Once upon a time I discovered a fabulous and easy banana bread recipe, chock full of banana flavor (well, it does call for six whole overripe bananas) and moist almost like a cake. Then one day, I thought to myself, "I bet this would taste so good with chocolate chips!" so I dump some semi-sweet chocolate chips into the batter and I'm happy to report that I have never been more right in my life! Not to toot my own horn (and I can't really claim credit anyway because the banana bread recipe was created by somebody else), of all the times I've made this and of all the people who have had it, I have heard nothing but praise.
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| Fresh out of the oven |
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| Chocolate Chip Banana Bread |
I actually hadn't made this chocolate chip banana bread in a while, at least not since moving to Pittsburgh. But last weekend I found myself with exactly six leftover, overripe bananas, so it was the perfect opportunity to use them all at once. Once again, it came out pretty much just perfect. It's not rocket science, really; it's all about following the directions carefully. After enjoying a slice of the bread (can't beat that fresh-out-of-oven taste!), I brought the rest to work and it was a huge hit! I just made another one yesterday and I think my neighbors will be the beneficiaries this time around. :)
If you want to try this yourself, here's my personal copy of the recipe in pdf format, which is basically the original banana bread recipe with a few of my own changes.
What I changed:
What I changed:
- The obvious one: I added 3/4 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Clearly, the amount can be adjusted according to taste, but personally I've found 3/4 cups to hit just the sweet spot.
- The original recipe does not state how many bananas are needed to make 2-1/3 cups of mashed bananas, and it is actually about six, which is definitely something good to know ahead of time!
- The original recipe also does not specify the type of brown sugar used. I have tried both dark brown and light brown sugar, and in my opinion it's gotta be dark brown sugar for a full-bodied taste. The light brown sugar is just too subtle for this and doesn't provide the right level of sweetness.
