This Chocolate Chip Banana Bread recipe is my kind of bread recipe. Partly because it’s loaded with melty semisweet chocolate chips in every. single. bite. Partly because it’s not a “true” bread, and absolutely no yeast is required (while I’m working on getting friendlier with yeast, like with these honey wheat rolls, it’s still just a smidge out of my comfort zone). Partly because of the incredible flavor from super ripe bananas and a strategic combo of butter and oil (more on that below) and the well-sugared topping that I promise is not overkill. All of these things come together for the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread of your dreams (you do dream about banana bread too, right?). Let’s dig in.
A word on butter vs. oil in baking
You’ll notice that I use both butter and oil in this recipe, and there is a good reason for that… I’ve mentioned it once or twice before in many of my muffin recipes as well as my vanilla cake recipe. I love butter. I love the flavor it gives my baked goods and the amount that I spend on butter each month could be a car payment. I love the stuff. But… but… butter is not always better (😱). When it comes to certain recipes like cakes/muffins (usually baked goods that are confined to a tin, not cookies, which would spread terribly if you substituted oil), oil is actually generally a better choice for moister, softer baked goods. Both oil and butter are fats, but butter is generally composed of around 15% water, and this water can actually cause your cakes to be drier (seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it!). However, because I love the flavor that butter imparts in my baked goods, I’ve found what I feel is a healthy compromise — half butter and half oil. This combination gives you a soft, moist chocolate chip banana bread that still has a killer, slightly buttery flavor. So for those of you who were thinking of asking: I do not recommend substituting the oil in this recipe for the butter. Please don’t do it, your chocolate chip banana bread will likely come out too dense and drier than is ideal.
More Tips for Making Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
The riper your bananas are, the better and more flavorful your banana bread will be! They should be very brown and spotty, even more-so than the ones I used in my video below (I never seem to have perfectly ripe bananas when I go to make a video — I use them all up in my recipe testing). Do not over-mix your batter! This is important, use a spatula and a gentle hand, and a few flour streaks in the batter is OK. To help avoid over-mixing, I like to stir the chocolate chips into the batter when I’m about halfway through stirring in the dry ingredients. Top everything off with coarse sugar (or, just regular granulated sugar!). This is optional but I love the effect it adds to the chocolate chip banana bread — the top of the bread is my favorite part!
Enjoy! If you like this recipe, be sure to check out my popular banana muffins and my banana cake, too!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
