You could put dark chocolate on just about anything and I’d probably bake with it! As long as it’s vegetarian, of course! I’ve used chocolate covered cherries and chocolate covered ginger. My lastest foray into the chocolate covered world is dried cranberries. Very nice! Tart & sweet, just like you’d want them to be. I decided to bake them into banana bread, because we had some very ripe bananas, and, let’s face it, bananas and cranberries are a perfect combination, aren’t they?

Here’s Calypso Rose with Banana

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1 egg
1 cup brown sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
pinch each nutmeg and allspice
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1 or 2 ripe bananas, smushed
a few T milk (if you only use one banana)
1 cup chocolate covered cranberries
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and egg and mix well till light and fluffy. Add all of the dry ingredients and mix even more well. Add the smushed bananas. If you only add one, you’ll need to add a few tablespoons of milk to get the batter to be light and stir-able. Once it has reached this desired consistency, stir in the chocolate chips and the chocolate covered cranberries.

Pour into a cake pan or bread pan that’s been lightly buttered.

Put into preheated 350 degree oven. If you used a bread pan, you’ll probably need to cook it 40 minutes to an hour, till it’s brown on top and springs back when you touch it. If you used a cake pan, half an hour will probably do it.