Fun fact first. I don’t like bananas. I don’t like the mushy consistency and the feeling it develops in my mouth. Luckily, I found out some months ago that I really love banana bread. (and yes I always loved Nicecream from the first day I’ve tried it.)
Ok back to the banana bread. I really don’t know what it is but this intense, flavor rich, dense, moist thing called banana bread has somehow twisted my mind and for a long time I can hardly think of anything else. It’s like falling in love with all the butterflies in your stomach. Except that I have banana bread in my stomach.
I made my first banana bread by use of this gluten-free banana bread recipe. I know I said it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted, but….then I wanted to step things up and I tried to add more things I like to the recipe in order to achieve the perfect „Lara“ banana bread. I ended up with a
Healthy Dark Chocolate Espresso Banana Bread
I added more cacao powder to this recipe and also espresso powder as I thought that banana, chocolate and espresso would be quite a good fit. In order to make it super healthy, I added zucchini. You easily get in your greens by eating dessert and not even noticing it. Now that is stuff I love! As you see below I used quinoa flour. Now this is something fancy you might won’t have at home. But no worries simply use another flour for it such as plain flour or spelt flour. (I don’t recommend coconut flour as it is makes the banana bread too dry)
This new bread is:
Chocolaty
Perfectly moist due to the ripe bananas and zucchinis
Loaded with different flavors which are supporting and not overpowering each other
Sweet but still a little bitter due to the espresso
Slightly coconutty
Incredibly satisfying
Altogether irresistible
Trust me, this won’t last more than 1 day! Enjoy!
- ¾ cup shredded zucchini
- 1 cup spelt or plain flour
- ⅓ cup oat flour
- 3 very ripe bananas
- ¾ cup almond milk
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- ½ cup coconut sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 heaped tbsp grounded espresso
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp cardamon
- a pinch of fine sea salt
- ⅔ cup dark vegan chocolate chips or more
- (optional: ⅓ cup crushed hazelnuts)
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9-by-5-inch nonstick loaf pan or use a silicon pan like I did.
- In your blender, mix the zucchinis, bananas, coconut oil, coconut sugar, vanilla extract and milk until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, grounded espresso, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips and crushed hazelnuts.
- Fill in the pan and decorate with more chocolate chips
- Bake about 45-50 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean.
- Drizzle peanut butter over the cake once cooled down
My love for banana bread has actually declined by a LOT this year! I don’t know what it is, but something has to ignite it again! I think this banana bread is the cure!
this looks so good!!
Hi Lara 🙂
Wir bekommen gerade einen ausgeprägten Futterneid. Wir sind derzeit in Florenz und testen uns durch die toskanische (Veggie-)Küche, die natürlich auch sehr gut ist 🙂 Aber das Brot müssen wir unbedingt ausprobieren, wenn wir aus Italien zurück sind!!
Liebe Grüße aus Bella Italia,
Leni & Marlena
http://www.veggiejourney.de/
Hallo Ihr zwei 🙂 ohh das klingt gut ich bin neidisch! Geniesst Florenz für mich und lasst mich dann wissen wie das Brot gelungen ist. Lieber Gruss Lara
WOW does this bread look amazing! I LOVE dark chocolate and espresso together!
looks delicious. do you just use ground coffee beans, to make coffee as the grounded espresso? not instant?
You can use both I actually killed a nespresso capsule ????
Hi there, can I use coconut flour and/ or oats instead of gluten free flour and quinoa? Thanks in advance! ????
I would go with oats flour as coconut flour is really dry and could dry it out! But in any case just try and tell me how it worked 🙂
dear lara. thanks for your quick answer. we dont have a coffee machine and I dont like nestle, but I will just use ground coffee.
will try this next time I bake banana bread. Now i still have some of mine left ;). maybe you want to try it as well? http://yourgreenblog.jimdo.com/2016/02/05/banana-bread/
I used the coconut flour and I baked it for almost 1,5 hour. Still wet and it is not working;/ 🙁 Please use the gram units, it would work better!
Maybe i will froze it because it smell delicious.
Hei Olga i think coconut flour is a very difficult flour to work with. As I always use cups I will keep it that way because it is to much effort to write both measures! 🙂 hopefully it will be amazing after you take it out of the freezer ????
Just wondering if you leave out the zucchini, with what exactly would you need to replace it? I hate zucchini.
Extra unsweetend almond milk or more bananas? Preferably no veggies, I’d like to keep my bananabread veggie free. For me, veggies are for dinner.
Hehe good point! Well you def. Need to compensate the liquid part otherwise it will get too dry! Add a little more milk and maybe a little banana this should do the trick ????
Wow! It looks so delicious! But I was wondering: what is the size of your bananas? Mine are super big, should I use less than 3 then? Thank you!
They were normal I guess ???? hehe I would go for 2 super big ones in this case
I made this last night and it turned out delicious. I did reduce the sugar by half and it took extra 15 mins to cook but my husband devoured the first slice!!!
Awesome thanks so much for letting me know! I will def try the reduced sugar version!
Hi Claudia I am very sorry to hear this as I never experienced any problems . Maybe there are some kinds of oat flours that are special…I am really sorry for your mess! Maybe you try my other banana bread?