vanilla

Easy Yogurt Fruit Dip

This easy Greek yogurt fruit dip recipe is made with just 3 ingredients and makes eating fruit dip with apples, strawberries and more seem like a party.

Healthy Fruit Dip Recipe

After school or on weekend playdates, my daughter and her friends were always on the lookout for any opportunity to partake of a snack. As a mom, you know I wished said snack would be healthy. So instead of pulling out a box of this or a bag of that, a platter of bites to snack on became their go-to fave.

The girls called them pupu platters. I called them peace of mind. Knowing these kids were eating good for them snacks made it that much easier to whip them up on a whim. Easy is the name of this game.

This pupu platter has fruit of every color and with a centerpiece of sweet and healthy yogurt fruit dip. It’s great to serve on a platter for breakfast or brunch, or take to a potluck with fruit skewers.

With just three ingredients to whisk together, you won’t waste any time making it yourself.continue to the recipe… about Easy Yogurt Fruit Dip

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This chocolate chip banana bread is made sans oil and instead uses Greek yogurt to add moisture. This is easily the best banana bread recipe I’ve ever made!

When she speaks, I listen. And when her friends speak, I listen louder.

Yes, I meant to say that. Louder. Because actions are louder than words and when they eat every morsel, every crumb, I know we have a winner.

Smudge is becoming a big help in the kitchen. I find myself stopping in my tracks to watch her flit from counter to cupboard, completely unaware of anything going on around her as she sings softly under her breath to the tune that never seems to end in her head. For good measure she’ll give a twirl, an elegant flick of her wrist then cock her elbow, throw her hand behind her head and rock a pumping sprinkler dance.

And then we return to the never-ending song in her head.

Recently a friend of hers came over for a playdate. What did they want to do? Bake banana bread. Well alright then, let’s do it. And we did. And they ate. And I listened when her friend declared this recipe was, “the best banana bread I’ve ever eaten.”

Umm, yeah. Perhaps because it tastes like a giant slice of banana bread chocolate chip heaven?

Hey, I’m just here to listen.

I’ve experimented with plenty of banana bread recipes, including the recipe I used in 7th grade that called for vegetable oil as the main moistening ingredient, resulting in a greasy crumb that deflated quickly. Using Greek yogurt in this easy banana bread recipe gives ample moisture minus the greasy fingers. This is banana bread, not french fries people.

Of course adding in a few chocolate chips to any recipe can only make the world go ’round a little easier, a little sweeter.

But when I’m in a need for a basic proven recipe I’m often drawn to my go-to 1,028 recipe tomb: The New Best Recipe Cookbook by Cook’s Illustrated. I’ve slightly adapted the recipe by adding a touch more vanilla, subbing pecans for walnuts, and yes, the aforementioned chocolate chips.

What’s in Choc Chip Banana Bread?

The beauty of homemade banana bread is that it uses very few ingredients, but is so incredibly flavorful and moist (yes, I just said moist). This banana bread with yogurt uses the following key ingredients:

All-purpose flour
Granulated sugar
Baking soda
Salt
Chopped pecans
Bananas
Plain Greek yogurt
Eggs
Unsalted butter
Vanilla extract
Chocolate chips

Make sure to buy plain Greek yogurt, preferably whole fat or low-fat (non-fat yogurt is much tangier and the lack of fat will result in a drier loaf). The brand you buy doesn’t matter, just get whatever’s on sale.

How to Make Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

To make this homemade banana bread, you just have to stir together the dry ingredients in one bowl, and the wet in another. Slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry, then pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake the chocolate chip banana bread for a good 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. I like to eat this moist banana bread warm with butter, but it’s also delicious at room temp with a glass of milk.

How to Store Banana Bread

Choc chip banana bread will last for a few days on your counter. Make sure to wrap it in foil to prevent it from drying out, though. If desired, you can rewarm slices of banana bread in the microwave or oven.

Can You Freeze Banana Bread?

Homemade banana bread freezes really well and can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months. To freeze the whole loaf, let it come to room temperature before wrapping it in a few layers of plastic wrap, followed by a layer of aluminum foil (this prevents the bread from developing freezer burn). When you’re ready to enjoy the frozen loaf, set it on your counter in its wrappings to thaw.

You can also slice and freeze the banana bread and keep it in a freezer bag, but I find that it dries out more quickly in the freezer if it’s pre-sliced. But if you think you’ll eat the chocolate chip banana bread quickly enough, it shouldn’t be an issue!

Do I Have to Add the Nuts?

If you have a pecan allergy or don’t have any on hand, feel free to omit them. You can also substitute them with another type of nut if preferred.

Tips for the Best Banana Bread

The bananas you use for this chocolate chip banana bread recipe should be overripe and almost black in color. If your bananas are far from being ripe enough to use in banana bread, poke them all over with a fork and then bake them at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until browned. Let the bananas cool completely before adding them to the batter.

I’ll also say that although I love me some warm banana bread, you don’t want to slice into this loaf when it first comes out of the oven. Give the moist banana bread time to firm up and cool down a bit before slicing.

Lastly, I used semi-sweet chocolate chips in this recipe because I like how the slightly bitter chocolate contrasts with the super sweet bread. But you’re welcome to use any chocolate chips or chunks you have lying around in this banana bread!

More Quick Bread Recipes You’ll Love

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #foodiecrusheats.

4.29 from 7 votes

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This chocolate chip banana bread is made sans oil and instead uses Greek yogurt to add moisture. This is easily the best banana bread recipe I've ever made!

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Banana Bread, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes

Servings 9 people

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup pecans toasted and coarsely chopped
3 bananas very ripe and mashed well (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
2 large eggs beaten lightly
6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cooled
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour bottom and sides of a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Whisk first five ingredients together in large bowl; set aside.
In a medium bowl mix mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, vanilla and chocolate chips. Gently fold banana mixture into dry ingredients until just combined. Scrape batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for about 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and top is golden brown. Cool in pan for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack. Serve warm with a swath of sweet butter or at room temperature with a cold glass of milk.

Recipe Notes

If you need to ripen your bananas quickly, poke them all over with a fork and then bake them at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until browned. Let the bananas cool completely before adding them to the batter.
Recipe slightly adapted from The New Best Recipe Cookbook from Cook's Illustrated

More Banana Desserts to Try

Obviously as I was creating this post I was on the hunt for more lovely banana-inspired recipes and I must say, the banana is severely neglected out there unless its in a muffin, pancake or bread variety.

I say, “Raise the banana flag!” Let’s give the banana it’s sweetened day in the sun. Here’s a selection of food bloggers doing just that, and doing it well.

Modesty must be Glory’s thing because according to her Glorious Treats’s Banana Caramel Cream Dessert isn’t groundbreaking. I beg to differ.

Gluten- and dairy-free but full of flavor with a history in family lore and subject that leaves Shauna in stitches, Gluten-Free Girl’s Coconut-Banana Cream Pie is sure to make us smile too.

Cassie makes sure the health nuts aren’t left out with a chia see and whole wheat flour recipe for Bake Your Day’s Vegan Banana Nut Breakfast Cake that’s enough to convert even the non-vegans in some of us

Diana layers her nana-nanas with an extra banana-flavored icing thanks to banana extract in Created by Diane‘s Banana Icing on Banana Walnut Muffins.

Craving more life balance, less stress, and better health? Check out my Nourished Planner, the daily planner to help create simplicity and under-schedule your life.

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As always, thank you for reading and supporting companies I partner with, which allows me to create more unique content and recipes for you. There may be affiliate links in this post of which I receive a small commission. All opinions are always my own.

Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake

Flipping through the glossy pages of Irvin Lin’s baking book, Marbled, Swirled, and Layered: 150 Recipes and Variations for Artful Bars, Cookies, Pies, Cakes, and More, puts those famous images of Wonka’s spectacular chocolate factory to shame. And as the creator of the blog Eat the Love, Irvin has many reasons to be chuffed at the success of his baking book, including the fact The New York Times recently included it on their list of the Year’s Best Baking Cookbooks — excellent work, Irvin.

From whimsically imaginative treats like hazelnut cocoa linzer cookies with blackberry-mint jam, to vanilla and peach-bourbon ice cream pie with honey-cornflake crust, each page is a dessert lover’s delight.

Just make sure you’re armed with a sleeve of cookies or something when you settle down with a copy, because it’ll definitely cue the sugar cravings.

With my birthday coming up next week, I knew a cake should be in the making and this Classic Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake immediately spoke to me. And there’s no reason to wait for someone else to bake one for me when I have a book like Irvin’s to guide me along the cake-baking way. continue to the recipe… about Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake

Hazelnut and Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Why is homemade ice cream so fulfilling? So totally and utterly…happy? Move over Pharrell. There’s a new tune in town.

Making ice cream at home is something special but hardly a chore. It’s not like I’m working my building my depleting muscle tone when churning the cream and sugar myself. So why does it feel like I’ve really accomplished something once it’s done?

I think it’s because ice cream is one of those recipes that is so easily accessible and acceptable to buy from the store / truck / soda fountain, that we just don’t do it often enough. Like doughnuts. We need more homemade doughnuts, too. Topped with homemade ice cream.

But it’s probably more because homemade ice cream makes me and everyone who’s lips it touches, so…happy. Satisfied. Sweetly satisfied.

continue to the recipe… about Hazelnut and Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Swirled Mascarpone Brownies with Hazelnuts

Me and my mom. The love of chocolate runs in our DNA.

Maybe she passed her love of the cacao to me through her umbilical cord. Or maybe she transferred her chocolate loving cravings to me with each chocolate shake we’d get at Arctic Circle with a side of burgers and fries.

Either way, when it comes to dessert, chocolate is our first bite of choice. And it’s just one reason we’re both partial to super rich, fudgey, chocolate loaded brownies.

It all comes down to flavor. While some think the best flavor come from big amounts of big ingredients, it’s really the little guys who coax out the intensity of the flavors behind the scenes. Small wonder, huh?

While chocolate and mascarpone are the big names in this brownie recipe, but the nuance that binds them together is one star ingredient: vanilla.

continue to the recipe… about Swirled Mascarpone Brownies with Hazelnuts

Crushing on Ashley McLaughlin of Edible Perspective and Boston Cream Doughnuts Plus a Giveaway

Ashley McLaughlin started her blog Edible Perspective in 2009, out of sheer boredom. She knew nothing about photography and not much more about cooking. Now she’s a food blogging cookbook author and knows a thing or two about these gluten-free Boston Cream Doughnuts. Why? Because she created them. And you could win a copy of the cookbook that holds their tasty secrets.

So how did Ashley get her start? One day she picked up her husband Chris’s camera to fiddle around with it, and she says it was one of the best decisions she’s ever made.

Now, photography is a staple in her everyday routine, and her blog is proof she’s really got a knack for it.

Healthy recipes are at the forefront of her blog, with many of them being vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free, and if there’s anyone who can make a salad look like a glistening plate of jewels, it’s Ashley.

continue to the recipe… about Crushing on Ashley McLaughlin of Edible Perspective and Boston Cream Doughnuts Plus a Giveaway

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Growing up there was pretty much just a handful of cookies that we (as in the royal ‘we’ that would pretty much just be ‘me’) would make at home to satisfy the old sweet tooth. No Bake Cookies, Sugar Cookies and Snickerdoodles were all part of the arsenal. But none got as much action as this recipe did in my teenage cookie craving days.

I’m pretty surprised it’s taken me this long to pull this recipe out of the proverbial hat and post on the blog. But in reality, I’ve been giving this recipe the cold shoulder while I’ve been on the search for the ‘perfect’ chocolate chip cookie. You know, the one that makes me weak in the knees, the one that has me reaching for a glass of the coldest mug of dunkable milk.

After making these babies again for the first time in several years, I’m convinced I was looking in all the wrong places, and that like so many things in life, I had the ‘perfect’ formula in front of me all along.

This recipe came from my mom’s friend Annette and was the only chocolate chip cookie I made until the age of about 26 since it was the only chocolate chip cookie recipe I could fathom to exist. Until the afore-mentioned quest led me astray. Until I FINALLY experienced for myself that the grass is not always greener.

continue to the recipe… about Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Pancakes and Friday Faves

During the week we’re the quick breakfast kind of family. Usually eggs or oatmeal and toast. Smudge always has toast because she’s a dunker. I don’t get it, the girl dunks her toast in everything from cereal to orange juice. Ew.

But when we have time, mostly on the weekends, I like to cook something tasty, and a little more sweet for my little lover girl. And when chocolate is involved, pony up and order seconds.

The killer part of this recipe is making the master recipe of dry ingredients, doubling it, then storing the rest away for a later breakfast, or two. The result is a pancake breakfast I can whip up even on the weekdays.continue to the recipe… about Chocolate Pancakes and Friday Faves

Bloody Caramel Apples

This week I had the best of intentions to stick to my diet, but I knew in my heart it was going to be four days of eating and drinking that were out of my control. I mean coooommme on! Who can go to Wisconsin on a cheese and spirits tour and stick to the plan? Not me. So I created a new plan: more cheese please. I’ll be posting more about the trip later but if you haven’t experienced real Wisconsin cheese, you haven’t tasted cheese.

Now that I’m slowly emerging from my happy dance cheese trance, I’m craving sweets. Sweets that go with cheese.

Okay I might still be under it’s spell. I’ve never been much of a fan of caramel apples thanks to early memories of store-bought versions that nearly drove me to the dentist to have the hard, waxy caramel extracted from my molars and the tossing of the rest in the garbage.

How to Make the Best Caramel Apples

These aren’t hard coated candied apples, but rather ooey, gooey, shiny covered crunchy fruits that will have you eating the whole, darn thing.

My recipe is different in a big way thanks to the combination of sugar and sweetened condensed milk, creating a silky caramel coating that stays soft and supple. And deliciously ‘bloody’.

And that’s why you need to give my Bloody Caramel Apples a try.

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Bookmark this recipe and leave a comment below, or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

0 from 0 votes