Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake

Today’s recipe is Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake. This loaf cake uses mashed bananas as the primary wet ingredient, providing a delightful flavour to a wonderfully moist cake. The combination of chocolate and banana is highly successful, making this loaf cake exceptionally delicious. The inclusion of chocolate chips further enhances the experience.

As with most loaf cakes or sweet breads, the recipe is straightforward and can be easily prepared by hand. The most challenging part of the recipe is mashing the bananas, which takes very little time. You can mash the bananas to your preferred consistency, whether you like it entirely smooth or with some chunks of banana remaining. Either way works well with this recipe.

Ingredients for Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake

The ingredients include banana and chocolate chips, along with cocoa powder, eggs, butter, flour, salt, baking powder, and light brown sugar. However, caster or granulated sugar can be suitable alternatives if you don’t have light brown sugar.

Method

The method is also simple. In the time it takes to preheat the oven, the batter can be prepared and ready to bake.

Begin by mashing the banana as desired, then set it aside. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and butter. Sift the flour mixture over the top and begin to stir it in. As you stir, add in the banana and mix until everything is combined.

Next, add in half of the chocolate chips and stir them in. Pour half of the batter mixture into a greased and floured, or lined, 2lb/900g loaf pan. Sprinkle about half of the remaining chocolate chips on top. Then add the remaining batter and cover it with the rest of the chocolate chips. That’s all there is to it. The loaf cake is ready to bake for one hour, at 170C/150C Fan/340F.

By the end of the hour, the loaf cake will have risen nicely and likely split on the top. But that is common with loaf cakes, and is perfectly fine. Test it with a skewer to ensure it comes out clean. However, if the skewer doesn’t come out clean bake for a little longer. Then, remove the loaf cake from the oven and allow it to sit in the pan for about 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely.

It’s worth mentioning that you can omit the chocolate chips if you wish and still have a very delightful cake. But my own preference would always be to include the chocolate chips. Alternatively, you can replace the chips with some chopped nuts if you prefer.

My Cake

My cake baked well and had a fantastic taste. The predominant flavour was chocolate, followed by the wonderful sweet banana flavour. The cake was moist, and the chocolate chips provided extra flavour and a slight crunch. For such a simple recipe, this loaf cake delivers big on flavour.

Another lovely loaf cake recipe is: Golden Syrup Loaf Cake.

Chocolate Banana Loaf Cake

Recipe by geoffcooCourse: CakesCuisine: InternationalDifficulty: Easy

Servings

10

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

Ingredients

• 320g(scant 12 oz) bananas, weight when out of skins

• 30g(4 tbsp) cocoa powder

• 56g(1/4 cup) melted unsalted butter

• 160g(3/4 cup+2 tsp) light brown sugar

• 150g(1 cup, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup)plain flour

• 2 medium egg(large in USA)

• 10g(2 1/2 tsp) baking powder

• 3g(1/2 tsp) salt

• 100g(1/2 cup) chocolate chips

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/340F.
• Grease a 2lb/900g loaf pan and line it with parchment paper, or grease and flour it.
• Mash the bananas until you have a pulp of whatever consistency you prefer, then set aside. I used a fork then my hand mixer to make a fairly smooth mixture.
• Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt together, and set aside.
• In a large bowl whisk the eggs and sugar together, adding in the melted butter as you mix.
• Sift the flour mixture over the wet mixture, then stir it in.
• When the flour is almost mixed in stir in the banana too.
• Add about half the chocolate chips and stir them through the batter.
• Put about half the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
• Sprinkle over about half of the remaining chocolate chips.
• Pour in the remaining batter.
• Place the remaining chocolate chips onto the top of the batter.
• Bake the loaf cake for 60 minutes, until it has risen well and a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. There may be just a little chocolate on the skewer if it hits a chocolate chip, that is fine.
• Allow the loaf cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.