Whole Wheat Banana Bread with Chocolate Glaze

The third and last banana bread for this week, and the last bake for this year's bakeathon is a healthy, sugar free, butter free dates whole wheat banana bread. Today's whole wheat banana bread is moist, dense and a yummy bread cake with bananas, dates and touch of cardamom and cloves to enhance the flavor.

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Sugar, butter and all purpose flour are replaced with dates, oil and whole wheat flour. Cardamom and cloves give this bread a rustic South Indian sweet flavor. If one wants to indulge a bit, drizzle a chocolate glaze over the cake. I went a step further and topped the cake with chocolate glaze.

Topping the bread with chocolate glaze was by compulsion rather than voluntary. I used chocolate chips to make the glaze and could not get a flowing consistency and hence topped the bread with chocolate glaze instead of a drizzle. Regardless, chocolate glaze complemented the dates banana bread wonderfully. 

Whole Wheat Banana Bread with Chocolate Glaze

Source: I Camp in My Kitchen
Total Time: 60 - 70 minutes
Preparation: 10 - 15 minutes
Bake Time: 50 - 55 minutes
Yields: 1 mini loaf (5 ¾” X 3”)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour (I used chapthi ~ aata flour
• 14-16 Pitted Dates
• 2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ⅓ teaspoon Baking Soda 
• 2 Ripe Bananas, mashed (1 cup mashed)
• 2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon Vegetable Oil ( I used 3 tbsp. 3 teaspoon = 1 tbsp)
• 2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon Water 
• 3 Cardamoms (⅛ teaspoon cardamom seeds)
• 1 Clove

Chocolate Glaze

• 3 Squares of Milk or Dark Chocolate (I used semi sweet chocolate chips)
• 1 tablespoon Heavy Cream (choco chips didn't melt properly and had to add some cream to dilute it) 

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 325 F
• Grease or spray some cooking spray in a mini loaf pan and line with a parchment paper. 
• In a wide bowl whisk together the dry ingredients( flour, baking soda and baking powder. 
• In a food processor, take bananas, dates, crushed cardamom & clove, and process until smooth. You can do this even in a blender. 
• Add oil, water and mix well or pulse once to mix everything. 
• Add fruit mixture to flour and combine using a spoon or a spatula. 
• Pour the batter into a prepared loaf pan. Tap twice or thrice to remove any air from the batter.
• Bake in a preheated oven for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. 
• Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes, remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a rack until completely cool. 
• Take chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for a minute or two until it melts, stirring every 30 seconds. I used chocolate chips and melted it for 2 minutes. Chips did not melt to flowing consistency. I added a tablespoon of cream, stirred until blended and microwaved for another 30-60 seconds. I did not get a flowing consistency but was spreadable. 
• Pour or spread chocolate glaze on the bread and dig in. 
• Store in an airtight container. Bread was fresh for 2-3 days at room temperature in this winter weather. 

Note:

• Flour - Banana Bread is usually a sense bread and the one with whole wheat is even more dense. If one is not used to whole wheat bread, one can use ½ all purpose flour and ½ whole wheat flour. 
• Sweetener - the batter was not very sweet and I used sweet chocolate chips to make a sweeter glaze. Though the batter was not sweet, after baking, I felt the sweet was perfect. If one prefers, they can add some sugar, white or brown will work out fine. 
• Chocolate Glaze - I ran out chocolate bars and used semi sweet chocolate chips to prepare the glaze. When melted the chips, it was not of flowing consistency. Hence added some heavy cream. A drizzle of Chocolate syrup might also go well with this bread. Use it instead of chocolate glaze. 

This is part of the Bake-a-thon 2016