refrigerator magnets

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Almost Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread

Summertime is not baking time for me. It's too darn hot. I also don't have a dish washer so baking sometimes involves too many dishes. But last night I was inspired, inspired by bananas.
About a week ago my friends at Equal Exchange hooked me up with some of their Organic Cocoa Powder and I thought - bananas, chocolate - yes. I would like to eat that! Equal Exchange is a great brand - we drink their coffee at work and you can feel good about making a purchase with them since it's fairly traded. Yay!

I call this ALMOST vegan because I used butter. Real tasty buttery goodness butter. And real milk. But if you're vegan or need to bake for a vegan, feel free two swap those two out.

Almost Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread
Ingredients:
  • 1 cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 1/4 Allspice, ground
  • 1/2 cup butter (or you could sub with vegan butter)
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3 1/2 very ripe bananas, mashed (I leave mine a little chunky because I like biting into a bit of banana)
  • 1/2 milk (I used lactaid because that's all I had)
  • 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract
  • 1/4 cup Equal Exchange Organic Coco Powder
Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 350degrees
2. Mix together the milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside
3. In a large bowl, combine butter and sugars so it's nice and creamy
4. Mix in the milk combination, bananas, vanilla extract and almond extract
5. Add in the coco powder till completely combined
6. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt, baking soda, allspice
7. Add the wet and the dry ingredients together slowly to ensure the mixture is completely mixed
8. Take a baking loaf pan and either butter, or spray non-stick spray so you can get the loaf out of the pan. OR you can use parchment paper OR you can be a little creative like me, and butter up a piece of tin foil and line the pan with it.
9. Pour the mixture into the pan and spread out evenly. It is a bit thick. (I topped this one with a few sliced almonds b/c it's pretty)
10. Bake for about 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the middle of the loaf.
11. Set aside and let cool a bit in the pan, then set on a cooling rack for a few hours till completely cooled before slicing. If you eat it hot - it's a bit dryer than if you let it sit overnight. Just an FYI.
Happy Eating!

And just because it was beautiful out yesterday, here's a nice shot of Boston I took.

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