Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I am overly ambitious every time I go to the grocery store.  When I see all the yummy fruit, I buy way more than Eric and I could possibly eat.  I justify this by telling myself I’m going to eat all of my daily serving of fruit.  Unfortunately, this rarely happens.  And as a result, I always seem to have “old” fruit lying around–especially bananas.  Usually I put them straight in the freezer.  It’s not until Eric gets mad that there’s no room in the freezer, due to my large stockpile of old frozen bananas, that I decide to use some and make banana bread.  (By the way, old bananas make the perfect banana bread.)  I happened to have some old banans that I was going to put in the freezer, but after looking at how many were already there, I decided I should use them instead of freeze them.  (Oh, if you ever do decide to freeze bananas, I learned a trick that was born out of laziness.   I don’t bother peeling them and putting them in Ziploc bags.  They go straight in the freezer just as they are.  When you’re ready to use them, just put them in a bowl and let them thaw out before peeling them.)

This banana bread recipe makes two loaves.  One for now, and one for later.  (They freeze really well.)  Since there’s a lot of sugar in this bread, I decided to add chocolate chips, because, well, it wasn’t really healthy to begin with, and now I made it a true dessert.

You need the following:

Peel the bananas and put in a large bowl.  My frozen bananas are at the very bottom.  They’re a bit darker than my non-frozen bananas.

Take a fork and mash them.  I like a little bit of banana chunks, but mash to your heart’s content.

Whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.

In a mixing bowl, add eggs, oil, and sugar.

Use a paddle attachment and mix all the ingredients.  You don’t want to cream the mixture, so set the speed on low.

Then add the dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.

It should look like this when you’re done.

Dump in the bananas and chocolate chips.  Fold them into the batter.

Evenly split them in two greased loaf pans and bake.

Once they are done baking, cool on a wire rack and then invert, cut, and serve.  Now you have no excuse to throw away old bananas.  Just make sure you’re freezer isn’t full of them.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

makes 2 loaves

7 ripe bananas

1 cup chocolate chips

3 cups sugar

2 1/4 cups vegetable oil

5 eggs

3 3/4 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoons salt

Preheat oven to 325.  Grease two loaf pans (either using cooking spray or butter and flour).

In a large bowl, mash the bananas.  Set aside.  Mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a separate bowl.  Set aside.

Using a mixer, mix the sugar, eggs, and oil on the lowest speed.  Mix just to combine.   Add the dry ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.  Scrape down the sides at least once.  Fold in the mashed bananas and chocolate chips.  Pour evenly into the two loaf pans and bake for about an hour and twenty minutes.  (Check about an hour in.  If a knife inserted comes out clean, it’s done.)

Place on a wire rack to cook completely.  Invert and serve.