I have been seriously struggling lately with inspiration for my blog. And motivation. I mean, I WANT to bake and blog and there are plenty of recipes out there that I’m dying to try, but it’s just a little daunting trying to find the time with a baby to be in the kitchen for an hour or more. Not gonna lie, it kinda sucks. Love my daughter but I miss baking!!! Just keeping it real, people.
Anywho, most of my recipes lately have been fairly simple and quick to make and honestly will probably stay that way for awhile. And I really don’t see anything wrong with that as long as they TASTE good. That’s the main objective, after all…something you want to eat! Last week I was racking my brain trying to think of something easy to make and it occurred to me that I had quite a few overripe, frozen bananas in my freezer that I needed to use. If for nothing else, I just needed that freezer space back! I went to see how many I had and I counted 20 bananas. Twenty!!! That’s a lot. Unbelievably enough, I couldn’t find a recipe that uses 20 bananas at once (shocking, I know) but I did manage to adapt this Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread from Sally’s Baking Addiction and use a whopping four bananas. Woo hoo, my freezer will be cleaned out in no time! NOT. I have a feeling we’ll be eating a lot of banana bread in the future.
So like I said I adapted this recipe and threw in a little cocoa powder (I love the combo of chocolate and cinnamon) and added a crunchy cinnamon sugar top to the loaf. It turned out moist and so delicious. The only disappointing thing was that you couldn’t see the cinnamon sugar layer in the middle of the loaf because of the cocoa…I didn’t even think about that! But it still tasted amazing. Simple, homey and just good. It’s a favorite banana bread recipe in our house now!
Enjoy!
- 2 c. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
- ¼ c. Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- ¾ t. Baking Soda
- ½ t. Salt
- 1 t. Ground Cinnamon
- ¾ c. Dark Brown Sugar, packed
- ½ c. Vegetable Oil
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1½ c. Mashed, Very Ripe Bananas (about 4 bananas)
- ⅓ c. Sour Cream
- 1 T. Pure Vanilla Extract
- ½ c. Granulated Sugar
- 1½ t. Ground Cinnamon
- ½ c. Unsalted Butter, melted (this will be reserved for the top of the loaf)
- ½ c. Powdered Sugar
- 1 T. Heavy Cream (or milk...all I had was almond milk so I used that)
- 1 T. Pure Vanilla Extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x5-inch loaf pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and sugar. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, bananas, sour cream and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do NOT overmix.
- Spoon half of the batter into prepared pan. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar mixture onto the batter in the pan. Top with remaining batter and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar mixture. Pour melted butter evenly over loaf. Bake for 50-55 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.
- While the bread is cooling, make the glaze in a small bowl by combine the powdered sugar, heavy cream and vanilla. Drizzle over the cooled banana bread. Store in an airtight container.
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