Nutella-Swirled Banana Bread

We're finally getting a break from the polar vortex!

Oh my goodness, it was 46º yesterday. It felt like a veritable heat wave. The boys (who have a touch of cabin fever) got to be outside for about an hour yesterday. This may not seem like a long time, but I say their total daily outdoor time has been 10 minutes or less for the past week. For Chihuahuas, an hour is a long time. I love it too though. How wonderful to not have to strap on 5 layers to walk out the door! The high for today is supposed to be 55º, which naturally has me chomping at the bit to run outdoors. I haven't ran outdoors since my last 5k, which was December 19th. I think it's time. I'm really going to start February on the right note :)

And then... I can come home and gobble up this quick bread, which (let's be honest here) is basically glorified cake. I guess if you did qualify banana bread as cake, it would be one of my favorites. I'm one of those people who's pretty much anti-frosting. It's all about the cake for me. If it's moist and flavorful, I scrap the frosting right  off the cake. Which makes banana bread perfect for me. While frosting may be the enemy,  I am not, however, opposed to Nutella swirled throughout the cake. I love finding the little pockets of Nutella nestled inside the bread. I strongly suspect kids would especially love the Nutella addition.

Short entry today- I've got a full to-do list today. Doggie time, running, doing a photo shoot for my Loaded Baked Potato Soup, making Homemade Egg McMuffins for the hubby, making Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce for the Superbowl tomorrow (Yippee for the Superbowl!!!), shower, studying "The Science of Good Cooking", and making dinner. Whew.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temp
2 tsp vanilla
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup Nutella

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a loaf-pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk to combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer until there are no more lumps. Mix in eggs. Mix in vanilla. Mix in bananas. Using a spatula, add dry ingredients. Fold together until batter is just barely moistened. You don't want to over mix and end up with a tough bread.
4. Spread half the batter into the loaf pan. Drop 1/4 cup Nutella in spoonfuls on top of batter. Using a knife, swirl the batter. Spread the remaining batter on top of the swirled batter. Drop the remaining Nutella in spoonfuls on top. Using the knife, swirl the top of the batter.
5. Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes. Check bread to make sure top is not browning too much. Cover the bread with aluminum foil if it looks too brown on top at any point. Bake bread a total of 45-65 minutes. Bread is done when a clean knife inserted comes out clean, or the internal temperature is 190º.
6. Remove from oven. Cool in loaf pan 30 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Allow bread to cool another 60 minutes before slicing to ensure bread cohesion. Cool completely before storage.

You also might like my Simple Banana Bread!