TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

I'm going to come right out and say it. This one was a bit of a disappointment. It was neither cocoa nor banana enough for me. And it certainly wasn't bread. This was cake. Not that that's a bad thing, but the whole name led me to believe that this was going to be something else.

This was a simple recipe to make (whew!) It calls for a lot of cocoa. More than in most recipes. I use a black cocoa from KAF. It makes dark, rich, wonderful things. Because of all the cocoa, I was hoping for a rich, chocolate taste. The cake also uses two ripe bananas. I just want to show you what a RIPE banana that is ready for baking looks like. (I throw them in the freezer when they start getting black. That's why they look wet)

I used 2 1/2 because that is what I had in the freezer. This was a very thick batter. I was a little surprised with the instructions at the end. Normally, when there is a liquid to add, it is added alternately with the dry ingredients. In this case it was all dry and then the buttermilk. Thanks again to my trusty stand mixer.

I used the full baking time plus a couple of extra minutes. It was tasted the first night by some friends of the husband. They all thought it was ok, but it would have been better with ice cream. The next day it was better. I'm discovering that with certain baked goods, a bit of ripening is helpful. Having said that, I didn't love this. It wasn't strongly cocoa flavored, and it wasn't strongly banana flavored. It's as if the two flavors almost cancelled each other out. I have other things that I love to make when I have black bananas.

Here's the full cake.

Here's a slice begging for some ice cream. Those lighter brown spots are semi-sweet chips. When they say black cocoa, they aren't kidding.

Thank you to Steph of Obsessed with Baking for choosing this one. I don't think this will be joining my baking list any time soon. Ah well. It's good to try new things anyway.