Pumpkin Banana Bread
Pumpkin Banana Bread
This bread is so moist and delicious, it lasts for days on end. Adding the chocolate chips gives you a good excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast or enjoy this for dessert!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- Half of a 15-oz can of pumpkin puree
- 1 ripe banana mashed, plus 1 optional banana halved lengthwise for decoration
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350º. Generously grease one 8 x 4-inch loaf pan with butter and dust with flour.
- Step 2 Cream together butter and sugar. It’s essential that your butter is softened for this step, so try to take it out well before you start baking, or soften it up quickly in your microwave. (Our new microwave actually has “soften” as its own setting!)
- Step 3 Add egg, mushed banana, and pumpkin puree. Combine well.
- Step 4 Toss together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add to creamed mixture with vanilla and mix well.
- Step 5 Add chocolate chips and mix once more just until combined. Do not overmix. Pour batter into your greased loaf pan.
- Step 6 Dip the two banana halves in some brown sugar cut-sides down. Dust off any excess sugar. Place the sugared bananas in the batter cut-side up. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Cool and then remove from pan before serving.
Since I’ve been pretty much eating this pumpkin banana bread all week long, it’s about time I posted it to the blog. I know pumpkin + banana may seem like a slightly odd combo to some, but I figured I’d give it a whirl. I love banana breads, I love anything pumpkin – why not throw them together? And seriously, this recipe totally exceeded my wildest expectations. It’s downright delicious and I’m not just saying that because I baked it. But I definitely gave myself a pat on the back, just the same! Even my 8 month old, who is now eating everything in site, loved it. I broke him off little pieces (sans chocolate chips) and let him go to town on it and he was one happy camper.
I’ll be the first to admit, even with this banana bread under my belt, I’m still not much of a baker (working on it!). Despite that, even when I do bake, I have honestly never had a fresh baked bread last almost a whole week, never mind stay as soft and fresh as if it had just come out of the oven. I’m serious guys, I served this bread at my board meeting yesterday and people thought I’d baked it just the day before. (I’ll let you in on a little secret: I baked it last Friday night… 5 days before!). The only thing I can imagine is that the moistness of the pumpkin puree and banana together created some sort of awesome chemical fusion that protects against any staleness? Just a guess, but whatever it is, it’s brilliant! I obviously loved sharing this bread with my office, but now it’s gone and I’m already craving it again. I guess I’ll be doing some baking this weekend. I challenge you to join me!
The Before:
The After:
