Triple Chocolate Banana Bread

Easy, one-bowl Triple Chocolate Banana Bread. Loaded with chocolate chips and topped with a dark chocolate ganache.

We have an excessive amount of bananas in our freezer. Really, it’s reaching epic proportions. I’ve mentioned before that I consider bananas to have a ridiculously short life span. There’s a 1-2 day window when I consider them edible. Anything outside of that is just… no. Ryan actually prefers them when they are (what I consider) over ripe, aka rotten. You know, when they start to have brown specks on them and the banana smell is WAY too strong. No thank you. It’s usually around this point that they get shoved into the freezer to be used at some undisclosed later date, almost exclusively in banana bread.

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I love banana bread. It’s so easy to make, and super versatile. You can jazz it up with chocolate chips or pineapple chunks, add some walnuts or coconut – the possibilities are endless. You can have it for breakfast, as an afternoon snack, or even dessert. This triple chocolate banana bread most certainly falls into the dessert category (though I won’t judge you if you sneak a piece for breakfast).

I have made banana bread before, and even fancied it up for a tropical Bundt cake (which was delicious), but I’ve never made a rich, chocolatey version, so that was my priority this week.

For this Triple Chocolate Banana Bread, I swapped out some of the flour for cocoa powder, and added some espresso powder to intensify the chocolate flavor. Adding espresso powder to chocolate baked goods is my favorite thing to do. You can’t often taste the coffee flavor itself, but it really adds a richness to the chocolate, which I love.

I had some leftover ganache from last week’s Mocha Chocolate Cake, so I decided to kick this chocolate banana bread up a few notches – because it clearly wasn’t chocolatey enough already. I originally intended to sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of the ganache to help cut some of the sweetness, but I loved the pattern of the ganache drizzle too much to cover it up.

This triple chocolate banana bread is delicious. It’s incredibly moist and chocolatey. If you want to tone it down a bit (and I wouldn’t blame you), you can skip the chocolate chips and ganache and have a delicious plain chocolate banana bread. Or you can swap the chocolate chips for walnuts or some other kind of nut. Really, it’s so versatile and fun to experiment with different combinations. Whatever you decide on, you won’t be disappointed!

Oh and the best part about this recipe? You can totally do it in one bowl.

Notes & tips for this Triple Chocolate Banana Bread:

• You can do this easily in one bowl, just add the dry ingredients directly into the wet instead of mixing them in a separate bowl.
• This bread is not super sweet and has a strong chocolate flavor. If you’d like to tone that down and prefer it sweeter, reduce the cocoa powder to 1/4 cup and increase the flour to 1 1/4 cups.
• I use Dutch-processed cocoa powder, but regular cocoa powder will work too.

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Triple Chocolate Banana Bread

4.46 from 22 votes

Easy, one-bowl Triple Chocolate Banana Bread. Loaded with chocolate chips and topped with a dark chocolate ganache.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 526kcal

Author Olivia

Ingredients

 

US CustomaryMetric

 

1x2x3x

Chocolate Banana Bread:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder sifted, I use Dutch-processed
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp instant espresso powder (optional for flavor)
• 1 cup overripe bananas mashed (approx. 2 large bananas)
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips optional

Ganache (optional):

• 5 oz dark chocolate chopped
• 5 oz heavy whipping cream

Instructions

 

Chocolate Banana Bread:

• Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan (I use homemade cake release). Line with parchment (optional).
• In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.**
• In a medium bowl, whisk together mashed bananas, oil, sugar, egg, and vanilla.
• Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
• Bake for 55-65 mins or until a cake tester comes out mostly clean.
• Cool in pan on wire rack for 10mins, turn out and cool completely on wire rack.

Ganache:

• Finely chop chocolate and place into a bowl. Bring cream just barely to a simmer and pour over chopped chocolate. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand 2 mins. Stir with a spatula until combined and smooth.
• Cool completely before drizzling over loaf.***

Notes

*This bread is not super sweet and has a strong chocolate flavor. If you’d like to tone that down and prefer it sweeter, reduce the cocoa powder to 1/4 cup and increase the flour to 1 1/4 cups.

**One-bowl method – Skip this part and just add the dry right into the wet.

***I had leftover ganache stored in the fridge that I zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Calories: 526kcalCarbohydrates: 50gProtein: 5gFat: 35gSaturated Fat: 24gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 207mgPotassium: 420mgFiber: 5gSugar: 28gVitamin A: 265IUVitamin C: 2.1mgCalcium: 56mgIron: 4.3mg

The nutritional information and metric conversions are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this data. If this is important to you, please verify with your favorite nutrition calculator and/or metric conversion tool.