This is banana bread for chocoholics.
With thick ribbons of chocolate swirled into every bite, you’ll never look at banana bread the same way again!
Chocolate Marble Swirl Banana Bread
- 2 cups over-ripe banana, mashed well (480g)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (8g)
- 2 tsp white or apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (10g)
- 2 tbsp milk of choice (30g)
- 1/4 cup oil or more milk of choice (oil version will be richer and better-textured; milk version will be lower-calorie… so it depends on what you’re going for and to whom you are serving the bread)
- 1/2 cup pure maple syrup, agave, or honey (honey is not for strict vegans)
- 2 cups spelt, all-purpose, or Bob’s gf flour (240g)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp pure stevia or 1/4 cup sugar of choice
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon, optional
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips, optional
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder (15g)
Bring one cup or so of water to a boil. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 F, grease a 9×5 loaf pan, and set aside. Get out three large bowls and a small bowl. In one of the large bowls, whisk together all liquid ingredients. In a separate large bowl, stir together all remaining ingredients except the cocoa powder. Measure the cocoa powder into the empty small bowl and whisk in 1/4 cup of the boiling water (discard remaining water). Now combine the contents of the two large bowls until just evenly mixed, then divide the batter in half so there’s an equal amount of batter in each of the two large bowls. Pour all of the cocoa mixture into only one of the banana bread batters. So now you should have one chocolate and one non-chocolate batter. Scoop a thin layer of plain batter into the prepared loaf pan, followed by a layer of chocolate. Repeat until all batter is used up, then take a spoon and swirl the batters together—for just a few seconds so there are still two distinct colors present. Bake 50 minutes, then turn the oven off and leave the loaf in the oven 20 more minutes if it still needs to firm up. For best freshness, leftovers should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer.
Click for: Banana Bread Nutrition Facts
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Hi Katie!
My friend and I just made your marble banana bread and it’s so good! The GF flour was a success! We also substituted coconut palm sugar and it made the texture a bit chalky – so I don’t think we would use that next time.
Thanks!
I tried it today and it was just amazing!! The earlier vegan banana bread was good, too. Katie, you are simply a genius. Thanks for sharing your recipes!!!
I just moved into my new apartment and don’t having any baking powder, how would this affect the way the bread comes out?
Just made this recipe, but used apple sauce in place of oil. We’ll see how that turns out. Otherwise, my little family of 3 (almost 4!) are vegan, so this was a good find. I hope it turns out as well as it smells! 🙂
Hey Katie,
I have no idea how I stumbled upon your blog today, but I’m very happy that I did. You sound honest, and fun. 🙂
Usually I don’t bake very much—when I was about 12 years old, I made my first cake a “never fail cake” which, um, failed lol …..
but I am really looking forward to receiving your recipes by email, and plan to continue visiting your blog here-all the recipes look great, and not too hard to make.
Thanks muchly Katie! 🙂
Hi Katie,
I made this recipe a couple of times using oats that I turned into flour and the bread tasted yummy and turned out pretty good ! 🙂
Psssssssssst, Katie! I know you’re busy ;), but looking through the comments, it looks like it’s time to update this recipe to include that GF flour blends do work okay & add your GF tag to it. This is a selfish request as that will make it easier for me to find when looking for GF treats, lol, but I’m sure it will benefit others as well!! Thank you so much for providing all these great recipes to us for free. I am looking forward to seeing your cookbook for sale so I can buy several copies! 😀
I made this last night and it turned out delicious and so moist! I used 4 bananas (less than 2 cups), almond milk, and low fat milk in place of the oil; instead of the honey, I subbed in about 4-5 tablespoons of brown sugar and used 4 packets of NuNaturals stevia instead of the sugar 🙂 I also used King Arthur’s whole wheat flour and expected it to be a bit dry but not at all! The crust does taste like what fat-free cupcakes would be, but I didn’t mind since the inside was so moist. In my next attempt, I would definitely use only about 2 packets of stevia, a bit of sugar, and lower the amount of brown sugar since it was sweeter than I expected.
Thank you for the recipe!
Mine is currently in the oven. I am super duper excited to see the results! I love, love, love this website! I found it about a week ago and have probably gone through a good 15 recipes already!
Hey, I tried making this today and it hasn’t worked out! It was in the oven for way over an hour plus 20 minutes with the oven switched off, and it’s still raw in the middle. I’m really disappointed! What did I do wrong?
Hi! Can you give me more specifics as to flour, pan size, type of sugar, etc? And have you checked the FAQ page troubleshooting section?
Thanks 🙂 I just had a look at the FAQ – I used a silicone 9×5 loaf tin. I’m in England so I converted the temperature to about 175 C for the most part but turned it down after an hour or so so that it didn’t burn. I used plain flour (all purpose you call), with granulated sugar as that was all I had, and honey. Everything else was as you listed, but I did use cups not weighing scales.
I ended up taking it out of the loaf tin and laying it on a baking tray to finish cooking – it is still quite mushy in places, but it is DELICIOUS! (just looks nothing like yours ha!)
This is my mom’s favourite banana bread! I always use the options for sugar because I love sugar. Oops guess it really is addicting isn’t it?