Walnut Chocolate Banana Bread

So in my busyness.... I missed the one year mark of my blog. Not to miss a reason to celebrate, I am celebrating it late, today. As a mom I gave up trying to be on time for everything awhile ago. Its too stressful to be on time with kiddos that at the very last minute fall and need band aides, forget their "owls" (insert favorite toy), or all of a sudden need to use the bathroom and insist on doing it themselves after you are already late. Any one else know what I am talking about here? I hope you are nodding along. 

Anyways happy belated one year birthday to my blog. Yay! Party in my kitchen! To celebrate I am not making a cake. Had some sugary goodness last night at my son's friend's birthday party. But liking the chocolate idea... I am trying a new recipe THE Chocolate Walnut Banana Bread. I love chocolate. I love banana bread. It could work. It does work. I love nuts and adding walnuts to a recipe I just found online makes sense to me. If you aren't a nut like me leave them out the recipe has good reviews online without them. The recipe comes from cooking.com, which sources a great chef/food resource, Tyler's Ultimate by Tyler Florence. 

One thing I learned to do when I embarked on a journey to keep trying new recipes is to read the comments below each recipes. You want to look for the comments that say the people have actually made the food. Those are the most helpful. It can give you great ideas on what to serve with the food, how to change it up, and make it your own. It also gives you a better idea if it is kid friendly, too spicy, or other things you may have missed while reading the recipe. One of my many deviations from the original recipe was greek yogurt. I wouldn't have thought to add it but two of the comments suggested it. They were right. It was genius :)  Reading the comments really saved me from a dry banana bread.... Yay for people who post comments!

Walnut Chocolate Banana Bread 

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
1/8 cup of water
3 very ripe (dark brown) bananas
2 large eggs
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
1 tsp of walnut extract
2 oz of chopped chocolate chunks
2 oz of melted chocolate pieces
1/4 cup of powdered cocoa
1 tsp of kosher salt
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8-1/4 cup powdered sugar (optional but fun!)



Directions: 

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in one large bowl. These are flours, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, chocolate chunks, and walnuts

2. Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate medium sized bowl. This is everything else.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 and butter or use nonstick spray on a loaf pan (9 by 5 in).

4. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes. Mine was done in 63 minutes. HINT: You want to pull it out when the toothpick or cake tester ALMOST comes out clean.

5. Once its out of the oven, let it rest in the loaf pan for 15 minutes then remove it, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and finish cooling on a rack.

Wow it turned out great! Twisting up a classic to enjoy the (belated) one year mark for my blog. Thanks for reading and checking out my recipes today and over the past year (give or take some). I had no idea that people would even want to read it when I started. Yet, I have gotten such amazing feedback. This is my favorite hobby! I love trying recipes and sharing them with you. My friends..... I applaud you!

Enjoy Happy Belated Birthday to my Blog

Have some chocolate on me

From my kitchen to yours.