Chocolate teff banana bread

December 15, 2014 at 11:58 pm (B plus (3.5 stars, like a lot), Dessert, Muffins and quick breads, Website / blog)

I was looking for a recipe to use up some teff flour, and I came across this recipe for chocolate, teff, banana bread on the Cannelle Et Vanille blog. I vaguely recall making a different chocolate, teff, banana bread earlier this year (this recipe from the gluten-free-girl blog) and not being so excited about it. I’m not usually a fan of chocolate in banana bread—I normally prefer adding nuts and spices, as I find that adding chocolate or chocolate chips overpowers the pure banana-bread-y-ness.  With this recipe, however, I absolutely loved the final product. I’m not sure what made the key difference (maybe it’s just the pregnancy talking?), but I adored this cake. It’s very sweet and very moist and very banana-y, with a tender crumb that is neither overly delicate nor overly gooey.

I actually didn’t follow the recipe all that closely. The original recipe is gluten- and dairy-free, but (for various reasons), my version ended up having both gluten and dairy. I also swapped in almond flour for the hazelnut flour, and added walnuts for good measure. Below are more details.

Chocolate Banana Teff Bread

Makes one 9×9 inch banana bread, so 8 or 9 very large, 12 medium, or 16 quite small pieces.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs [mine were a bit larger than American large eggs, about 170g total]
• 200 grams natural cane sugar [I ran out of natural sugar, so used 100g natural sugar and 100g white sugar]
• 300 grams ripe bananas, mashed [I used 3 very, very ripe bananas, about 325g total]
• 175 grams light olive oil [I used 113g (i.e., 4 oz) extra virgin olive oil and about 75g of Schmand, a full fat German sour cream]
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 100 grams teff flour
• 50 grams sweet rice flour [I didn’t have any so used regular white flour instead]
• 50 grams hazelnut meal [I didn’t have any so used ground almonds instead]
• 15 grams cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 100 grams chocolate chips
• it wasn’t in the original recipe, but I added about 100g of coarsely chopped walnuts

Instructions:

1. Butter a 9×9 inch pyrex baking pan and preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, banana puree, oil, sour cream, and vanilla. In the same bowl, on top of the liquid ingredients, add the teff, white flour, almond meal, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda. Try to mix the dry ingredients as best you can, then fold them into the wet ingredients below. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs on it.

My notes:

The original recipe didn’t say to grease the pan, but I’m glad I did, because even with greasing the pan the cake stuck a bit.

Derek, who is quite picky about banana bread, seemed to like this recipe a lot as well.

Update Aug 23, 2015:

I didn’t have any sour cream so I used plain yogurt instead. Instead of regular white flour I used spelt flour, not totally whole grain but not totally refined either. Other than that I made the recipe the same as I did last time. It came out quite tasty but a bit too sweet I think. I might cut the sugar a bit next time. Also, even though a toothpick came out with only crumbs on it after 45 minutes, the cake was almost raw in the middle. The corners and sides were well-cooked, but the middle was goop. Tasty goop, but not really cake. Still, both Derek and I enjoyed the banana bread a lot.

Update Sept 18, 2016:

I made this Serious Eats classic banana bread recipe this morning. I followed the recipe except that I didn’t have any oats so used whole wheat flour for the oat flour, and I cut the sugar a tad (from 150g to 130g). Also, I used regular yogurt not Greek so cut the amount from 4 ounces to 3 ounces. But my eggs were about 10% larger than large American eggs (55g rather than 50g). I filled half the muffin tins then sprinkled some walnuts in some and some chocolate chips in others. I thought they came out okay, but a tad wan tasting. They were moist and fluffy, but I like my banana bread a bit more ooey gooey and dense. I think they would have been better with more whole wheat flour. Also, I should have mixed the nuts into the batter, because just sprinkling a few in the middle didn’t really cut it.

I also made another batch for Alma. Instead of white flour I used 4 ounces ground almonds and 9 ounces whole wheat flour. I also intended to cut the sugar in half, but I’m not sure I did in the end. I added raisins instead of nuts or chocolate chips. I liked Alma’s version better than the original recipe. The whole wheat flour and almond meal added a bit more substance than the white flour, and the texture ended up better.

Update October 2018:

Alma and I made this recipe tonight with some changes. I cut the sugar a bit and used only unrefined brown sugar (150g). My eggs were German eggs so a bit larger than American ones. I cut back on the olive oil a bit more and used whole milk yogurt instead of schmand. I also cut down on chocolate chips, using only around 80g. I didn’t have teff or rice flour so used a mix of whole wheat flour, ground rolled oats, and hazelnut meal. They came out great! Very moist and sweet tasting, but mostly still held together.