Peanut Butter and Chocolate Banana Bread

Banana bread is a popular breakfast food at my house.  The kids love waking up to the beautiful warm smell of banana bread in the air throughout the house.  They enjoy eating moist and warm freshly baked banana bread with a large glass of milk.

While I was grocery shopping for banana bread ingredients at 6 am last weekend, I was thinking about what we love to eat our bananas with and wanted to incorporate those flavors into the banana bread.  I love chocolate dipped frozen bananas and the girls love to eat their bananas with peanut butter.  I walked down the baking aisle and saw chocolate chips and peanut butter chips and was like Damn…Peanut Butter and Chocolate Banana Bread sounds hella good so decided to buy the chips and try it out.

I added the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips to an existing America’s Test Kitchen banana bread recipe I’ve been using and adapted over the past several years and IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT! The melty gooiness of the PB and Chocolate chips were divine and complimented the ultra-moist banana bread very well.  All the flavors we love with bananas in every bite.  We loved it.  It smelled so good that my dog randomly jumped onto the kitchen table (he never does that) and helped himself to the few slices my wife pre-sliced for the kids.  I freaked out for a bit because he ate chocolate, but he ended up with just food coma and was himself again after that.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 ripe bananas, mashed
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter chips

Steps:

Preheat Oven – Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9×5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper.

Prepare Dry Ingredients – In a large bowl, whisk and combine all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, salt, and baking soda.

Prepare Wet Ingredients – In another large bowl, mix and blend mashed bananas, unsalted butter, yogurt, vanilla extract, and eggs.

Make Batter – Form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients to the center of the dry ingredients.  Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until combined.  Fold in milk chocolate chips and peanut butter chips into the batter.  Pour batter into a parchment paper-lined 9×5-inch loaf pan.

Bake Banana Bread – Bake banana bread on the center rack of the oven for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.  Remove the banana bread from the oven and let rest in the pan for an hour. When cooled, slice and serve.

Tips:

• Lining 9×5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper helps easily remove the banana bread from the pan after it is done baking.  If you do not have parchment paper, simply coat the pan with nonstick spray.
• You can make this recipe without chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.  Add an extra 1/4 cup of granulated sugar if you are making t his without the chips.
• Make sure you use very ripe bananas.  Banana peel should be very dark and spotty before using it for banana bread.
• Any type of chocolate chips will work well with this recipe.
• Walnuts will be good as well!