Chocolate Banana Bread! What would Grandma Miller say?

Well maybe someone did think of this before but in all the years after all the banana breads that we have consumed it is interesting that this is our first encounter with chocolate banana bread.  It makes sense doesn't it?  Bananas and chocolate clearly go well together and there are a number of treats that feature the two. There are chocolate banana cakes so why not modify the ubiquitous banana bread to include chocolate?  That's what our baker today did and it was a very smart idea.

Something different for today!

They added chocolate to Banana Bread!

Nicely baked!

Granulated sugar on the top!

Out of the pan and ready to slice!

As you can tell from the picture it certainly looked good.  It was very well baked with the attractive split on the top making it look like a bread.  The large granulated sugar on the surface was a creative touch.  The chocolate flavor was achieved by adding cocoa powder to the banana bread batter.  (Everyone knows that you make this with almost rotten bananas, right?)  For added flavor the traditional walnuts and some non-traditional chocolate chips were added.

Walnuts, chocolate chips and a moist bread texture!

It was not too hard to eat a whole slice!

The final result was well appreciated. It is rare to find a banana bread that is dry and that was certainly not the case here.  The texture was what it should be - more reminiscent of banana bread than chocolate cake - and it was very moist.  Although it looked like it might be dense or heavy, it wasn't and a number of people who chose only half a slice came back for more once they realized this. It was needless to say very much appreciated. So the next time you are baking some banana bread consider throwing in some chocolate..you'll like the result.

Bad cutting job in the end!

During this cake hour we learned of the difficulty of getting back your data once your laptop dies.  One of our colleagues offered to help with data recovery.  The laptop in question is an old Dell that deserve the nickname we gave it - the world's biggest laptop. It was one monster laptop and our friend may miss the data but won't miss the computer. After developing back pain from carrying around the behemoth she went out and bought a Mac.

You could break your back carrying this!