Chocolate and Peanut Butter Swirl Banana Bread

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This chocolate and peanut butter swirl banana bread is a delicious twist on the classic. This sweet and delightfully soft bread is swirled with chocolate, and the best part… there’s a surprise peanut butter filling!

It’s a rainy day here in Minnesota, and neither of my daughters have been sleeping well. Rain and low sleep makes for one slow-moving household! Baking always seems to pep me up, so I decided to whip up this loaf with my toddler while the baby took her morning nap.

If any parents of little ones out there have a toddler that is very interested in what’s going on while you’re cooking or baking, I highly recommend buying a kitchen helper. My toddler uses ours every day, multiple times per day. My mother-in-law built ours for us (she’s amazing, I know), but it’s similar to the one linked here. Seriously, it will be a great investment!

I typically give my toddler a task while I work on the other side of the counter. Today she was spooning flour into another bowl for me (that’s basically sifting it, right?), and I turned around to the mess in the photo below. It wouldn’t be baking with a toddler if there wasn’t something spilled on the floor! After a quick clean up, we were on to baking this delicious chocolate and peanut butter banana bread loaf.

The original banana bread recipe that I use came from my mother-in-law and it is to die for! The chocolate swirl and peanut butter filling are two easy additions that make it that much more irresistible.

All of the additional steps in this recipe come after you’ve made the entire original banana bread batter. You will reserve one cup of batter and place it in a separate bowl. Then, add ½ cup of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips to the reserved batter.

Next, alternate spooning chocolate and regular batter into your greased loaf pan. Then drag a butter knife through the batter a few times to create your swirls (don’t overdo it or you’ll just mix the two together). I usually do 3-4 drags of the butter knife (the long way through the loaf pan) to blend the batters enough. That will create the beautiful swirl of chocolate and banana that you’re looking for!

To add the peanut butter filling, simply add a few heaping spoonfuls of your favorite peanut butter down the middle of the pan (4-5 if you’re using a standard loaf pan). I recommend slightly pushing the peanut butter scoops into the batter with your fingertips to ensure that they end up in the middle of the loaf.

Bake for about an hour and you’ll end up with this mouthwatering, peanut buttery bread!

Substitution idea:

Instead of the chocolate swirl, you can also add chocolate chips. Simply mix your batter together and add 1 cup of chocolate chips. Then spoon half of the mixture into the loaf pan. Next add 4 hefty spoonfuls of peanut butter down the middle of the pan and lightly spread the peanut butter out. Finish by pouring the rest of the batter over the peanut butter and top with chocolate chips!