Blackout Banana Bread has an amazing double chocolate effect with cocoa mixed with the flour and then semisweet chocolate chips added at the end. This is a decadent twist on banana bread, but still uses those overripe bananas on your counter top. It is full of rich cocoa and then you add a healthy amount of semisweet chocolate chips. You will love this new twist on an old favorite.

Did you know you can purchase overripe bananas from your grocery story. My local store always has a grocery cart with overripe bunches taped up for easy banana bread making. The overripe bananas add a rich full flavor that “just perfect” bananas do not have. Using those black and brown bananas that have been waiting for you on your counter will make the BEST Blackout Banana Bread.

How to Make Blackout Banana Bread

1. Mash or beat bananas until they are liquified.  This can be done with a hand blender, a stand mixer or a fork.  Just keep mashing them until they look like a liquid.

2.  Beat eggs until they are a light yellow color, then add them to the bananas.  Using eggs that are room temperature speeds up this process, but eggs from the refrigerator work just as well. 

3.  Mix the butter and sugar until well blended.  Use room temperature butter and beat with the sugar for about 4 minutes. This is the optimum time to get the sugar crystals dispersed and suspended in the butter.

4.  Gradually add the banana mixture to the butter mixture.  This is where you do not want to over beat.  Pour the banana egg mixture in a small stream as you add them to the butter and sugar.  When the eggs are added and everything looks the same color and consistency, start adding the dry ingredients.

5.  Add the dry ingredients intermittently with the buttermilk.  Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and add 1/2 cup at a time to the banana egg mixture.  Then add 2 Tbsp. of buttermilk.  Keep adding all the flour and then the buttermilk until all ingredients are mixed in.  Try and finish with the buttermilk.  It makes a velvety batter for better tasting bread.

Fold in the chocolate chips after getting batter all mixed together. 

6. Once the flour is mixed into the batter, fold in the chocolate chips.

7.  Pour batter into greased loaf pans.  I like spraying the loaf pans with vegetable spray.  Then I line the pans with parchment paper, going both directions with the paper.  This makes taking the loaf out of the pan easier when it is finished baking.  If you are giving the loaves away as a gift for a neighbor or coworker, it produces a prettier looking loaf.  

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8.  Bake for 45 – 50 minutes. 

9.  Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top as soon as you take the loaves out of the oven.  My chocolate chips fell all over the place.  I probably should have put the cooling rack in a cookie sheet before pouring the chips on.  It was so fun to watch these warm up and melt all over the outside of this loaf of bread.

10.  Always rest quick breads, like banana bread, for 10 minutes before taking them out of the pan.  This bread is too fragile to take out of the pan immediately when you take it out of the oven.  By letting it sit for 10 minutes, you allow everything to cool down enough to keep your bread from breaking apart.

11.  Take a butter knife or an offset spatula and drag it along the edge of the bread in between the pan and the bread.  This will loosen the bread from the pan.  The pan should loosen from the bread and easily drop out of the pan.  I drop the bread into my hand then place it on a cooling rack. 

If you lined your pan with parchment paper, still use a knife to loosen the bread from the pan at the corners.   Then pick up the edge of the paper you left sticking out and place the loaf on a cooling rack.  I suggest leaving the paper on and let the loaf rest for another 5 minutes longer.  This chocolate banana bread was very soft when I took it out of the pan.  Carefully peel the paper off the bread and enjoy!  

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