Raspberry Dark Chocolate Banana Bread

picture source same as recipe source

Okay....where do I start with this?  The picture I saw on pinterest hooked me in.   Everytime I would scroll through my recipe board, I would slightly pause at it.

I finally decided to give it a try.

Before baking most recipes, I read the reviews and this one was no exception.  There were a lot of problems, suggestions, and praises.  I read them all and sort of adapted the ideas/suggestions to work for me.  I crossed my fingers as it baked and in the end, it turned out perfect.  It was delicious.  The raspberries were a PERFECT addition.  The bread was moist and soft and full of flavour.

Here are the changes I made:

* I preheated the oven to 325 degrees and cooked it for an hour at that temperature.  Then I raised it up to 350, loosely laid tin foil over it (top was done perfectly at that point, but inside was not) and cooked it for about another 30ish minutes.  I also cooked it on the bottom rack in the oven.

* For the mashed bananas to equal 1 1/2 cups, it took 3 bananas.

* I used frozen raspberries, however, when I measured them out, I took a potato masher and sort of roughly mashed them up.  There were some chunks and some crumbs...I liked that combo.  I still tossed them in flour before adding to the dough.

* I did not add quite as much dark chocolate chips as suggested.

* I used a metal loaf pan

* When it was done baking, I let it sit in the pan for quite a while before removing it to the cooling rack.  Even after cutting around the edge and removing it at that point, one of the sides was very soft and wanted to break away.  I carefully got it out and let it sit on the rack.  This was the hard part.  Waiting.  I know we all want warm banana bread, but I think this one would fall apart until mostly cooled.   It needs to sort of all bind together.  The batter to extras ratio is pretty close, so lots of places for this thing to break and fall apart.

Either way....you need to figure out how it works for you.  Many reviews said it turned out just fine for them following the recipe exactly.  You have to give this one a shot.

Check out Recipe Boy for this treat of deliciousness!