Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Some of the best recipes happen by accident. I had three over-ripe bananas that I'd been saving to make my favorite banana bread. And when I went to put my ingredients together tonight I realized I had no AP flour. But I did have whole wheat flour stashed away in the freezer and thought maybe I could do something with that. I grabbed one of my go-to cookbooks and found exactly what I was looking for. King Arthur Flour has a book that is quite fabulous. It's called Whole Grain Baking and has many recipes that are simple, tasty and the end results don't taste dry or grainy. Their banana bread is one of those. This bread is moist, tender and decadent. Only you'll know it's made with whole wheat flour.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
Adapted from Whole Grain Baking

The original bread was called Easy Banana Walnut Bread- I omitted the walnuts and added semi sweet chocolate chips . Use a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

1 stick unsalted butter softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas mashed
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs, beaten
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch pan. I used PAM.

With hand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla in a large bowl until smooth. Add the mashed bananas, honey and eggs, mixing until incorporated. King Arthur says to beat until smooth, but I like my bananas a bit chunky so this is when I put my mixer away and use a wooden spoon or spatula, and try to keep my bananas in chunks. Now stir/fold in the flour and chocolate chips. Combine and don't over mix.

Bake the bread for 50 minutes. Lay a piece of foil over the top of bread and bake another 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan 10 minutes and then remove from baking pan to finish cooling on wire rack. Doesn't that loaf look gorgeous?


This bread is delicious on its own, but even better with cream cheese or peanut butter. I think you know which direction I took.