Chocolate Banana Bread

We had a glut of bananas, bought cheaply at the Victoria Market two weeks ago that were really having a fine old time getting black and mushy. They had passed the point that anyone would willingly choose to eat them whole; in fact just touching them caused them to ooze. It was time to make some banana bread, and quickly!

I decided to use Nigella Lawson's banana bread recipe from How To Be A Domestic Goddess, but with the chocolate variation she lists at the bottom of the page. I still have a lot of my good Dutch cocoa powder, and a bag of small chocolate chips. The resulting loaf still has a strong banana taste, and the moist texture that goes with it, but cut through with a wonderful bitter chocolate flavour. It's definitely a banana bread for adult tastes.

(I didn't have sultanas on hand, as per her original recipe so I only included a few tablespoons of dark rum to the batter)

Chocolate Banana Bread (variation)
How to be a Domestic Goddess - Nigella Lawson

75ml dark rum
150g plain flour
25g good cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g butter, melted
150g sugar
2 large eggs
4 small, very ripe bananas, (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed
60g chopped nuts (walnutes, almonds, cashews...I've used them all)
70g chocolate chips

-Preheat oven to 170C.
-Put flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt in medium size bowl and combine well.
I-n a large bowl, mix melted butter, rum and sugar and beat until blended.
-Beat in eggs then mashed bananas. Stir in nuts, and chocolate chips.
-Add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each addition.
-Scrape into a loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 - 1.25 hours. When it's ready, an inserted toothpick should come out cleanish. Leave in the tin on a rack to cool.
Makes 8-10 slices.