Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips
Dense, moist banana bread baked in a sheet pan and cut into bars, with chocolate chips scattered across the top that melt flat and pool into the surface during baking. Three bananas, one bowl, done in twenty minutes flat.
- Total time
- 60 min
- Servings
- 16
- Calories
- 185
- Protein
- 3g
Ingredients
- 3 very ripe bananas — the browner and softer the better; black-skinned bananas are ideal; underripe bananas produce pale, bland bread with almost no banana flavor
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour — spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level it off; do not scoop directly from the bag or you will overmeasure and the bars will be dry and dense
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided — 3/4 cup mixed into the batter, 1/4 cup scattered over the top before baking
Instructions
- 1
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9x13-inch baking pan with parchment paper and grease lightly with cooking spray or butter. The parchment makes lifting the bars out of the pan clean and effortless once cooled.
- 2
Peel the bananas and place them in a large bowl. Mash thoroughly with a fork until no large lumps remain — the texture should look like chunky applesauce. A few small bits of banana are fine, but you do not want large unmashed chunks which create uneven moisture pockets in the finished bars.
- 3
Add the melted butter to the mashed bananas and stir to combine. Add the brown sugar and stir until fully incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring after each addition. Add the vanilla extract. The batter at this stage should look smooth and uniform.
- 4
In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture. Using a rubber spatula, fold everything together with slow, deliberate strokes until just combined and no dry flour streaks remain. Do not overmix — overmixing develops the gluten in the flour and produces tough, dense bars instead of soft, tender ones. Stop mixing the moment the flour disappears.
- 5
Fold in 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips with 3 to 4 gentle folds. Pour and spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan, using the spatula to push it into the corners. Scatter the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips over the surface of the batter. These top chips melt flat during baking and pool across the surface, creating the melted chocolate pattern visible in the photo.
- 6
Bake at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs but no wet batter. The bars will look golden brown and the edges will have pulled away slightly from the sides of the pan. Do not overbake — bars continue cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven and the interior should still feel slightly soft when pressed.
- 7
Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then lift the entire sheet out using the parchment paper and let it cool on a wire rack for at least another 10 minutes before cutting. Cutting into warm bars produces ragged edges because the chocolate is still liquid.
- 8
Cut into 16 equal squares. Serve at room temperature. Bars keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days or refrigerated for up to 1 week.
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