When we refresh our sourdough starter, we always have to discard a portion and it hurts because it always feels wasteful. For that, there’s this types of recipes where you use that discard in simple recipes that don’t take as much to make as sourdough bread. This sourdough discard banana bread is delicious, with that delightful bit of tanginess that we love in sourdough products.
It’s fun to make recipes with the discard, like with my sourdough discard crackers. In general, we don’t use the discard as a leavening agent. It’s just a way of using the flour and water mix as part of another dough. You will still notice a few larger bubbles made by our sourdough starter, with that beautiful irregularity that we love in sourdough bread. But the real rising action is provided by the baking powder.
If you don’t have a sourdough starter but still want to make a loaf of delicious banana bread, you can check out my regular banana bread recipe or maybe go to the chocolate marbled banana bread recipe instead. It’s undeniable that banana bread is amazing with chocolate! Especially with this loaf, I would say that it’s the chocolate what brings all the flavours together. You can, of course, make it minus the chocolate, but I really recommend that you don’t.
For the chocolate, I chopped up a 60% cacao chocolate bar. The yummier the chocolate, the yummier the final product. You can use up to 80% cacao without any problem if you like it very bitter. You could even use milk chocolate if you like sweeter chocolates. The nice thing about chocolate in this sourdough discard banana bread is that it goes amazing with that tiny bit of acidity from the sourdough starter. The acidity opens up your taste buds so that you can then feel more layers of flavour in the chocolate. Just talking about that made me crave a piece! So while I go fetch some to the kitchen, here’s the recipe ;).
Sourdough Discard Banana Bread with Chocolate
Print Pin RateIngredients
- 75 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 170 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 300 g banana weight peeled and cut up
- 150 g active sourdough starter discard fresh from the moment you refresh your sourdough starter.
- 1 tsp salt
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- 150 g all-purpose flour
- 100 g dark chocolate, chopped I used 60% cacao, or you can use chips
Instructions
- Using a whisk or an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until it goes lighter in colour.
- Add the egg and beat once again.
- Add the banana. If you're using a whisk, it's best if you first purée the banana with a fork. If you're using an electric mixer, you can add the banana chopped up and let the mixer purée it.
- Add the sourdough discard and beat to incorporate.
- Add the four, baking powder and salt and mix them in with a spatula. Add the chopped chocolate and incorporate it.
- Pour the batter into a rectangular loaf pan 22x11cm previously greased and floured or prepped with baking paper.
- Bake the loaf in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F for 1 hour or until you can insert a toothpick or knife at the centre and it comes out without any dough (it might have chocolate, though).
- Unmould while warm.
