Chocolate Marbled Vegan Banana Bread

Hello friends, happy Sunday! I recently had the opportunity to remake this oldie from July 2013 and I thought I’d share it with you: Chocolate Marbled Vegan Banana Bread. Years ago, when I’d just started blogging, I kept Passionate Baker a secret from most people. I was worried they’d think it was cringey or dumb, so I only told a few close friends. Of course, after a while – I can’t even remember how now – my cover was blown and everyone I knew found out. We’re talking colleagues, friends, family, everyone I regularly interacted with. At first, I enjoyed the fact that people knew – it was a relief not to hide it anymore. But after a while, I developed major stage fright and was terrified to post anything new. It was ridiculous, and when I eventually got over myself, this was the first recipe I shared knowing everyone would see it.

When I initially published this recipe, it was beginning to be commonplace to see vegan bakes pop up in cafes etc. And, as a non-vegan, I was utterly repulsed by the idea of a baked good with no butter. I developed this Chocolate Marbled Vegan Banana Bread as a test to find out if all vegan bakes were as dry and awful as the few I’d tried. Thankfully, they aren’t.

CHOCOLATE MARBLED VEGAN BANANA BREAD: 

Honestly, this is just as good as a non-vegan banana bread. It’s perfectly fluffy on the inside, and lightly crunchy on the top. Here are some key points about the bake:

• in the place of butter, this loaf uses oil. The oil keeps everything super moist – possibly even moister than butter would have due to the higher fat content.

• the loaf is marbled with plain batter and chocolate batter – because if I can’t have butter then I sure as hell will have chocolate. The chocolate swirl is made from mixing cocoa powder with boiling water. It requires little to no extra work.

• banana bread lends itself particularly well to being vegan-ized because the banana acts as a binder. This replaces the need for eggs in the recipe and adds an extra banana hit!

• this keeps super well! Stored at room temperature, I actually thought it tasted even better on day 2+3.

Just in case you aren’t too keen on a vegan banana bread, I’ve added some notes in the recipe about how to make this non-vegan! All it involves is a few ingredient swaps for butter, eggs, and cow milk. And PS: the non-vegan version is just as good!

HOW TO BAKE THIS:

This recipe starts with a preheated oven, a lined loaf tin, and our mise en place. Here’s what we’ll need:

• sweeteners: caster sugar, and 3 whole bananas, as brown as you can get them. Once you mash the bananas down you should have about 1-cup, that’s just right!

• wets: vanilla extract, almond milk, and groundnut oil. Any flavourless oil would do – vegetable, sunflower etc. – so just use what you have.

• dries: flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder.

In a large mixing bowl, we need to whisk together all of our sweeteners and all of our wet ingredients apart from the boiling water. It’ll be liquid-y and runny and that’s exactly the way we want it.

To this banana batter, we sift in our flour, baking powder, and salt. The salt is going to offset the sweet from the cocoa powder, so don’t skimp. I used a rubber spatula to lightly fold through my dry ingredients, but if you’re gentle with a whisk then I think you’d be fine.

In a separate bowl, whisk up 3 tablespoons of the boiling water with the cocoa powder. This will be the base for our chocolate mixture, so we need to make sure it’s smoooth. To this, we need to add half of our banana batter and combine to make it all chocolate-ey. The bowl I used was far too small and I dirtied an extra dish for my mistake. I’m telling you about it because I think you can do better.

Dollop alternating blobs of the two batters into the prepared loaf tin and use a knife to swirl together until marbled and pretty. Bake for 45-50 minutes, and we’re all done!

Bet you didn’t think vegan baking could be so easy! Honestly – neither did I!

Happy banana bread-ing! xo

Chocolate Marbled Vegan Banana Bread

Yield: 1 LOAF

Author: Vicki @ Passionate Baker

INGREDIENTS

• 300 g mashed ripe banana / 1 cup / 3 bananas

• 180 g caster sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 tbsp groundnut oil

• 80 g almond milk

• 185 g plain flour

• 3 tsp baking powder

• 3/4 tsp salt

• 3 tbsp cocoa powder

• 6 tbsp boiling water, divided

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat the oven to 170°C. Lightly grease a 9×5 loaf tin and line with a strip of parchment paper.

• In a large mixing bowl, use a whisk to combine the banana, sugar, vanilla extract, groundnut oil, and the almond milk. Stir until homogenous.

• Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt directly into the banana batter and use a rubber spatula to lightly fold the batter together, trying not to overmix.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder with 3 tbsp of the boiling water. It should be thick but smooth. Add half of the banana batter to this bowl and whisk lightly to combine.

• Add the remaining 3 tbsp of boiling water to the remaining un-chocolatey banana batter, and whisk together lightly.

• Place alternate spoonfuls of the two batters into the prepared loaf tin, and then use a knife to swirl the two together.

• Bake in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool completely before slicing.

NOTES

– add up to 50g additional add-ins, like nuts or chocolate chips etc. 

– to make this banana bread non-vegan: 

• use 3 tbsp melted butter in place of the oil

• use regular milk in place of the almond