Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread

So I was going to make chocolate chip banana bread with the bunch of brown bananas sitting on my counter, but then Cooking Light posted a link to their best banana bread recipes on Facebook. And they had me at "marbled chocolate."

It's the same basic recipe as the chocolate chip bread, but instead of just throwing the chocolate chips in the batter, you melt them down, mix them with some batter, and then swirl the resulting chocolatey goodness into your bread. I made a few substitutions to the original recipe: I used white whole wheat flour in place of all purpose (so it's, um, healthy?), 2 eggs in place of the egg substitute, and vanilla yogurt in place of the regular.

The note on the Cooking Light recipe says to toast the bread, and smear it with peanut butter. Yes. Do this.

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:
2 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs
1/3 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add banana, eggs, and yogurt; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.

Place chocolate chips in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined. Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Swirl batters together using a knife. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Yield: 1 loaf


Download a Printable Recipe

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

We usually eat all of our bananas before they can get to that overripe stage that's perfect for baking. However, last weekend we ended up with some lovely brown-spotted bananas in our fruit bowl, begging to be made into a tasty baked good. I had never made banana bread before, so I pulled up a recipe on the Cooking Light website. I made a few changes: using vanilla yogurt instead of the regular, and adding a handful of chocolate chips to the batter. This doesn't taste "light" at all (probably because there's half a stick of butter in it; ahem), and we've been enjoying it for breakfast all week long.


Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients: 
2  cups  all-purpose flour
3/4  teaspoon  baking soda
1/2  teaspoon  salt
1  cup  sugar
1/4  cup  butter, softened
2  large eggs
1 1/2  cups  mashed ripe banana (2-3 bananas)
1/3  cup  vanilla low-fat yogurt
1/2  teaspoon  vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Cooking spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Yield: 1 loaf

Download a printable recipe.

Rosemary Focaccia

Fresh herbs seem to be another one of those things that I'm always struggling to find uses for so that they don't go to waste. We bought rosemary for a recipe and had quite a bit leftover, so I thought I'd make this focaccia to go along with John's homemade ravioli. 

As someone who is inexperienced with bread-making, I found this really easy. My dough rose beautifully and then baked to perfection. There is rosemary in the dough and more sprinkled on top before baking, so this has lots of flavor. It's not overly oily like a lot of focaccia I've had, and was the perfect thing for mopping up extra sauce.

We had our friends over to help us eat this carb-fest, and still had lots of bread leftover. My plan for these leftovers? Croutons!

Rosemary Focaccia
from Cooking Light    
   
Note: The rosemary steeps in boiling water; be sure to let it cool to 100° to 110° before adding the yeast so your dough will rise correctly. Sea salt and kosher salt have larger crystals than regular salt, so either adds a nice crunch to the top of the bread. But be sure to use regular salt in the dough for best results. You don't need to use all of the egg and oil mixture on top of the dough; spread enough to coat the top, and discard any extra. Use remaining bread for sandwiches, or cut into 1/2-inch cubes and bake at 350° for 15 minutes (or until toasted) to make croutons for salads.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups boiling water
3 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary, divided
1 tablespoon honey
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/4 cup olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon salt
Cooking spray
1 teaspoon water
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt

Directions:

Combine boiling water, 1 teaspoon rosemary, and honey in a large bowl; cool to 100° to 110°. Sprinkle yeast over honey mixture; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add 3 1/4 cups flour, 2 tablespoons oil, and 1 teaspoon salt to honey mixture, stirring to form a soft dough. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes); add enough of remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands (dough will feel sticky).

Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 45 minutes or until doubled in size. (Gently press two fingers into dough. If indentation remains, dough has risen enough.) Punch dough down. Pat dough into a 14 x 12-inch rectangle on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Cover and let rise 20 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 350º.

Uncover dough. Make indentations in top of dough using handle of a wooden spoon or your fingertips. Combine 1 tablespoon oil, 1 teaspoon water, and egg yolk; brush over dough. Drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon oil; sprinkle with remaining rosemary and sea salt.

Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from pan; cool on a wire rack.

Yield:  14 servings


Download a printable recipe.
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Buttermilk Bread

Ever buy buttermilk for a recipe and then wonder what the heck you're going to do with the rest of it? It seems to only come in unnecessarily large containers (which makes me wonder... do people actually drink buttermilk??). I mean, I love pancakes, but there are only so many I can eat. So, I looked for some alternate uses for buttermilk and came across this recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I have no expertise whatsoever when it comes to baking bread from scratch, but this was very easy to do... you just need a mixer with a dough hook to do all of the hard work for you. The buttermilk makes this a bit richer than a regular white bread, and honey adds a hint of sweetness. It was great for peanut butter sandwiches, french toast, and just smeared with butter (but what isn't good smeared with butter?).

Buttermilk American Loaf Bread
from Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups bread flour, plus extra for work surface
2 teaspoons table salt
1 cup buttermilk, cold
1/3 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons honey
1 package rapid-rise yeast (also called instant yeast)

Instructions:
1. Adjust oven rack to low position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Once oven temperature reaches 200 degrees, maintain heat 10 minutes, then turn off oven heat.
 
2. Mix flour and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. in 1-quart Pyrex liquid measuring cup, Mix cold buttermilk and boiling water together (temperature should be about 110-degrees), add butter, honey, and yeast. Turn machine to low and slowly add liquid. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium (setting number 4 on a KitchenAid mixer) and mix until dough is smooth and satiny, stopping machine two or three times to scrape dough from hook if necessary, about 10 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface; knead to form smooth, round ball, about 15 seconds.
  
3. Place dough in very lightly oiled bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; place in warm oven until dough doubles in size, 50 to 60 minutes.
  
4. Form dough into loaf by gently pressing the dough into a rectangle, one inch thick and no wider than the length of the loaf pan. Next, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn dough seam side up and pinch it closed. Place dough in greased 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan and press gently so dough touches all four sides of pan.
 
5. Cover with plastic wrap; set aside in warm spot until dough almost doubles in size, 20 to 30 minutes. Heat oven to 350 degrees, placing an empty loaf pan on bottom rack. Bring 2 cups water to boil.

6. Remove plastic wrap from loaf pan. Place pan in oven, immediately pouring heated water into empty loaf pan; close oven door. Bake until instant-read thermometer inserted at angle from short end just above pan rim into center of loaf reads 195 degrees, about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove bread from pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.

Makes one 9-inch loaf.


Download a printable recipe.
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Cranberry Orange Mini-Loaves

Still looking for some last-minute holiday gifts? Make your friends and family some of this cranberry bread. Everyone knows that carbs make the best gifts. Unless your friends are on the Atkins diet, in which case, they shouldn't be your friends anyways.

In a Sandra Lee-esque moment, I bought a bunch of Christmas-themed mini loaf pans for $1 each (no, I did not create a matching tablescape). If you live near a Christmas Tree Shop, you might be able to find some yourself. I had made a regular sized loaf of cranberry bread a few weeks ago just to test drive the recipe. I made it extra festive and tasty this time around by adding more cranberries and sprinkling the tops of the loaves with turbinado sugar before baking. This recipe makes one regular sized loaf, or four mini loaves.

Cranberry Orange Bread
adapted from How to Cook Everything


Ingredients:
4 Tbsp. cold butter, plus more for greasing the pan
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup orange juice
1 Tbsp. orange zest
1 egg
1 1/2 cups cranberries, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease loaf pan(s).

2. Stir together the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into bits, then use a fork or 2 knives to cut it into the dry ingredients until there are no pieces bigger than a small pea (you can use a food processor for this step, but not for the remaining steps).

3. Beat together orange juice, zest, and egg. Pour into dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten; do not beat, and do not mix until the batter is smooth.

4. Fold in the cranberries and pecan, then spoon the batter into loaf pan(s). Sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. For one large loaf pan, bake about an hour. For mini loaves, bake about 40 minutes. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Download a printable recipe here.

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