Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
I love it when people take something healthy- say, a banana- toss it with bunch of sugar, nuts, butter, and chocolate, bake it off, and call it breakfast. I don’t know how or why I’m allowed to eat this first thing in the morning, all I know is that since it’s been designated “banana bread,” it means that I can toss my Kashi aside and enjoy this delicious treat first thing!
I’m not sure exactly who this recipe came from; my brother got it from a co-worker many years ago, and since then I’ve made a few tweaks to it for simplicity’s sake. The original author suggests that you keep it in the freezer and take it out only when you slice it up; while I’ve found that it’s very good that way, I also think that leaving it out, cooling it, cutting into big fat slices and gobbling it down also works well.
This recipe makes two loaves, so you can certainly try it both ways!
First, mash your bananas like you mean it. To this, you’ll add the rest of your wet ingredients
Then, mix up your dry ingredients. This was how finely I’d ground the almonds in my Cuisinart
Next, chop up a giant pile of chocolate (or buy a bag of mini-chocolate chips… but I find chopping chocolate to be a very satisfying experience!)
Add the wet ingredients into the dry, stir in the chocolate, and you’ll have a thick batter that looks like this:
Be patient (it bakes for awhile), but in the end you’ll have some baked happiness
Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
6 large, ripe bananas
4 eggs
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
1 teaspoon baking soda (dissolved in a small amount of hot water)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups whole almonds, ground (resulting in about 1 3/4 ground almonds)
12 ounces mini chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 300°. Lightly grease two standard size loaf pans, and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mash the bananas. Mix in the eggs until fully incorporated, then whisk in the butter and dissolved baking soda.
In a separate, large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and ground almonds. Add the liquid ingredients and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and stir until evenly distributed.
Pour batter into pans, and bake at 300° for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Bread is done when a knife inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs. Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 1/2 hour; then remove bread from the loaf pans and cool completely. The bread can then be served immediately, or wrapped in aluminum foil and put into the freezer to improve its texture (overnight is best). Slice thinly and serve semi-frozen (it’s delicious this way!), or thaw and serve in standard sized slices.
April 3, 2011
This entry was posted in baking, breads, breakfast, chocolate and tagged almonds, baking, bananas, butter, chocolate.
