no double trouble here

I realize my blogging has been sporadic lately and when I re-vamped this blog (almost a year ago!) I was determined to keep the content at a 50/50 ratio between beauty and baking. Lately, I've been feeling a little tapped out in the beauty department. I genuinely don't want to recycle information that you can find from every other magazine or blogger, so I'm only going to post on beauty when I'm really passionate about a product or topic (or if anyone has a particular beauty question that needs answering). 

So I guess I'm saying that the blog will be a little more baking heavy and not so evenly balanced with beauty, as it used to be. With that said...

I have a toddler who is obsessed with muffins. She wants them everyday, all day. And I cannot go to the grocery store without her demanding a muffin to occupy her time in the shopping cart (the tough life of a toddler).

These have been a particular favorite lately because they're chocolate, but stealthily healthy, so I don't mind making them.

It's really easy to sub out healthier ingredient's in quick breads because there's usually a dominant flavor combination (in this case, banana's and chocolate) that can mask those pesky healthy ingredients.

Perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack!

Lighter Double Chocolate Banana Bread

Adapted from here

Makes 1- 9x5” loaf or 18ish regular-sized muffins

Recipe Notes-

- To make this lighter, I subbed out the butter for nonfat, plain yogurt, opted out of the all-purpose flour for whole-wheat, added flaxseed and cut the chocolate chips down to a ½ cup of mini’s. 

- I typically make these as muffins and end up freezing most of them. Since they’re small, they defrost quickly so I’m able to pull a couple out for breakfast to serve
- I find it easiest to blitz the wet ingredients in a food processor, mostly because I don't want chunks of banana's. If you don't care about chunks than just mash the banana's with a fork and stir in all the other wet ingredients until incorporated. 

Ingredients

3 medium-to-large very ripe bananas

½ Cup nonfat, plain yogurt (I use Greek)

¾ Cup brown sugar

1 Large egg (or egg substitute)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 Cup whole-wheat flour

½ Cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 Tbs. flaxseed (optional)

½ Cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F and either prepare a loaf pan (with spray or butter) or a muffin pan with muffin liners.

2. In a bowl of a food processor (see Recipe Note if you don't have a food processor), add the peeled, ripe bananas, yogurt, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Blitz until desired consistency (I like mine smooth).

3. In a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Separately add the flaxseed, if using, and stir in the mini chocolate chips into the flour/cocoa mixture (this helps prevent the chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom of the bread).

4. Add all the wet banana mixture to the flour/cocoa bowl and stir gently just until mixed.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and if baking a loaf: bake for 50-60 minutes, or just until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to invert onto a cooling rack.

If you’re making muffins, bake for 12 minutes, then rotate the pans and bake for another 8-10 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove muffins from pan to cool completely

The bread will keep at room temperature for a 3-4 days.