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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Delicious ! I made for the second time today since the recipe was added.
Hi Katie!
I made this last night using mostly gluten free flour and a little almond meal. Worked well and everyone loves it!
Your website is my go-to for recipes, because in my family there are 3 gluten free including me, and I also eat mostly vegan, and my sister is vegan too. Thanks for helping supply us with plenty of delicious healthy snacks! 🙂 X
I just made muffins with this recipe, and it came out amazing! The only thing I did differently was to add 5ml banana essence, and use xylitol instead of sugar. Awesome recipe!
I used GF buckwheat flour and it tasted amazing. But, due to the dark nature of buckwheat, I skipped the swirl and mixed everything together. Baked a little longer on 300 and it came out perfectly moist, just dark looking like brownies. I like buckwheat and this actually concealed the “cornmeal – ish” texture of buckwheat that scares my family away. My entire family inhaled this. My 3 and 5 year old nieces thought it was a healthy brownie (because they tasted banana), therefore justified in eating half the loaf. SUCCESS.
I just made this, and it’s only half an hour until it comes out of the oven! I made a slight error during the dividing of the batter, so I ended up with way more chocolate batter than the non-chocolate one. Oops? So I think my bread is going to be the “Banana Marble Swirl Chocolate Bread”. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, of course. 😉
Hello Katie!
Thanks for the beautiful recipe. It’s officially become a go-to recipe. My husband purposely buys bananas to hide/ripen in desperate hopes that I’ll make this recipe. My mother is coming today and she is pretty fussy about her baking. I can’t wait for her to try this. Fingers crossed, cheers and thanks!
Cant cant wait to try this recipe…im drooolingg. 2 quick questions- can I substitute apple sauce for the oil? and secondly can I use xylitol instead of the honey/maple syrup making it completely sugarfree?
Hi Katie,
Thank you for all of your yummy recipes! I made the Chocolate Marble Swirl Banana Bread with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour. I did switch out the bananas and replace them with 1 can pumpkin puree (no bananas on hand :-), but otherwise I followed your recipe to a T. It was delicious! Thank you so much for sharing all your kitchen creativity!
I am using the gf rice flour Betty Crocker I used 1 1/2 cups gf f and 1 tsp xantham I am baking it as i writr to you 😉 thanks so much for all these yummmmmmyyy healthy treats 😉
OMG! OMG! This recipe was sooo good. My family and I gobbled it up within 2 days!!! The only thing I had to change was the flour. ( my brand new unopened one had those darn little bugs in it, UGH!) So I used some King Arthur premium whole wheat flour. Tasted great! Remade today again, except making a double batch!!! LOVE this site : )
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! 😀