Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Everyone loves a loaf of good banana bread! This Chocolate Chip Banana Bread is a fun little twist on classic banana bread!

I first heard about this twist from a friend that volunteered in Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution (aka Czechoslovakia transitioning to the Czech Republic.) She said that many people were rather frightened of outsiders during this time because of all the foreign occupations throughout most of the 20th century. She found an easy way to bridge that fear was with baked goods! Because really no matter where we are from, we recognize the kind gesture of giving delicious foods!

My friend would find bakers chocolate (because chocolate chips were not available) and break it into pieces for the banana bread. This was a huge hit and helped her befriend a nervous community during a time of great change.

After having her delicious variation of banana bread, I altered my own recipe to accommodate the alterations! This has become a beloved family recipe and I’m excited to share it will all of you!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe

As with all of my recipes, I have broken down the steps so that even a beginner can learn to make this delicious chocolate chip banana bread!

The Detailed Instructions

In this tutorial, I am using a Bosch stand mixer, but you can use any stand mixer, a bowl and hand mixer, or even mix it by hand. A stand mixer does make baking easier, but you can work with whatever you have!

1 | Preheat the Oven

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2 | Cream the Butter and Sugar

Place 1 cube of softened butter and 1 cup of sugar in the mixer. Mix on medium until you have a slightly fluffy yellow mixture.

Cream is a baking term for mixing softened butter with sugar to make a fluffy mixture.

3 | Add the Eggs

Add 2 eggs to the mixer. If you have trouble separating the eggs without getting eggshells, it is best to crack them into a small bowl before adding them to the mixer.

4 | Mash the Bananas

I have found that banana bread works best when the bananas are spotted and mostly brown on the peel, like this:

You will want to mash your bananas before adding them to the mixer to prevent large chunks of banana in the baked bread. I usually mash the bananas on a plate with a fork.

Generally, this recipe will use 2 regular bananas or 3 small bananas. It’s ok if you have a little more or less. I just use approximately 1 cup of mashed banana.

Mix the mashed bananas into the batter. It should look like this:

5 | Add the Milk and Lemon Juice

Add 1/2 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice to the mixer, then blend.

6 | Add the Dry Ingredients

Measure 2 cups of Flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of Baking Powder, 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt into the mixer.

By now, you should have a batter that looks about like this:

7 | Add the Chocolate Chips

Remove the beaters from your mixer and stir in the chocolate chips by hand. Please note that the chocolate chips can bend the wire whisks and damage your mixer so it is best to stir them in by hand.

8 | Bake

Grease a loaf pan. You can do this by spraying the inside of the pan with cooking spray or you can rub butter on the inside of the pan.

Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour.

Your bread is done when the loaf starts to pull away from the edges of the pan and you can insert a toothpick into the loaf that comes out clean. If the toothpick has batter on it, you will need to cook the loaf a bit longer.

9 | Turn out the Bread

Set a timer for 10 minutes, then run a butter knife between the loaf and the pan to make sure the loaf does not stick inside the pan. Turn the bread out of the pan onto a cooling rack or just paper towels on the counter.

Note: I turn the loaf up on its side while letting it cool.

10 | Enjoy your Chocolate Chip Banana Bread!

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Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Alterations

Gluten Free Option

This recipe works great with gluten free flour! You will need to use 1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour instead of 2 cups of regular flour. This may also take a few minutes longer to cook as well.

Alternatives to Chocolate Chips

You can swap the chocolate chips for nuts or fruit. Just make sure that if you are using a wet ingredient such as raspberries, toss them in a tablespoon of flour before you mix them into the batter. This will help the ingredients from sinking to the bottom of the pan.

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As always, I’m happy to help you! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, just let me know!

You can find more baking recipes here!

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