Nutella Banana Bread

Nutella is one of those products that I have a love/hate relationship with. I absolutely love the way it tastes but hate that most recipes don't call for a lot of it. What does that problem lead to? I'll tell you what - a half-eaten container of Nutella in my pantry that I end up digging into with a spoon late at night.

Jokes aside, I really do love Nutella. I was first introduced to it a couple of years ago by Giada De Laurentiis on her Everyday Italian show. I remember thinking, how have I not heard about this stuff before? To my delight, when I travelled over to Paris a short time later, each hotel I stayed in offered little packets of Nutella at breakfast, just like your standard jelly, but only bigger!

As I was saying before, most recipes that call for Nutella just don't use enough of it in my opinion. Well this recipe is different. It calls for 3/4 cup of Nutella, giving you that rich, chocolatey, hazelnut flavor along with a little gooeyness in the middle from the added banana. This is definitely my kind of dessert. Yes, this is called Nutella Banana Bread, but in my opinion, it's more like a cake. It's dense like a cake, is definitely as sweet as a cake, and even comes out with a marble swirl, like the pound cake my grandma used to make.

With baking, you have to follow the recipe to a T if you want the result to come out perfectly. Therefore, I didn't touch a thing with this recipe and wouldn't recommend doing so. My bread came out moist and delicious and was best served warm. Pour yourself a nice glass of cold milk and enjoy - I sure did.

Banana Nutella Bread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups mashed ripe banana (2 large or 3 small bananas)
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 heaping cup Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray  an 8×4-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

In a separate large bowl, beat sugar and butter with an electric mixer at medium speed until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, milk and vanilla. Beat until blended. Add flour mixture and beat at low speed just until the flour is incorporated (don’t overmix)

Spoon Nutella into a small dish and soften in the microwave for about 15 seconds. Add 1 cup of the banana bread batter to the Nutella and stir until blended well. Spoon Nutella batter alternately with plain banana bread batter into the prepared pan. Swirl batters together with a knife.

Bake 50 to 60 minutes. It will seem a tiny bit undercooked but that’s what you are looking for. Cool for at least 15 minutes in the pan, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.


Adapted from Six Sisters' Stuff