Every once in a while, something goes awry with a grocery delivery order. For example, we typically order 8 bananas, and recently received this:

Over the course of a week, we made a good dent in them. But at a certain point several of the bunches were getting quite ripe. Partway through the week I froze two bunches for protein shakes but I knew we wouldn’t get through the rest before they got overripe in that unappealing way.

Last time this happened (yes, you read that right), I went on a hunt for the banana bread recipe that uses the most bananas, and made the New York Times’ Banana Banana Bread (gift link). But I’m not actually a big fan of banana bread. It’s fine, but it’s not something I seek out. But I wanted to bake something with at least a couple of them because I also wasn’t interested in making pudding or pie or ice cream with them.

I searched for banana on the Smitten Kitchen Blog and this Marbled Banana Bread was one of the top hits. I liked how chocolately it looked, and while it only calls for 3 bananas I figured if we liked it I could always make a second loaf for the freezer.

This calls for very ripe bananas — you want to be able to easily mash them. The ones I chose were ever so slightly too firm, but I just did the best I could and it was fine. I used the dutch-processed Guittard cocoa powder, which has a very deep chocolate flavor, and the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips, which I think balance bitterness and sweetness perfectly. I weighed all the ingredients and eyeballed splitting the batter in half.

I baked this for 65 minutes, which was maybe 5 minutes too much, as the chocolate parts on the bottom were slightly overcooked (definitely not burned, though). I did check at 55 minutes, but it’s hard to gauge doneness on bakes like this that are so moist.

I would definitely make this again. It came out very moist, as is typically the case with banana bread, and the chocolate parts are intensely chocolatey, which is exactly what I wanted. I did miss the contrast of toasted walnuts, so next time I might throw some into the plain half of the batter.