TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

There are some weeks at Tuesday's with Dorie that feel like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders. Where one bad decision could upset the balance of nature. Like this week, where TWD bakers the world over wrestled with the age-old question, "do chocolate and bananas really go together?"

One look at this deep, dark, chocolatey bread and I can hear you saying "what bananas?"


Oh, they're there all right... exactly as dictated by this week's TWD recipe, Cocoa-Nana Bread, chosen by Steph of Obsessed with Baking.

Yep, I decided to defer the decision and potentially life-altering results by baking the recipe exactly as written.

Thank goodness.

I thought this bread was fantastic, very chocolatey with just the right hint of banana flavor. Moist too. (You should try it toasted, with butter... oy vay!)

Here's the one thing I did change up... I down-sized my loaf pan and made half batch. (I thought I was very clever, until I remembered that I stole this idea from Audax Artifex, a Daring Baker.)

Anyway, check this out, it's cool...

I took a piece of cardboard and cut it down to the same size as a cross-section of my pan (or just a tiny bit larger, so it will stay put), then wrapped it in foil.


I wedged it into the pan so it made two equal sized sections.


Then I lined the pan with parchment so the batter wouldn't leak underneath the wall.


I scooped my half-batch of batter into one side, and then wedged something in the other side to keep my cardboard wall from scooting over under the weight of the batter (a small cake pan, in this case).


Then I baked as normal. It seemed to take as much time as a full size loaf would have.

And voila! A perfect little cube of cocoa-nana bread!


OK, you'll have to excuse me while I go pour a big glass of cold milk and pop a thick slice of this cocoa-licious bread into the toaster.

Until next week... you can find the recipe at Steph's blog or Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking: From my Home to Yours".