Chocolate Marbled Banana Bread

         Chocolate Marbled Banana Bread
                   Makes 12 slices (164 calories per slice)

My co-worker gave me 3 very ripe bananas last week. He suggested that I make banana bread. I have never made banana bread before. Mainly because ripe bananas don't last very long around my boyfriend and I (maybe I need a special banana hiding place). Google to the rescue! I found this recipe on Post Punk Kitchen. Isa Chandra Moskowitz is a genius and her recipes have never failed me. I loved that half of the batter in this recipe has cocoa powder and is low fat. It is pretty fun to make the swirl design in the pan! This bread tastes so good! Compared to 1 slice of Starbucks banana nut loaf (490 calories and 19g of fat) this is just a no brainer.

1 cup mashed very ripe banana (3 regular sized bananas)
3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup almond milk (or your preferred non-dairy milk)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tablespoons boiling water, divided

1. Prepare boiling water, no need to measure yet. Also, preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Mash the banana in a large mixing bowl until relatively smooth. It should take 3 average sized ones, but spoon the mashed ‘nanas into a measuring cup to make sure, then return to the mixing bowl. Beat in the sugar, canola oil, milk and vanilla.

3. Now add the flour, baking soda and salt and gently mix just to incorporate. It’s okay if there is some flour still visible, just be careful not to over mix at this point.

4. Scoop one cup of the batter up and transfer it to a separate mixing bowl. Now, in a small cup mix the cocoa powder with 3 tablespoons boiling water and stir vigorously with a fork until the chocolate is dissolved. Add this chocolate mixture to the one cup of banana and mix until the chocolate is thoroughly smooth and incorporated.

5. Now back to the original plain banana batter; add 3 tablespoons of boiling water and mix the batter just until relatively smooth.

6. Here comes the fun part, it’s time to marble! Lightly grease an 8×4 loaf pan. Scoop alternate 1/2 cupfuls of chocolate/banana batter into the loaf pan. Nothing has to be precise here, in fact, the more random, the better. Once all of the batter is in, take a butter knife and swirl it through the batter in circular directions for about 10 seconds.

7. Bake for 55 minutes. Use a butter knife to test for doneness. Let cool and enjoy!

Nutrition Info: I found the nutriotion info by using the meal feature on my fav website caloriecount.com