Thursday, April 3, 2008

My 100th Post! And Chocolate Walnut Banana Bread


This is my 100th post! I don't have anything exciting to celebrate it with but this banana bread was pretty delicious. I rarely make banana bread because when I was growing up my mom always made it. It was yummy but I guess lost its magical appeal. She never put walnuts or chocolate chips in it though, and this was actually my first time putting chocolate chips in banana bread. I like to maintain this image in my mind of banana bread being healthy and if I put chocolate chips in it, well it just makes it a little more difficult to believe! But I thought if I cut down the sugar a lot (to 2 tablespoons) and only put a small amount of chocolate chips, it wouldn't be a terribly unhealthy snack. And thus begins my love of this chocolate walnut banana bread.


I haven't used my mini loaf pans for a while and forgot how great little loaves are. In the recipe I wrote that you can use either oat flour or whole wheat pastry flour. The oat flour makes it much denser, but I loved it that way. If that's not quite for you, try the whole wheat pastry flour. It will still be a dense muffin but lightens it up a bit.


If this sounds good, you might also like:
Earl Grey White Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Healthy Banana Bran Muffins
Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins
Pumpkin Pecan Raisin Muffins

Chocolate Walnut Banana Bread
Adapted from How It All Vegan!

Makes 1 loaf, 6 mini loaves, or 12 small-ish muffins

3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup applesauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour OR oat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup chocolate chips, optional*

Preheat oven to 375F. In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until very mushy, then add the applesauce, sugar, and walnuts and stir together.

In a separate large bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, whole wheat pastry flour (or oat flour), salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and mix together gently until "just mixed". Gently stir in the chocolate chips.

Spoon into a lightly oiled loaf pan (or muffin pan) and bake for 40-50 minutes**. Test with a toothpick or a knife to see if done.

*Use nondairy chocolate chips or omit them to make this vegan.
**The first time I made these, I used mini loaf pans and I can't remember how long it took. I would check them around 25 minutes and see how they are. Maybe even 20 minutes.

31 comments:

tytty said...

congrats on reaching your 100

Mansi said...

this was the first bread I ate when I came to US, after the regular bread, of course, and I've been hooked since then! your loaf looks simply fabulous!!:)

Sweet and Savory Eats said...

Woohoo! Congrats on 100!

Cakespy said...

Sa-weet! 100 and so, so sweet. This looks really, really good. So dense--this is a compliment. I love really dense, nutty (and hey, isn't chocolate good for you these days!?) and sweet carbohydratey things. Mm.

grace said...

mini loaves are fabulous! my one complaint is that i tend to go ahead and eat the entire thing, whereas i can usually limit myself to just a slice (or two) of a regular loaf. :)

congrats on hitting 100!

Sarah said...

Congrats on 100!!

Johanna GGG said...

Congratulations on reaching 100 posts - hope you continue with lots of dense and not so sugary baking! Your banana and chocolate chip bread sounds delicious :-)

Anonymous said...

Congrats. I just started reading but it is great so far. Keep up the good work.

Patricia Scarpin said...

Congratulations!
This is a yummy banana bread. I have tried banana bread with choc chips but have never tried it with walnuts.

Deborah said...

What a great banana bread!

Congrats on 100 posts! What a great milestone!

Joe said...

Congratulations on your 100th post! Keep it up!

Lisa Turner said...

Congratulations on your 100th post! I look forward to the next 100!

Artifax said...

Happy 100th post!!! I've been lurking for a while now - just love your blog! Everything always looks so yummy and your pics are just gorgeous!!

I finally tried one of the recipes you posted, the Orange Berry muffins and they turned out great! I hope you don't mind, I shared your blog link with my blog readers. Next up are those Earl Grey White Chocolate ones!

Mary said...

congratulations on your 100th post! Your blog is fun to read and I hope to read 100 more posts!

Gloria Baker said...

This looks so yummy!! but I want to congrats you by you 100 post!! A lot of love and work!!! xxxGloria

Stefany said...

This looks great! I have 6 bananas in the freezer and about 3 ready to go in...so I am looking for something to do with them. Hubby will love this! Thanks and congrats on 100 posts!

Sarah said...

This recipe is indeed healthy, especially with the chocolate. :) In fact, I'm sure it would be a perfect breakfast! I just made some banana loaves for my boyfriend's sister (since she just had a baby!) but I didn't get to eat any myself, so I am totally envisioning myself taking a big slice of your banana bread right now. :) Congrats on your 100th post!

giz said...

Happy 100th - now if you really think about how much time you put into all those posts - I think you deserve another piece of that incredible loaf. Cheers!!!!

noskos said...

Congratulations!!

Cookie baker Lynn said...

Congrats on hitting 100! This looks like a perfect loaf to celebrate with. I love the mini loaves.

Carla said...

My parents will purposely buy two too many bananas so they over-ripen and I am almost forced to make banana nut bread haha Yours look good!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

Banana bread certainly is the quintessential loaf bread..so delicious with chocolate and walnuts too:D

test it comm said...

Congratulations on 100 posts! That banana bread looks so packed with nuts and so good.

LisaRene said...

100 delicious posts! And to celebrate, a great looking recipe that is just my style, healthy, chocolate and egg free! It was a great idea to reduce the sugar due to the addition of the chocolate chips, nice compromise.

winedeb said...

Yea!!!! 100 and still going strong! Congrats to you!!!!

Gretchen Noelle said...

Congrats on reaching 100 posts! Can't wait for the next 100!

eatme_delicious said...

Thanks everybody for the congratulations and kind words! :)

Antonio Tahhan said...

CONGRATS on your 100th post!! I'm a huge fan of banana walnut bread and this chocolate version looks quite good : )
great blog!

maeve said...

Have just cooked these Muffins,actually my first time cooking muffins or banana bread! So they turned out yum scrum but are they meant to be so moist (not soggy) and they did not really rise that much is that ok. I cooked them for twenty five minutes in a fan over which i set to 170 instead of 190 as really hot! Any tips? :)

eatme_delicious said...

Maeve: Glad they taste good! :) Mine were not really moist and soggy. You're right that they don't rise that much though. Yours might be more moist/soggy because your bananas were larger than mine, and the baking time and temperature were quite different. Since you baked them at a lower temperature, I would've baked them for longer. And I originally baked them 40-45 minutes, whereas you baked them for 25. I'm not familiar with fan ovens though (convection oven?)

maeve said...

LOL!!! I love the Irish/Canadian confusion im always looking up the substitution possibilities for ingredients or what they actually are in Irish lingo!!!
convection i've just googled and yes they are one and the same :)
Yes not soggy but defo moist so will try cooking a little longer next time but bananas were kinda big ones but still John boy loved them so happy days!