Directions
You’ve missed out on a great dessert if you’ve never eaten banana bread.
Banana bread is simply a cake. A less refined plum cake prepared with too ripe bananas that are on the trash can’s brink. But remember that the riper they are, the sweeter and more sumptuous the “cake” will be.
There is a trick to play down and balance the sweetness of this dessert: the power of extra dark chocolate.
We will prepare an extra dark chocolate banana bread because the bitter touch of the chocolate helps break up the banana’s somewhat monotonous taste, making it more nuanced and lively.
The recipe for this banana bread is straightforward. You don’t even need a mixer, so much so that you don’t have to knead who knows what stuff, so if you don’t know how to recycle excess bananas, here is the recipe for you!
Small note: the recipe is not vegan, but if you use olive oil instead of butter and eliminate the eggs and add some apple juice, it becomes a vegan dessert in all respects, and the taste is always delicious; indeed, the olive oil adds a note of particular flavor that goes well with bananas.
In short, make your choices. Now, let’s turn on the oven, and let’s bake!
Ingredients for extra dark chocolate banana bread
12 servings
- 300 grams of flour
- 70 grams of extra dark chocolate
- 20 grams of butter
- 20 ml of fresh cream
- 50 grams of cocoa
- 10 grams of baking soda
- 4 grams of salt
- 5 well-ripened bananas
- 150 grams of butter
- 3 eggs
- 170 grams of sugar
- 8 drops of vanilla extract
- 60 grams of walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, or macadamia nuts (optional, but add flavor and crunch)
How to make extra dark chocolate banana bread
Let’s start by turning on the oven and setting it to 170 degrees centigrade.
Put the peeled bananas in a large enough bowl to go in the microwave and cook them for 3-4 minutes at high temperature: they must be very soft and release liquid.
Put the bananas in a fine mesh colander and let them drain for 20 minutes over the bowl, stirring occasionally.
Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt in a larger bowl.
Melt the chocolate with 1 tablespoon of butter and the cream in a saucepan in a bain-marie over low heat.
Return the bananas to the bowl, then cook the banana liquid in a saucepan until it has reduced by half, then pour the liquid over the bananas and mash with a fork until you get a banana cream.
Pour in the melted butter, eggs, sugar, melted chocolate, and vanilla and stir again with a fork.
Pour the wet mixture into the flour, stirring, but not too much. It must not be perfectly blended. On the contrary!
Add walnuts, hazelnuts, or your favorite dried fruit, and stir a couple of times again.
Grease a 22 x 7 cm plum cake mold, sprinkle with flour, and pour the banana bread dough.
If you want, cut a few slices of banana and lay them on top, but sideways, almost sticking to the edge, so that it can grow well in the center.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and bake.
Bake the banana bread at 170 degrees for 50-60 minutes.
To see if it is cooked, prick it with a toothpick, and if it comes out pretty dry, you can take the cake out of the oven.
Wait for it to cool for at least 20 minutes, remove it from the mold and wait another 1 hour before serving. Cut it into slices and serve with orange marmalade, whipped cream, or ice cream for an irresistible dessert!
Which wine to pair with extra dark chocolate banana bread?
All this chocolate represents a great challenge for a wine: tannins, sweetness, spices, and body are needed, all virtues that we will find in the Mazzi winery’s Recioto della Valpolicella. Other fantastic combinations can be done with fortified wines and distillates such as sweet vermouth, Port wine, Marsala, Madeira wine, Sherry, Brandy, Cognac, and Calvados.
If you want to combine a cocktail, we have two choices: tropical with Pina Colada or strong with Espresso Martini.
Choose the marine and peaty taste of a great single malt like the Laphroaig quarter cask if you want to combine a spirit.
