Dark Chocolate Raspberry Banana Bread

It’s Wednesday and I am back! Actually, I was back yesterday, but it was so late by the time I got home and unpacked I was too tired to do anything. I had a lovely 4 days off relaxing in peaceful Pennsylvania, but now it is back to the work grind, but happy to be back baking and blogging.

I of course could not go without baking, and my mom has a brand new mini kitchen aid stand mixer that I had to break in, and what better way then some moist and delicious banana bread. Once again we take a page from the talented Sally’s Baking Addiction for the recipe (recipe at the bottom of the post). While browsing for my valentine’s day cupcakes, she had this totally drool worthy dark chocolate raspberry banana bread that caught my eye and knew that I had to make it!

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It’s the middle of February and it was quite mild than I had anticipated and packed for. It was, on average, high 50s to mid 60s the whole weekend I was up there, which was really nice since my mom and I did a lot of walking. What I do enjoy about staying up there is that it’s a complete difference from New York City life. Outside my barred windows of my 1 bedroom apartment you hear the hustle and bustle of cars throughout the night, not to mention your neighbors conversations. Up in PA you can hear a pin drop – absolute silence, which is refreshing sometimes.

One thing I enjoy more than anything is the opportunity to bake in a space that is 4-5 times the size of my apartment kitchen! The extra space really allows me to enjoy what I love to do.

Ice cream, coffee and Wow? Yes please! 🙂

Ok, down to business! This banana bread is super easy, which is why I love it, and the combination of the banana, raspberry and dark chocolate is absolutely decadent!

20170219_091808 — *Baking soda not shown, but needed!

First you want to set your oven to 350 and grease a 9×5 loaf pan, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients together which are – 2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

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Using a stand or hand mixer on medium speed, mix the 1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted soften butter and the 3/4 cup of brown sugar, roughly 3 minutes. Next, add your 2 eggs, beating well after each addition. After, mix in your 3/4 cup Greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 4 large mashed bananas. Remove bowl from the stand mixer and slowly add your dry ingredient mixture into your wet ingredients using a rubber spatula. Only mix until just combined, do not over mix!

Finally, take 3/4 of a cup or dark chocolate or semi sweet morsels and 1 cup of halved raspberries and carefully fold into your batter.

20170219_095024 — Toss your raspberries in flour to prevent from sinking to bottom of your loaf pan

Pour the batter into your greased loaf pan and place in the oven for 50-65 minutes. Now for me this was a bit tricky. I went from normally using dark color pans and my teeny tiny apartment oven to a light colored loaf pan in an electric oven. So for me, this ended up taking roughly 75 minutes to bake with a toothpick coming out clean in the center of the loaf.

Let your warm, delicious, scrumptious banana bread cool completely before taking out of the pan and slicing up to serve. I decided the best thing to do at that point was to take a long walk instead of hanging in the house with the smell of the bananas tempting me to try and slice it sooner!