Lessons in Baking: Chocolate Cinnamon Banana Bread

I'm a banana fiend over here, I like them in everything from themselves, to ice cream, to pie to smoothies, to even the banana runts. I often have way too many so I got to freezing them but I had too many stored up. I felt like baking on Friday, and couldn't find a recipe to suit, especially because the sweet breads I wanted to bake needed whole milk, and since Sophie turned 2 we went to stocking 2% instead, so I figured I'd just use up the frozen bananas and make banana bread.

When I got out the baking powder I saw my cocoa powder and I figured that'd be a good combination so why not? So I threw in like 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder just cause.

Butter was room temp but still hard
to break up so it was pretty lumpy

As I got to the end I was thinking about how well banana, chocolate and cinnamon all go together, so I thought I'd throw in some of the new cinnamon Aunt Judee gave me at Christmas. I was just trying to shake some in from the bag but whoops, a whole mountain fell out. I really thought, well this is ruined, but mixed it in anyway (it's all a learning process isn't it?)

That's the mountain LOL

Oh well. I thought maybe I put in too much of everything, but it all fit in the bread dish well enough...

Although banana bread usually calls for
walnuts, I like to put in raw pecans - both
because they're cheaper and I have them,
but also they're better for high blood pressure

And the finished product.

Good news is that is actually wasn't ruined! Definitely still edible and it's good, but not great. Shockingly I taste way more of the cocoa powder than the cinnamon. And there are moist parts, which perhaps are undercooked, perhaps are from butter lumps, but they're my favorite part because I'm the kind of person who can OD on cake batter, for better or worse.

Lessons in Baking: Banana Bread

So much wasted food with a toddler. Got to have all the favorites on hand and never know when one will get shunned unexpectedly. So that's how an entire bunch of bananas got way too soft for eating and I had to salvage them (and I already have way too many frozen in the freezer for smoothies) and I embarked on my first loaf of banana bread ever! (Even I can't believe that). I kept forgetting to take pictures but here you go...

I looked up a recipe and it was super simple. What I love is that I've been so into baking, that I have all the usual ingredients and then a lot. So I can look at the list and be like "yep - good to go" (so convenient!)

Super easy enough here

I would have chopped walnuts cause
isn't that the standard? But I only had
pecans but it turned out really nicely
in the bread!

In the pan

I'm actually not sure if the weird top
is from hitting the top of the oven (we
have a double convection so it was
squeezed in the lower half) or if it's from
the weird way I spread the batter in the pan,
as you can see from the previous

It turned out great! It probably could have cooked a little bit more but I was getting concerned because the edges were getting too dark, but it was still great. Even though it's sweet and a bit of a dessert, I let Sophie had some and we were met with her usual "mm a bite!" or "more!" immediately after shoveling a bite into her mouth.

Easy enough, and I feel much better about salvaging those bananas rather than relegating them to the trash.