Why settle for regular banana bread when you can make a dessert that’s 100x more decadent – like this marbled banana bread (cake)?
We pretty much always have bananas in our household. Besides being a great healthy breakfast, snack, or working lunch, you don’t have to worry about bananas going bad, because there’s always something you can do with them.
The responsible thing to do would probably be cut them into chunks and freeze them for a future breakfast smoothie. But the more tempting, and admittedly more time-consuming, thing to do would be make banana bread (cake)! Say hello to the dessert (and in times of weakness, breakfast) that’ll be there for you all week.
how to marble
A marbled cake (bread) may seem fancy, but it’s actually a very simple thing if done correctly. The first step is to basically make two sets of batter. You have your regular, cream-colored batter, and you have your dark, chocolatey batter in a separate bowl.
Once both batters are ready to go, you start by pouring the lighter batter into the loaf pan. Then, you’ll drop small spoonfuls of the chocolate batter on top, trying to make the dollops as even as possible.
You’ll need a very thin, sharp knife. No butter knives, and no fingers, although I know that’s tempting. Starting at one end of the loaf pan, make slow, even squiggles across the pan once or twice, to get that perfect marbled look.
Finally, be VERY careful not to cut your tongue when you inevitably lick the batter off the sharp knife.
⟶ the recipe
marbled banana bread
ingredients
1 cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 large eggs
2-3 ripe bananas
½ cup ricotta
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Prep time
30 minutes
Cook time
1 hour 15 minutes
Total time
1 hour 45 minutes
Makes 1 loaf
instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Prepare a loaf pan by oiling it and setting aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a separate mixing bowl, beat the sugar with a stick of butter until whipped, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating at medium speed until completely combined.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, and mix on a low speed setting until just combined.
In a smaller bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a large fork until mushy and stirrable. Add the almond extract and mashed bananas to the batter and mix with a large spoon until combined.
Fold in the ricotta until just combined. Do NOT use electric mixer at this point.
Now, remove half the batter and place in a separate, medium bowl. Stir in the cocoa powder and melted chocolate until fully combined.
Using a large spoon or an ice-cream scooper, spoon each batter into the loaf pan, alternating between regular and chocolate. Then, gently swirl the batter with a knife, being careful not to overmix.
Bake for about an hour and fifteen minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
⟶ recipe notes
- The ricotta adds some moisture and a bit of fluffiness to the bread. Be careful when adding the ricotta not to overmix, as you’ll lose all of the fluffiness in baking
⟶ modifications
- To make it a bit heartier, you can do half white flour and half whole-wheat flour
- You can also skip the chocolate chips and just use the cocoa powder, but I love the extra chocolatey-ness
⟶ store it
- Wrap leftovers in plastic wrap and store in the fridge for up to one week. If you’d like to save some of the loaf for the future, you can wrap it up and store it in the freezer for up to six months. Just move it to the fridge or a cool counter to thaw the day before serving
