Chocolate Ginger Bread

It seems that on my days off I like to do a lot of dishes and bake things. We made a nice big dinner tonight, as it was the first day off for both Mike and me in a long time. It started with salad and then we had our crock-pot pulled pork and mashed sweet potatoes. Even more exciting was the Chocolate Ginger Bread I made after that. I think I found the recipe from a pin on Pinterest, but I modified it slightly. This is the first new kind of sweet bread I'd made in a while (my staples are Pumpkin Nut Bread and Cranberry Orange Bread), so I'm really glad that it turned out so well.

Delicious chocolate ginger bread

Chocolate Ginger Bread
1 cup + 1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
4 Tbsp butter or margerine
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup molasses
3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9x4 loaf pan.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

3. In a seperate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix buttermilk and molasses, then add to the butter mixture. Add dry ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips.

4. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The original recipe called for crystallized ginger as well, but it's not exactly something I have in the house and it seemed like it would make it overly gingery. It also called for "coarse chopped chocolate," but I made it simpler by just using chocolate chips. Two other notes- I "made" buttermilk the milk + vinegar way, and my loaf took almost 45 minutes to cook all the way through (but I find I almost always have to cook sweet breads longer than the recipe says). I ate it with a little bit of margarine, as I do with all bread. :)