Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

What do you do with overly ripe bananas? We aren’t talking just a few black spots… Think bananas that are so ripe that they are squishy and almost all black.

Solution: Banana Bread. This not only gets rid of your overly ripe banana situation, but you can also give this stuff away to people!

You know whats better than banana bread? Banana bread with chocolate chips, maybe?

So here’s how it all went down. It was Wednesday afternoon and I had 1 hour and 15 minutes before I had to leave the house to head to school. I figured the timing was perfect; 15 minutes to prepare the batter, 1 hour to bake… needless to say, I was almost late for class b/c this thing took over an hour to bake, even at a higher temperature, and forgot to factor in cooling time. Lesson: don’t bake when you’re in a rush. On the upside, It all turned out fine =]

Banana Banana Bread modified from allrecipes.com

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• approx. 2 cups of mashed over-ripe bananas (about 4 bananas)
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and more to put on top of the batter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan (I lined my loaf pan with a folded piece of parchment paper instead)

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together margarine and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture and add chocolate chips; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and add more chocolate chips.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Since I was in a rush, I actually baked mine for about 1 hour and 5 minutes at 360 degrees F. (I thought it would bake faster, but at just under an hour, the middle still wasn’t quite done) When I make quick-breads, I usually look for recipes that call for sour cream, b/c it supposedly helps add moisture and creates a lighter texture. But since this bread was more or less a ‘spur of the moment’ type thing, I didn’t have any sour cream on hand.

I was really surprised the bread turned out so moist, even though there wasn’t any sour cream in it. Will probably use this recipe again in the future, but maybe tweak it to add a little more nutritional value… Maybe substitute half the margarine for olive oil and some all-purpose flour for some whole wheat flour. Oh, and one more thing, the chocolate chips on the top of the loaf tend to fall off when you cut the bread, so maybe try pressing them into the raw batter before baking? (I just sprinkled them on top)