Cocoa Banana Nut Bread

A little cocoa powder can improve many things; banana bread being one of them! When I make this recipe I substitute canola oil for the butter, add a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon and leave out the chocolate chips. I use good Texas pecans for the nuts. Some dried cranberries would be delicious in here too. If you prefer muffins, this recipe will make 15 full-sized muffins (it's never 12 is it?). The baking time for the muffins is about 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine at room temp.
1 cup sugar
1 cup ripe mashed bananas
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup Hershey's cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350'. Grease and "flour" (with confectioner's sugar) a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Combine butter/margarine, sugar, bananas, milk, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat for 1 minute at medium speed. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl, stir into the banana mixture just until dry ingredients are moistened, do not overmix. If desired, stir in nuts and/or chocolate chips. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.

I made a batch of the muffins on Friday in advance of the big snowfall under which I'm now buried. So tasty and I'm working off the calories shoveling snow!