The Ultimate Chocolate Banana Bread
I have a theory about baked goods: If there’s sour cream in it, it’s going to be great. Sour cream adds richness, tanginess, and, because of the way it interacts with the baking soda, lift. It’s the secret ingredient that makes this chocolate banana bread, from Jessie Sheehan’s Snackable Bakes (one of my favorite baking books), such a treat. Think: chocolate cake mashed up with banana bread, with all the best qualities of each.
You probably already have the other ingredients around the house, assuming you keep bananas around the house. (I do, and I let them get really, really black before baking with them.) Then there’s cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, salt, vegetable oil, sugar, vanilla, egg, and sour cream. Oh, and did I mention chocolate chips? Yeah, there are chocolate chips in there too.
I don’t know about you, but seeing a batter like this in a bowl makes me feel like a nine-year-old, standing at the sink, waiting to get my hands on an egg beater to lick off every bit that I can. Only now I’m an adult and I suppose if I wanted to I could eat all of that batter with a spoon. But why do that when you can bake it for an hour and get this:
Call it breakfast. Call it dessert. Call it a snack. Call it whatever you want — banana chocolate cake, chocolate banana bread — but whatever you call it, make sure you save a slice for me, because ours is all gone and I’m sad.
The Ultimate Chocolate Banana Bread
From Snackable Bakes by Jessie Sheehan
Cooking spray (or softened butter)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I like Valrhona)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (If you add a little more, I won’t tell anybody)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/4 cup créme fraiche or sour cream
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 very ripe ones)
Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8.5 x 4.5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray or softened butter. Line the bottom with a large sheet of parchment that extends up and over the two long sides of the pan. (This makes it easy to lift the cake out later!)
Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in the chocolate chips. (This keeps them from sinking to the bottom when you bake!) In separate bowl, combine the sugar, oil, and vanilla, and whisk for 30 seconds. Mix in the egg, then the créme fraiche or sour cream and, finally, the bananas. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet with a rubber spatula just until the last streak of flour disappears. Don’t over-mix or the loaf will turn out tough.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 65 to 70 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point. The bread is done when a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out with a moist crumb or two.
Remove from the oven and let it cool in the pan for about 20 minutes. Using the parchment overhang, lift the loaf out of the pan and let it cool to room temperature before serving (if you can wait that long).
Adam Roberts writes the bi-weekly newsletter The Amateur Gourmet (a spin-off of his legendary blog of the same name), and his most recent book is Food Person, which we loved. Adam lives with his husband, Craig, and dog, Winston, in a cabin in Brooklyn.
Thank you, Adam! We love you. And a few more Adam recipe recs: the best sticky buns ever, chocolate pecan pie, and peppermint patty brownies.
P.S. Adam’s seven rules for being good dinner party host and his Brooklyn house tour.
(Photos courtesy of Adam Roberts. This post first appeared on The Amateur Gourmet.)
Comments
39 commentsJust coming back to say I’ve now made this three times and it’s so good. Thank you!
the combination of deep cocoa flavor and sweet bananas sounds absolutely perfect. I’m definitely adding this to my baking list
I’ve seriously made this recipe five times since it was posted on here, it’s to die for! And sent the recipe to so many people who wanted it after tasting. Just a note for others who live at altitude like myself: this only needs about 50 mins of bake time for me.
This recipe is perfect! I made it in a larger loaf pan (9×5) and it was done at 47 minutes. I love the crust, texture, flavor- everything. It was also fun throwing caution to the wind and not weighing ingredients as I usually do.
This was very good, I’ll make it again!
I made a double batch of this tonight for my kids to have in the morning for breakfast and to give some to neighbors! One of my kids asked me what I was making and I was sure to say chocolate banana cake so she’d be more likely to eat it in the morning (she was content with that!). Thanks Adam!!
Yum!
I always whisk chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, and other add-ins into the flour to prevent sinking.
Adam, I love your comment about baking with sour cream. My husband’s grandmother always said the same thing. She was born in 1899 and died in 1993 just before her 94th birthday and was a legendary baker. Fun fact: up until 1990 she always told everyone she’d been born in 1900 because being born in the nineteenth century made her seem so OLD! Her sour cream pound cake is still the best ever but the recipe stays in the family…sorry.
The Cup of Jo comments page is a sort of family, just saying……
Seconded!
Kirby and Morgan, can’t promise anything but if you check cookbooks from the 50s and 60s (especially church or community ones)) you may find pound cake recipes featuring sour cream and lemon-lime soda. Not saying it will be the same, but it’s where she started from.
I’ve been making Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate banana bread forever, and I’m not going to mess with perfection. Although, I too think that sour cream is a keystone ingredient in baked goods!
So glad to have been introduced to Adam’s work via the “Cup of Jo” extended universe! What a delight!
Years ago I read in Cup of Jo about family traditions and now with my own children banana bread is out go-to birthday (and welcome out of town guests) “cake”. Last year my 3 year old son kept asking for a chocolate cake for his birthday, surprised me because he’s scared of any frosting. Turns out he wanted mamas chocolate chip banana bread.
Yummmm
Amen to sour cream! Esp as a compliment to chocolate. My mom would make a chocolate cheesecake that had a thin layer of sour cream (mixed with something else?) at the very top. Gosh it was so exciting every time I’d see it prepped as our Saturday night dessert.
I have a question. 1) Why is this being featured now when it was originally published in 2023 on Adam’s website? 2) Why does Adam get credit for this recipe when it is clearly attributed to Jessie Sheehan? I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just trying to understand why people are allowed to take other people’s recipes (or blog posts) and publish them on their own websites? On first read, I thought this was an original post, but upon reading the references, I realized that it is an old post of Adam’s that is now being cross-posted to CoJ 2 years later, and it is not even a recipe of his. In this era of AI, I think it’s important to know where content is coming from and who is earning money from it. Sorry if this is naive or sounds antagonistic. That is not the intent.
thank you for your note! sometimes our beloved readers leave comments asking questions like this, and overall I’d love to reassure you that we are never trying to get away with anything or pull one over on people, and instead are a small women-run team working hard to support fellow writers and artists and provide warm, fun content that is relevant to people’s real lives. I say this so you guys know you can feel good about coming to the site and that if you have questions, our answers will always be satisfying and make sense and come from a place of love, trust, and strong ethics. to answer your specific questions: * for our food column, we sometime syndicate content from food writers we really love. in this case, we love and know both Adam and Jessie, and this recipe for chocolate banana bread feels like something our readers would be thrilled to know about for the holidays. what an easy way to use old bananas to make a breakfast for your family and any house guests; and also it would be great host gift if you’re going to stay with relatives or friends. so it feels very relevant these days, even though it was first published in 2023 — food content often feels timeless. also, Adam has a different readership than ours, so I assume only a few of our readers would have seen his original post; but I know many readers will enjoy it and want to read it here. * Adam tried out this recipe and added his own photos of the process, which I thought were really helpful. he wrote the post, but all the credit for the recipe goes to Jessie Sheehan, whom we link to multiple times, very clearly and throughout the post, as a way to recommend her work and cookbook — I hope readers will love this recipe and buy her book and follow her online :) we are always so happy and proud to recommend and highlight other writers we love. we don’t earn any money from posts like this (instead, we earn money from sponsored posts, affiliate links, and banner ads). this kind of post is just for our readers to enjoy. there is never any sneakiness here — only a love of and support for good recipes, food writer friends, and this CoJ community. hope this helps! thank you! Joanna
Hi! I hope Joanna sees my response: Thank you so much for responding so thoughtfully and honestly. Your warmth shines through in every interaction with your readers.
I’m so all I can say is lucky you if you have time to analyze something like this. I’m not trying to be mean either but just gobsmacked that anyone would have time for this. Maybe because this is my first day spending the day at home between working full time and visiting my sister in hospital an hour away every evening. It just floors me. All the details and research. Heavens.
Hi Adam, I learned about your newsletter from this blog, so it’s great to see you post! You make this banana bread sound so enticing. I’ve always felt like why try a new banana bread recipe, when I have a great one that uses all butter, but you are selling me on trying the sour cream version!
Thanks, Sasha. I think you’re going to love it!
Haha my 9-year-old salivates as the batter gets to that state! Who needs cake when you have batter? This looks quite yum, we’ll have to try it ourselves!
hahaha agreed!!
In a pinch you can sub Greek yogurt for sour cream…
Thank you Moe! I was just going to write that I ALWAYS substitute low fat greek yogurt for sour cream. Much healthier and tastes better!!
Not just in a pinch, I almost always sub in Greek yogurt for sour cream. Sometimes if I’m feeling wacky, I’ll even use Labne…
YUM. Any suggestions for Dutch-processed cocoa powder that does not need to be purchased online / doesn’t break the bank?
I think Hershey’s will work in a pinch and if you want Dutch-processed they have their “Special Dark” version. Hope that helps!
Thank you!
Penzey’s sells it, if you are near one of their stores.
I made this recipe with the cocoa powder I had on hand—not Dutch processed—and it turned out great.
Oh yum. Just bookmarked this for New Year’s breakfast!
Smitten Kitchen has a Double Chocolate Banana Bread I’ve been making for 10 years and it’s fabulous! Very similar but no sour cream. https://smittenkitchen.com/2014/03/double-chocolate-banana-bread/
I’ve been making this one for years, too. So good!
Oh yes! I keep a loaf in my freezer just for the chocolate lovers. Even a few banana haters dig in! And yes to the baking world of Jessie-her all-in-a-blender popover batter changed my phobia to fail overnight. She’s a marvel! (As are you, Adam!)
On my list for the weekend! I love quick bread recipes, for anyone struggling with baking these kind of recipes make you seem like a five star baker. Yes to sour cream! I make a cinnamon roll with sour cream in the dough and it is so delicious.
My son turned 16 last week and this is what he asked for his birthday cake – I might make him a second one today to see which recipe is best.