Chocolate Banana Date Bread

This is a super delicious easy to make banana bread recipe, and it’s relatively low sugar so great for school lunch boxes.

Dry ingredients

1/4 cup small chocolate chips

1 3/4 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients

76g butter (or about 1/3 cup)

50g dates chopped

2 large or 4 small overripe bananas

1 egg

1/4 cup boiling water

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 160° celsius fan forced (350f).

Prepare a loaf tin using either baking paper or butter the edges and bottom and dust lightly with flour to prevent sticking.

Soak chopped dates in boiling water along with half the bicarb soda. Let it soak for atleast 10 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

1/4 cup boiling water

50g dates chopped

1/2 tsp bicarb soda

Cream the butter till it starts getting a bit fluffy, around 1 - 1.5 minutes, then add the bananas.

76g butter

2 large or 4 small overripe bananas

Add the egg and vanilla essence to the creamed butter and mix till well combined.

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

In a separate bowl sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, remaining bicarb soda and salt together. Make sure to stir all the ingredients till they are very well combined.

1 3/4 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Fold the flour, choc chips, milk and dates into your creamed butter and egg mix.

Include the date syrup, don’t discard this.

1/2 cup milk

Bake for around 50-55 minutes and check with a toothpick, if it comes out clean it’s ready to be taken out the oven.

Let it sit in the loaf tin to cool. Enjoy!

This recipe is great as it’s low in sugar and you can use alternate flours and not include the choc chips so ideal for diabetics.