Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

It's like the most scrumdiddly chocolate banana bread except...puddin'!

In my I Have Been Changed For Good and follow-up Feeding Your Soul posts, I pledged to change things around these parts. I pledged to personify my passion for food via more FUN recipes, more FUN food that reflects my overall outlook on eating and the happy eats I enjoy a daily basis. If you know me at all, you know I do not eat to live. I live to eat. That means that while I love a good salad or veggie burg, I love my cocktails and molten lava cake equally as much.

I swear you can have both. They are mutually exclusive no longer! Life is equal parts kale, hardships, sweat, tears, learning from mistakes and cake, coffee, great friends, self care and vacations to the tropics, yo.

Sometimes I'm totally satisfied with a peanut butter zucchini brownie or three and sometimes (read: often) I want a legit, veggie-less, freaking REAL dessert in every sense of the word. Alas, Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding was birthed. One that truly feeds not just my belly, but my mind and my spirit.

I'm so, so happy about how dreamy this came out. It's  just sweet enough, super moist, and all around scrumdiddlyumptious with notes of warm cinnamon and speckles of semi-sweet chocolate chips that I straight up SWOON over.

It doesn't get more fun than Sir Bananas chocolate banana milk made with milk, banana puree, cane sugar, and cocoa. Can we call it monkey milk?! I mean...

My first instinct was to make a decadent loaf of nanner bread packed with caramelized bananies and all the chocolate chips. Then I remembered that OH YEAH, banana bread has no milk in it. Bread pudding is one of those that's-too-hard-to-make-at-home-so-I'll-save-it-for-restaurants kind of desserts. But why? It's actually not hard at all. I used this recipe as inspiration. It was one of the easiest recipes I've made like, ever.

Stir or blend together the milk, bananas, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour over cups and cups of torn bread cubes. Dot with chocolate chips and walnuts or pecans or coconut or white chocolate or raisins or a RUM GLAZE?!

Imma go there.

Now listen here. If you don't have monkey milk on hand, you can still partake in the fun. Use a cup and a half of whatever milk you please (almond, soy, whole, whatever) and add a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder (or leave that out if you don't want chocolate), a ripe mashed banana, and a couple tablespoons of sweetener (sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup) to the mix. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm guessing that would work rather swimmingly. Kapeesh? If you try this, lemme knowwwww!

This recipe ain't vegan and it sure as hell ain't gluten-free. And that's peachy! Nonetheless, I know a lot of my friends and readers have allergies and/or dietary restrictions so rest assured that this recipe can definitely be made with gluten-free bread and/or dairy-free milk, like chocolate almond or soy milk! Yumz. Note that this recipe isn't overly sweet. If you have a honking sweet tooth, feel free to double the maple syrup.

For all my vegan lovelies, I've unfortunately never met an eggless bread pudding. I think it helps with the classic custardy dream texture. If you know of a substitution (maybe silken tofu, ground flaxseed, etc), feel free to experiment and let me know how it goes! I used a 7-grain baguette for the bread but anything should work. The older the better.

Side note: To all my fellow Jewish people, I totally didn't realize this post was going to go up during Passover until yesterday. Matzah version coming atcha next year!

Swoon swoon swoon and three more cups of SWOON. Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding for president. Plus ice cream on top, duh.

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