Nutella Banana Bread

This Nutella Banana Bread recipe is not your everyday banana bread. It’s rich and decadent and packed with chocolate chips and ribbons of Nutella swirl. And yet it’s still an easy banana break to make when you’re craving something sweet.

Enjoy a slice of your Nutella banana bread as an afternoon snack or a late-night dessert alongside a creamy espresso martini or Frangelico sour. Or even, perhaps, as a naughty breakfast.

Ingredients

Bananas

The key to super moist banana bread is really ripe bananas that are very brown to just black. That’s because as bananas ripen from green to yellow to brown to black, the sugar and water content increase. So please wait a day or two more, whether you’re making an easy one-bowl banana bread or mini banana muffins, or adding banana to berry smoothies or even your mashed sweet potatoes!

Tip from the wise quacker: freeze overripe bananas if it’s not time for baking. Peel the bananas and put them in a freezer bag. To use, bring them to room temperature before making this Nutella-swirled quick bread or use them frozen in smoothies.

Nutella

Nutella is a chocolate and hazelnut spread that’s been made by the Italian company, Ferrero, since the 1960s. Fun fact: the company supposedly uses one-quarter of the world’s hazelnuts, which are primarily grown in Turkey.

I’ve been in love with Nutella since my first trip to Europe. You can see that love in all my Nutella recipes like Nutella swirl blondies, Nutella babka, Nutella-filled pop tarts, and Nutella waffles.

With its first two ingredients being sugar and palm oil, Nutella shouldn’t be a large part of your diet. You can reduce the amount of Nutella swirl if you are concerned, or you can make your own Nutella recipe and control the amount of sugar and fat in the recipe.

Variations and substitutions

Here are some ways you can vary this recipe:

• Leave out the chocolate chips.
• Add chopped, skinned hazelnuts for added crunch.
• Use a swirl of a different nut butte.

Key technique: banana bread vs banana cake

Like my blackberry lemon loaf cake, banana bread is a quick bread, a group of sweet and savory loaves made with chemical leavening instead of yeast. Banana bread is usually denser and moister than banana cake, although this Nutella banana bread is probably rich enough to be called a Nutella and banana cake.

Quick breads and cakes are similar in that both can be made using the creaming method. That’s the baking method in which you cream butter and sugar together for leavening. Then you beat in eggs, and finally you add the dry ingredients.

However, quick breads can also be made using the muffin method. That’s the baking method where you start with the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Then you stir the liquid ingredients into the wet ingredients only until the dry ingredients are moistened. The muffin method works best with banana bread and other quick breads made with oil or melted butter.

Lining the pan

Whether it’s bars, brownies, or quick breads, anytime your baked good has a special top, line your pan with a parchment paper sling. That way you can lift your Nutella banana bread out of the bread pan without disturbing the chocolate chips you’ve sprinkled delicately on top.

Step 1: To make a parchment sling, first grease your loaf pan. Then cut a strip of parchment the width of your pan, secure it with binder clips, and grease and flour the pan.

 

Making the batter

Step 2: Making banana bread really is simple. First, cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer (Panel #1, below).

Step 3: Beat in the bananas (Panel #2).

Step 4: Add the eggs and vanilla extract (Panel #3).

Step 5: Then mix in the dry ingredients and chocolate chips. Do not over-mix at this point to avoid building up the gluten.

Making the Nutella swirl

Step 6: To make the Nutella swirl, pour one half of the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Then dollop large spoonfuls of Nutella over top of the batter (Panel #1, below). Use a butter knife or small spatula to scoop the batter and Nutella together, being careful not to scrape the bottom of the pan (Panel #2).

Final steps

Step 8: Sprinkle the reserved quarter cup of chocolate chips evenly over top of the entire loaf.

Step 9: Don’t forget to remove the binder clips before baking, then bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Recipe FAQs