Recipe of the Week: Chocolate Banana Bread

Ripe bananas always equal banana bread in my book! I wanted to make something a little different then just plain jane bread, so threw some coco powder, sour cream and chocolate chips into the mix! Hope you enjoy the new recipe, next week will be cheesecake style so get ready for some rich deliciousness.


1 cup butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
6 medium super ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup unsweetened coco powder
1 cup sour cream
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease 2 9x5 loaf pans or 2 muffin pans. Cream together butter, sugar and eggs (one at a time) in a large mixing bowl. Stir in mashed bananas and vanilla. In a seperate bowl combine flour, baking soda,cinnamon, salt and coco until well combined. Slowly incooperate a little of the flour mixture at a time into banana batter. Blend in sour cream until well combined, then add chocolate chips & mix well.

Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 eggs

1 cup canned or fresh pumpkin

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

6 squares Semi-Sweet Chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Baker's)

Directions:
1. Preheat to 350°F. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices until well blended; set aside. Beat eggs, pumpkin, sugars, milk and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add dry ingredients; stir just until moistened. Stir in chopped chocolate.

2. Pour into greased 9x5-inch loaf pan.

3. Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack. Cut into 18 (1/2-inch thick) slices to serve.

"Ooh Ooh Aah Aah" Monkey Bread

Ingredients:
3 cans buttermilk biscuits (7.5oz each)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease one 9 or 10 inch tube pan
2.Mix white sugar and cinnamon in a plastic bag. Cut biscuits into quarters. Shake 6 to 8 biscuit pieces in the sugar cinnamon mix. Arrange 1/2 of the pieces on the bottom of the prepared pan.
3.Melt 1/4 cup of butter and pour over the biscuit pieces. Add remaining pieces onto and pour the remaining 1/4 cup of butter on top.
4.Sprinkle the left over sugar mixture on the top
5..Bake for 40 minutes and then let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. no need to cut, the bread just pulls apart.

Rating:
Because I used a bundt pan that is in 2 parts some of the butter leaked out causing the sides of my monkey bread to have a more buttery edge-if you make this as directed with a closed pan this will not happen and your bread should be perfect ;) it turns out my family likes the buttery edge monkey bread better...so it turned out for the best. This bread is easy to make, and kids especially love it because they get to just pull off the little pieces. enjoy!