This post may contain affiliate links.
Oreo Banana Bread Quick Look
- 🕒 Prep Time: 10 minutes
- 🌡️ Cook Time: 23 minutes
- ⏳ Total Time: 33 minutes
- 🍽️ Serving: 10 mini loaves
- ⚡ Calories: 510kcal
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Chocolate banana bread stuffed with cookies and cream crunch
- ✋ Difficulty: Easy, on par with our banana bundt cake
Quick Answer
Mix mashed ripe bananas with softened butter, vanilla, brown sugar, eggs, and sour cream until smooth. In a second bowl, whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, then fold the dry into the wet just until combined. Fill a greased mini loaf tin halfway, press two whole chocolate sandwich cookies into each loaf, top with more batter, and bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 23 minutes. Cool, then drizzle with a cookies and cream glaze.
Jump to:
- Oreo Banana Bread Quick Look
- Quick Answer
- Why This Recipe Works
- Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Key Ingredients
- Variations and Substitutions
- How to Make Oreo Banana Bread
- Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Serving Ideas and Suggestions
- Oreo Banana Bread FAQs
- Other Recommended Banana Baking Recipes
- Oreo Banana Bread (Mini Loaves)
Why This Recipe Works
Click to see the technique science
- Whole cookies survive the bake. Sandwich cookies are sturdy enough to hold their shape in the batter, so every slice reveals a full cookie with its cream filling intact, the money shot of this recipe.
- Cocoa deepens the banana. Chocolate and banana share flavor compounds, adding cocoa to the batter makes the bananas taste richer rather than hiding them.
- Sour cream guarantees moisture. Its fat shortens gluten strands and its acidity boosts the baking soda, delivering a tender, tall crumb even with the heavy cookie load.
- Mini loaves bake fast and even. Small pans mean the center bakes through in about 20 minutes, long before the edges dry out, a real risk with a full size cookie stuffed loaf.
- The batter sandwich keeps cookies centered. Half batter, then cookies, then the rest of the batter suspends the cookies in the middle of each loaf instead of letting them sink to the bottom.
- Glaze goes on cool loaves. Waiting until the loaves cool keeps the glaze thick and white so the crushed cookie pieces stay visible instead of melting into the surface.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Every slice has a whole cookie baked inside, the reveal gets a gasp from kids every single time.
- Mini loaves mean built in portions, perfect for lunchboxes, bake sales, and gifting.
- It is the chocolate lover answer to our cream cheese banana bread, same tender crumb, double the cocoa.
Key Ingredients
This is banana bread with a double chocolate identity. Here is what each key player does:
- Ripe Bananas: Three of them, the spottier the better. They bring the moisture and that unmistakable banana bread sweetness that pairs so well with chocolate.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder: A third of a cup turns the batter fully chocolate, so the loaf reads cookies and cream instead of plain banana with cookies.
- Chocolate Sandwich Cookies: Twenty whole cookies get pressed right into the batter, then four more crushed into the glaze. Yes, whole cookies, every slice gets a full cookie cross section.
- Sour Cream: The insurance policy for a moist crumb, its acidity also wakes up the baking soda for a better rise.
- Powdered Sugar and Milk: Whisked with vanilla into the quick glaze that ties the cookies and cream theme together on top.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Variations and Substitutions
This loaf plays well with almost any cookie in the pantry:
- Standard loaf pan: Bake the full batter in a 9×5 loaf at 350 degrees for 55 to 65 minutes, laying the cookies in one flat layer halfway up.
- Golden cookie version: Use golden sandwich cookies and skip the cocoa powder for a vanilla cookies and cream loaf.
- Mint or peanut butter: Flavored sandwich cookies (mint, peanut butter, birthday cake) each turn this into a different dessert.
- Muffin version: Bake in a lined muffin tin with one cookie pressed into each, 16 to 18 minutes at 375 degrees.
- Chocolate chip boost: Fold a half cup of mini chocolate chips into the batter for even more chocolate.
- Skip the glaze: Dust with powdered sugar instead for a less sweet finish, great next to coffee like our chocolate chip coffee cake.
How to Make Oreo Banana Bread
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease a mini loaf tin well with baking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix the mashed bananas, softened butter, vanilla, brown sugar, eggs, and sour cream until smooth, a whisk or hand mixer both work, just go gently, the mixture is loose.
- In a medium bowl, mix the baking soda, salt, flour, and cocoa powder. Slowly fold the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined with no dry patches.
- Fill each mini loaf well about 1/2 inch up the sides, this makes 10 loaves. Press two chocolate sandwich cookies into each, slightly overlapping if needed, then top with the remaining batter evenly.
- Bake 18 to 23 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean. Cool in the tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn the loaves out onto the rack to cool completely.
- Whisk the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk until smooth, then stir in the finely crushed cookies. Pour the glaze evenly over the cooled loaves and serve.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Use truly ripe bananas, heavy spotting or fully brown peels. Firm yellow bananas make a drier, blander loaf.
- Do not skip greasing the corners of the mini loaf tin, the cocoa batter shows every stick mark.
- Overlap the cookies slightly if your loaf wells are narrow, they shift back into place as the batter rises around them.
- The toothpick test lies near the cookies, test at the loaf edge, melted cookie filling looks like raw batter on the pick.
- Cool completely before glazing, even slightly warm loaves melt the glaze thin and see-through.
- Crush the glaze cookies fine, big chunks clog the drizzle, a zip top bag and rolling pin get them just right.
Serving Ideas and Suggestions
These oreo banana bread loaves are dessert dressed up as breakfast, and we fully endorse both jobs. A warm slice next to morning coffee is the weekday treat, and they hold their own on a brunch board next to banana muffins and fresh fruit.
For dessert, slice a loaf thick, warm it slightly, and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, the melted cookie centers turn almost fudgy. It is the same trick that makes our pound cake such a sundae base.
Bake sales and gifting are where the mini format shines, wrap each glazed loaf in a cellophane bag and they look straight out of a bakery case, right alongside a batch of banana cream cheese muffins.
Storage tip for serving later: keep the loaves unglazed, then glaze the day you serve for that fresh bakery look.
Oreo Banana Bread FAQs
Yes! Pour half the batter into a greased 9×5 loaf pan, arrange the whole cookies in a flat layer, top with the remaining batter, and bake at 350 degrees for 55 to 65 minutes, tenting with foil if the top browns too fast. The mini loaf timing does not apply, always test with a toothpick near the edge.
They soften, but in the best way. The cookies bake into a texture between fudgy brownie and soft baked cookie, while the cream filling melts into a sweet ribbon. If you want crunch, you get it from the crushed cookies in the glaze, which stay crisp on top.
As ripe as you can stand, heavily spotted to nearly black peels are ideal. Ripe bananas are sweeter, mash smoother, and carry more moisture into the crumb. If your bananas are not there yet, bake them unpeeled at 300 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until the peels blacken.
Store glazed loaves in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, with parchment between layers. The refrigerator dries banana bread out, so avoid it unless your kitchen is very warm. Unglazed loaves stay fresh a day longer and are sturdier for stacking.
Absolutely, freeze the unglazed loaves. Wrap each cooled mini loaf tightly in plastic wrap, then foil, and freeze up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature still wrapped, then make the fresh glaze and drizzle before serving. Glazed loaves can be frozen but the glaze turns translucent when thawed.
Usually one of three things: the batter was overmixed after the flour went in, the loaves were underbaked when they came out, or the baking soda was old. Fold gently, bake until the toothpick comes out mostly clean at the edge, and replace baking soda every 6 months for a reliable rise.
On a banana streak? Our banana bundt cake is the showstopper version for company.
When the holidays roll around, my eggnog bread takes over the loaf pan.
Oreo Banana Bread (Mini Loaves)
Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas peeled and mashed
- 1 stick unsalted butter softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 20 chocolate sandwich cookies
- 2 cups powdered sugar sifted
- 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
- 2 tbsp milk
- 4 chocolate sandwich cookies crushed fine
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a mini loaf tin with PAM Spray Pumps in Canola Oil. Set aside.
- 2. In a large bowl, mix together the bananas, butter, vanilla, brown sugar, eggs, and sour cream until smooth. You can do this by hand with a whisk or with a hand mixer. If using a hand mixer be careful, this mixture will be loose. Set aside.
- 3. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the baking soda, salt, flour, and cocoa powder. Slowly fold in the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined and there are no dry patches.
- 4. Pour the mixture about 1/2 inch up the sides of the mini loaf tin. This recipe makes 10 loaves. Press in two chocolate sandwich cookies, these might have to slightly over lap. Top with the remaining banana bread batter evenly.
- 5. Bake for 18-23 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean. Place tin on a wired rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Take out the banana bread loaves and place on the wired rack directly. Let cool completely.
Cookies and Cream Glaze
- 1. In a small bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk until smooth. Add in the chocolate sandwich cookie pieces.
- 2. Pour glaze evenly over the loaves. Serve.
Nutrition
Love This Recipe?
Follow @ThisSillyGirlsKitchen on Instagram and @danadevolk on Pinterest for more!
These are so fun! I love mini desserts!
These sound so delicious! I just love the combination of flavors!
I love those PAM pump sprays. It makes everything so much easier, especially clean up!