Moist Chocolate Banana Cake Bread Recipe

Moist chocolate banana cake bread is a healthy loaf and slice you can happily make, share, and enjoy. 🍞

 

This healthier coconut oil and low-sugar chocolate cocoa-banana bread recipe below 👇is inspired by a story from my childhood sweet (as in baked-goods) memories…

One day, my mom gave me a banana bread loaf to take to my first-grade class.

I can’t remember what the occasion was or if there was one…

It was an ordinary school day.

I remember food sensitivities didn’t exist much back then, and a classmate had once brought in adventurous baklava with nuts, and we all tried it even though that’s more of an adult dessert (not so popular with first graders).

…But we’ll try anything sweet and we did! 🥮

Other classmates sometimes brought in more popular cake-type bakes and I think that’s where the recent past cupcake craze resurfaced again (as that was a thing back then for good ‘ol fashioned memories).

There’s nothin’ like a buttercream frosted cupcake to bring a smile to a face. 🧁

And the banana bread I took to school was a one-timer occurrence and definitely more in the adult taste category.

But my teacher loved it (or maybe she just loved me I hope 🤞) …or maybe both, as she asked me for the recipe.

So…that same day, I asked my mom to write down the recipe.

English wasn’t her first language and I’ve never seen a single written recipe she wrote as I don’t think that was popular back in her day when she was alive, but she did cook daily.

She prepared home cooked dinners like a cook pro almost every night.

…Well so, the next day, apparently my schoolteacher had tried baking the bread from my mom’s recipe.

I recall she mentioned she thought there must be a missing ingredient as hers didn’t turn out the way my mom’s had.

…That’s the story I remember anyway.

I never asked my mom to write another recipe as the opportunity never came up again.

But I think that memory from my very impressionable young formative years developed my skill and gradual interest in drumming up new recipes with old inspirations, and replacing ingredients with healthier ones we have available now.

Thank you, mom! And for passing on the passionate cooking and healthy genes through osmosis.

And for your life, if you still think you can’t cook or bake, you never know what a decade can bring in your favor as your tastes change… and even if know one taught you!

That’s one reason why I love to provide simple recipes I’ve created because anyone without formal or hand-me-down cooking skills can do them… and they’re super tasty (the former catering professional in me)  and healthy so they’re happy welcomed and good for the body too! 🎉

And this chocolate banana cake bread on today’s recipe agenda has a darker brown color (less banana bread beige blah!).

I actually think that’s why fruit cakes have candied fruits in them because they give a pop of color. Walnut and other beige nut colors don’t provide that visual wow.

But this bread cake has both wow and taste.

It can make you want to dig in or give as a holiday or anytime gift.

On the healthy side of things, it’s also filled with less sugar and  healthy fat oil that helps us moisturize our bodies in these climate changing days causing havoc.

EASY, Healthier Chocolate Banana cAKE Bread

1 cup mashed bananas (225 grams)

1/3 cup coconut oil (73 grams)

1/3 cup maple syrup  (the less the better)

2 eggs (room temperature)

¼ cup almond milk (59 mL)

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1-1/3 cups flour (168 grams)

1/3 cup cocoa powder (40 grams)

Combine wet ingredients with dry ones.

As my television baking teacher, Martha Stewart would say, it doesn’t matter which you to add first to the other: wet to dry or dry to wet. And in lingo I picked up from hotel catering days, we would say, “it’s 6 of 1 or half-dozen the other.”

Mix well and bake in 325 F˚/ 170 C˚oven for 65-80 minutes.

You gotta love the lower temperature bakes (they’re so few and far between… and that makes this a good year-round bake).

With this recipe, you also get to see the magic of the oven as the forming bread looks like it’s bathing in healthy coconut oil where you wonder if it will soak in or evaporate. But it does! 🪄

And then when the bread is done, Voila! (or Wah-lah! if French isn’t your native cooking tongue 😜)…

Here’s the fun zhugh…

For your baking masterpiece or a first piece that’s outta this world, embellish with crystalized ginger that has a sweet and spicy taste, and calming orange zest flavors, and/or a fun shredded coconut dusting.

Also, you can decorate with sesame seeds to really make it pop out like you see in artisanal breads.

This would be good anytime or part of a low-sugar breakfast, along with these low-sugar breakfast recipes.