chocolate orange banana bread with white chocolate chunks

It is really easy to go wrong when you have too many elements in a cake.

In this case, however, the combination of both dark and white chocolate, as well and orange AND banana intrigued me so much that I gave the cake a shot, and made one.

The resulting loaf of bread-cake was pretty good! It was not too orangey, nor was it banana-ish. The dark chocolate gave the bread-cake a deeper flavour, while the white chocolate imparted sweetness.

It was what could have been a confusing cake that ended up making sense.

Here's how to make it.

I started by mixing the sugar and oil until the mixture turned foamy.

The eggs were added, as well as the orange zest and mashed banana.

While that happened, I sifted together flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt, and folded this into the mixture, alternating with the orange juice.

Last but not least, I added the white chocolate buttons and folded that into the batter.

And the batter was transferred into a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan and baked.

Once a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the bread-cake emerged cleanly, the bread-cake  was done.

The bread-cake was allowed to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before I transferred it onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

All that was left to do was to cut and eat it!

RECIPE
Chocolate Orange Banana Bread with White Chocolate Chunks (Serves 8-10)
Adapted from nlrockrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3 medium bananas, mashed
1 orange, juice and zest
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
500g white chocolate, roughly chopped in small chunks - I used white chocolate buttons

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Beat sugar and oil in a bowl until foamy. Add eggs, finely chopped orange zest and mashed banana. Mix well.
3. Sift together flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt.
4. Fold into banana mixture alternately with orange juice.
5. Fold in the white chocolate chunks.
6. Pour batter into a 9x5-inch greased loaf pans  and bake for 45 minutes to an hour depending upon pan size. A toothpick inserted in the center which comes out clean is the best indicator that the loaf is fully baked.