No-Waste Chocolate Banana Bread

Residency interviews means being proactive about clearing out your fridge before your weeklong trips. I had done a pretty good job of taking care of the produce but had neglected the container of sour cream left over from a pierogi-making night (recipe from Sokowloski’s, a Cleveland family-run institution with modifications per James Beard Foundation to make 3 rather than 6 dozen; highly recommend!)

While sour cream is great as a condiment alongside sauerkraut with the crisped pockets of potato and cheese, I don’t normally have other uses for it. But, as the name implies I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. No milk, no butter, no vegetable oil? Not a problem—the sour cream stood in as a great hybrid. Combined with what I did have on hand: frozen bananas (formerly overripe, almost-fruit-fly-bait specimen), eggs, and other pantry staples, the resulting banana bread had the moist crumb and decadence of a good chocolate cake but the practicality of a perfect on-the-go breakfast. Ripe bananas negated the need for much added sugar, and the dots of mini chocolate chips were just the right amount of cocoa infusion without going overboard. From the nutrition calculations below, it's a pretty balanced breakfast that's not overloaded in sugar (a serving of granola tends to range from 16-30g of sugar)

Once I'd mixed to my heart's content, there was enough batter for an 8x8” pan—all the better for sharing. My only qualm with using sour cream was from an experience back in middle school home economics when we made sour cream chocolate cupcakes. The instructions said to let them cool completely for optimal taste. Of course, being the poor instruction followers curious experiential learners my group was, we tried one right out of the oven, and indeed—it tasted somewhat unpleasant, chocolate-y but with an acidic aftertaste. I didn’t learn my lesson from last time and tried this bread while it was still warm and am happy to report it tastes great warm or cooled.

|| Sour Cream Chocolate Banana Bread ||

Makes 20 servings

Ingredients

Dry:

• 2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/3 cup dutch process cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup regular cocoa powder

Wet:

• 1 ½ cup frozen bananas
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup loose brown sugar
• 2 Tb. sweet condensed milk (optional)
• ½ cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 8x8" glass baking pan
2. Combine wet and dry separately—then add dry to wet ingredients and mix thoroughly until no flour streaks remain. Pour into greased baking pan.
3. Bake for 60-65 minutes until toothpick/knife inserted in middle comes out clean
4. Serve and enjoy!