Chocolate Banana Marble Bread - Eggless | Muffins and Quick Bread Recipes

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade... When it gives you bananas, make banana bread. I had quite a few ripe bananas sitting on the countertop with no takers. When it comes to banana bread, the hubby approved recipe is already on my space. He wouldn't allow me to change it. But I wanted to use these bananas to make a banana bread. I also wanted to make a quickbread with the "marble" effect ever since I saw in the blogosphere months ago. It is just that I never got into making it, I never got the chance to try something new. I know, I know being a food blogger is all about trying new things. But with a toddler the daily activities itself become overwhelming sometimes with all the extra tidying up. This time we were visiting one of our family friends and I dared to make the much needed venturing to create the marbled bread, undoubtedly I manage to squeeze in this when the home was in pin-drop silence (read as kid sleeping).

Ingredients:
Recipe Adapted from here
Makes - 1 loaf - 12 slices
All purpose flour - 1-1/2 cups (Substitute Whole wheat flour for a healthier version)
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder - 1/4 tsp
Baking Soda - 3/4 tsp
Ground Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp (optional)
Oil - 2 tbsp (see notes below)
Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup (You can substitute any granular sweetener of your choice)
Low fat milk - 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Mashed Bananas - 1 cup - approx 3 medium sized bananas
Cocoa powder - 3 tbsp
Hot water - 3 tbsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F/ 180 C. Grease and line a loaf pan with parchment paper. Mix the dry ingredients (the first 5) with a whisk. In another mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, milk and vanilla until the sugar is dissolved completely. Add the mashed bananas and mix well. Add the flour mixture little by little and incorporate into the wet mixture using the whisk. Do not overmix. Mixing just until most of the flour mixture is absorbed is fine. Now divide the batter into, well not accurately, just eyeballing would be fine. In a small bowl mix the cocoa powder and hot water until smooth. Add that to one part of the batter and mix. Now, in the batter. In the prepared loaf tin, add 2 tablespoon measures of the batters alternatively to form a checker board pattern. For a visual guide check out this link. After all the batter is used up, use a knife, back of a spoon or the back of a wooden spatula to make swirls in the batter. A simple "S" pattern all over would be suffice. Bake for about 50-55 minutes. Allow to cool in the wire rack for a couple of hours. Serve warm or chilled.
Notes:
You could use melted butter or any oil you prefer. 

Linking it up to Srivalli's Cake Mela; Flavours of USA & Canada; Vardhini's Bake Fest #25.