A moist loaf of Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Bread that will take you back to the Caribbean. Serve as breakfast, lunch or dessert.
You may not believe it, but I ate my first slice of Banana Bread during a business trip to Barbados and since then, I love it. Imagine, I was young and exited, full of dreams and ideas. Coming from a cold and rainy Holland going on a business trip to the Caribbean. I arrived a day prior to the start of a training, I was supposed to give. Spent most of my time on the beach, sleeping off my jet lag.
An early sun already warmed my face and I decided to have my breakfast outside on the patio of the hotel’s restaurant. I was accompanied by many birds, enjoying themselves on the sugar. It was absolutely wonderful, and so out of this world for me. Sun, flowers, a breeze, the beach, nothing to do, but to get my biological clock back in sink with where I was. This Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Bread brings back good memories.
Banana Bread?
On the extensive breakfast buffet I found something called ‘banana bread’ and thought, this is something I just got to try. So I did and back at my table, squinting against the morning sun, I totally fell in love with it. I thought this was the best thing after the invention of sliced bread.
Since that trip, banana bread has been on my breakfast plate every time I was in the Caribbean and I traveled there a lot. Never did I realize that banana bread came in many flavors, and densities and colors.
I made my share of banana breads over the years and every time I bake one or eat some, there is this longing back to the Caribbean. And of all those little bounty islands, Jamaica is my all time favorite; I explained why in an earlier post. The Caribbean is for me like ‘living in slow motion’, no reason to hurry, there is always tomorrow. I can attest to that having lived on one of the island (Curacao). This slow living is something to get used to, and once you get hang of it, or something close to it …. irie.
Enough reminiscing,
Let’s go back to this banana bread recipe. A long time ago, I found a banana bread recipe by Dominique Ansel that was different from others that he uses oil instead of butter. My Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Bread is based on that recipe.
I have added pumpkin puree and chocolate nibs and taken out some of the bananas and I used less butter. The result is a chocolate banana pumpkin bread that is flavorful and moist.
Chocolate Banana Pumpkin Bread
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 3 eggs
- 2 ripe bananas
- 8 ounces butter
- 8 ounces chocolate nibs
- 8 ounces pumpkin puree
- pumpkin seeds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and grease a loaf or cake pan.
- Melt butter.
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl (sugar thru cocoa powder).
- Mash bananas with a fork and combine with eggs and pumpkin puree.
- Pour bananas mixture over dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Add melted butter and mix until fully incorporated. Add chocolate nibs and mix again.
- Pour batter into loaf or cake pan and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds (optional).
- Bake until brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Baking time approx. 1 hour. Allow 20 minutes to cool before slicing.
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