Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Filling

Banana bread with peanut butter cream cheese filling

April 22, 2022

Banana bread is one of those comfort foods that are easy to whip up and delicious to eat. I have made my go-to Chocolate Chip Banana Bread for years (dare I say decades?) and with or without chocolate chips, it’s a winner.

Recently I started thinking about ways to embellish the original recipe. Sometimes, as a snack, I would slather some peanut butter on a slice of banana bread. The combination of banana + peanut butter + chocolate made perfect sense, but how to do it?

Banana bread with peanut butter cream cheese filling - overhead

How to incorporate peanut butter?

On my first test, I added peanut butter to the batter. While it imparted peanut butter flavor, it didn’t work out as I imagined. The bread ended up being a little dry overall and not very luscious.

My next idea was to create a peanut butter layer within the banana bread. In my research I came across Delish’s Buckeye Banana Bread and found my answer for the filling. Peanut butter alone would not do it but combining it with cream cheese, a little sugar, and an egg was perfect. It created a creamy layer that held together inside of the banana bread. This was exactly what I wanted.

Banana bread with peanut butter cream cheese filling with milk

A couple of helpful tips

It’s important to have the cream cheese very soft and at room temperature to incorporate it well with the other filling ingredients, especially if you are mixing by hand. If you don’t, you will have cream cheese lumps throughout your filling.

Don’t skip the step of dusting the chocolate chips in flour. If you don’t, you won’t have chocolate chips throughout your banana bread. Instead, you will have a layer of chocolate at the bottom of the bread that may end up sticking to the pan.

So next time you have a hankering for banana bread, try this recipe and add a layer of creamy peanut buttery goodness. I think you’ll really like it!

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Banana bread with peanut butter cream cheese filling

Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Filling


  • Author: She’s Almost Always Hungry
  • Total Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes
  • Yield: 12 1x

Description

A creamy peanut butter filling is encased in moist and delicious chocolate chip banana bread. Peanut butter + banana + chocolate = yummy combination.


Ingredients

Scale

For the peanut butter cream cheese filling

4 ounces cream cheese (half a package), room temperature

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1 large egg

1/3 cup sugar

For the chocolate chip banana bread

1 cup very ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sour cream

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips


Instructions

For the filling

In a medium bowl, whisk together the filling ingredients. You should be able to do this by hand but you can use a hand mixer if necessary.

Place in the refrigerator while you prepare the banana bread batter.

For the chocolate chip banana bread

Preheat oven to 325-350 degrees F. Coat a 9″x 5″ loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a large bowl mix together the bananas, sugar, oil, sour cream, and eggs.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture, mixing until just combined.

In a small bowl mix the mini chocolate chips with a scant 1 teaspoon of flour. Make sure the chips are coated with flour – this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom during the baking process. Sift out the excess flour then gently fold the chocolate chips into the batter.

To assemble and bake

Pour half the banana bread batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Gently add the peanut butter filling and smooth the layer. Top with the remaining banana bread batter and smooth the top.

Bake for 60 to 90 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted.

Place pan on a cooling rack and let sit for 15 minutes before turning out onto the rack to cool completely.

  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Inactive Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
  • Category: breakfast, snack, quick bread
  • Cuisine: American

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 slice
  • Calories: 246.69
  • Sugar: 5.99 g.
  • Sodium: 318.80 mg.
  • Fat: 16.00 g.
  • Saturated Fat: 5.18 g.
  • Carbohydrates: 21.65 g.
  • Fiber: 1.52 g.
  • Protein: 5.93 g.
  • Cholesterol: 61.70 g.

Keywords: banana, chocolate, peanut butter

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