (don’t overmix).
  5. Add walnuts, if desired.
  6. Bake for about 60 minutes until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the bread comes out clean.
  7. Remove bread from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.
  8. Run a knife carefully around the edge of the pan and transfer the bread to a cooling rack. 

Notes:

After spraying my 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray (I use Pam with flour), I cut a piece of parchment paper and put it on the bottom only of the pan.  Even though I use a nonstick cooking spray, I often have trouble with baked goods sticking to the pan. This eliminates any sticking.







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