This is stupidly good. I find ordinary banana bread boring and tasteless.

Farmgirl's Mexican Monkey Cake
Makes One 8-Inch Square Cake

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 cup (1 stick/4 ounces) butter, softened (or 1/2 cup trans-fat free margarine, such as Earth Balance)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (they cannot be too ripe)
2 Tablespoons yogurt or sour cream
1 Tablespoon milk
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees (325 if using a glass pan such as Pyrex). Grease an 8"x8"x2" baking pan. In a small bowl, combine chocolate chips, brown sugar, walnuts (if desired), and cinnamon; set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, and egg with an electric mixer until fluffy (I use a hand held mixer). Add bananas, yogurt, and milk, and mix well. On low speed, beat in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt just until blended.

Spread slightly more than half of the batter in the pan. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon streusel. Carefully spread the remaining batter over the streusel and then top with the rest of the streusel. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature

That sounds delicious!

OMG, that sounds fabulous. I will have to try it.

That looks great.

I made banana bread yesterday with lemon zest and almonds instead of the pecans and brown sugar I usually use. Quite tasty.

When I hear "Monkey Bread" I think of this dessert I had once that was really like bread, twisted and pulled apart by hand. Not cakelike in consistency, but still sweet with a cinnamon-sugar glaze. Anyone know a recipe for that?

This sounds yummy too though.

ruth, my mom used to make it with canned biscuits, but you can also do it with frozen bread dough.

With canned biscuits:
Take two cans of biscuits, break each biscuit into 3-4 pieces and roll into a ball. Toss the balls in a mixture of melted butter, sugar (I use a tablespoon of brown and a tablespoon of white), and cinnamon. Put into an 8 inch round pan and bake at 350 F until done.

With frozen dough:
Thaw a loaf (or a dozen or so rolls) and break into 1 inch pieces. Roll into balls, toss in the cinnamon-sugar-butter mixture, put into the greased pan, and let rise until doubled. Bake at 350 F until done.

ks, that's it! It's much more my speed too, no actual baking involved :)

wookie, that sounds amazing. And I just happen to have a heap of bananas in my freezer right now. Hooray, weekend baking!

To be fair, I've eaten half the damn thing already. This is not a cake to make if you're trying to drop weight.