I’ve always preferred a damp rich banana bread, and so I usually double, triple and even quadruple the recommended bananas. When I have brown bananas, I just put them in the freezer, and eventually, I have a lot of bananas.
These days I also have a lot of sourdough starter, so I’ve found a way to incorporate it into my banana bread. I also explain how to make this recipe without sourdough starter.
Over the years, I’ve added to my recipe turmeric and dark chocolate, for deliciousness and possible health benefits. I also decided somewhere along the way that hazelnuts are even better than walnuts with these flavors.
My recipe is based off of Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger’s Banana Bread on the Food Network website. But I add so many extra bananas, chips, and nuts that my recipe makes two loaves, without changing the amount of flour, butter, and sugar. Crazy huh?
I’ll admit there were a few heaping single loaves, that took almost two hours to cook, before it dawned on me to divide the batter.
Ingredients (in order of use)
This makes 2 standard size loaves.
- 200g sugar (1 cup)
- 113g unsalted butter (1 stick or 8 Tbsp)
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 260g sourdough starter discard (1 cup)
- 200g all purpose flour (1.5 cups)
[If you don’t have sourdough starter, simply use 2 cups of flour and 2 Tbsp of milk or water]
- 6-8 bananas
- 130g semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
- 120g roasted hazelnuts, slightly chopped (heaping 1 cup)
Instructions
- Roast the hazelnuts on a small cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes at 350F. Set aside to cool.
- Grease two loaf pans.
- Preheat your oven to 325F/165C.
- Cream the butter and sugar.
- Add the eggs and mix until incorporated.
- Add the spices and the baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add the starter and flour, if using a stand mixer, use a lower speed than you had for creaming and mixing in spices/soda/powder/salt. Pause to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once.
- Peel and add the bananas, chocolate chips, and hazelnuts at a very low speed. I like to stop while I can still see pieces of banana.
- Divide the batter between the two loaf pans and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick or knife comes clean (not clean of chocolate, but of beige-yellow batter).
- Let cool on a rack about 30 minutes before removing from pan.
