Fair Trade Double Chocolate Banana Bread

Banana Bread is a superb invention. It serves two purposes: using up those bananas you bought but accidentally let ripen way past edible, and it’s somewhere between breakfast and desert – a treat you can easily justify making and enjoying any time of the day! It’s usually a really simple recipe, but we found one from Smitten Kitchen we just couldn’t resist trying. Double Chocolate Banana Bread  can easily be made fair trade by incorporating fair trade ingredients you can find at your local grocery store, or Whole Foods. In our version of the recipe we were able to use fair trade bananas, fair trade brown sugar, Equal Exchange cocoa powder and Theo Chocolate’s new 70% chocolate baking bar, Whole Foods had an end cap display full of them!

The recipe called for 6oz. of chocolate chunks, and the Theo bars are only 4oz, but it turned out plenty chocolatey! You could actually just chop up any fair trade chocolate bar you had lying around. One with nuts might be good, we’ll have to try that on the next batch!

One Fair Trade Winds’ employee – we’ll just call him Saul 😉 – has a major aversion to bananas. Everything about them; something to do with a childhood story, we’re not quite sure. He jokes that when he’s president of the world, he will outlaw bananas. That would be a sad day for all us banana bread lovers out there, and for the fair trade banana farmers. I’m not sure even this recipe would sway his aversion, but for anyone slightly picky about their banana intake, this recipe will surely win them over!

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

3 medium-to-large very ripe fair trade bananas
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup fair trade brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (use fair trade if available)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fair trade cocoa powder (we used Equal Exchange)
1 cup (about 6 ounces) chocolate chunks (we used Theo Chocolate’s new baking bar) chopped into roughly the size of chocolate chips.

Directions

Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan.

Mash bananas in the bottom of a large bowl. Whisk in melted butter, then brown sugar, egg, and vanilla. Mix baking soda, salt, flour and cocoa powder in a bowl then add to wet ingredients. Stir dry and wet ingredients with a spoon until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 55 to 65 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert it out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.