Super Yummy Easy Banana Bread (with chocolate chips for added guilt)

So, I seriously cannot believe that the very first recipe I’m posting is a banana bread recipe. 

I honestly  haven’t made (or probably even eaten) banana bread in at least four years. 

Here’s the thing though:  we like to eat our bananas pretty close to green, so when that last lonely banana gets a little too freckled for our liking – it gets thrown into sub-zero solitary confinement in the freezer.  I’m not exactly sure why I did this, except that I don’t like to throw food away, and somewhere in my mind, I thought, “Hey, maybe we can bake with those at some point..”   

 Today, however,  was what alcoholics refer to as  “the moment of clarity”  wherein ridiculous heaps of frozen, black, humiliated bananas stared at me from under piled up bags of frozen burritos and from inside frozen pie shells .  Yes, they taunted me. I opened the freezer to fill my water cup with ice, and they stared at me.  Glared, even.   There they sat in all their “has-been-ness,” overripe,  and now frozen to themselves.

 At first, they just looked pathetic to me.  A frozen blackened testament to my own procrastination. But the more I stared at them, the more sinister they became.  It was as if they were planning a revolt, and  that  perhpas one night I would awaken to find an army of them marching in formation across the granite countertops. 

So, I did what any self respecting housewife would do; I yanked them from their dungeon, peeled their ugly shriveled  skins off, exposing their once plump flesh to the warm, forced air-heat of my house, dumped them in a bowl and mashed the heck out of their little banana army.    I felt much better. 

And lucky for you, I renewed my affection for banana flavored loaves  in the process- although, that may have actually been the Chocolate Chips’ fault.  Anyway, here’s my recipe.  I couldn’t find one that I liked the sound of tremendously, so I made one up…..it came out delicious.  I reccommend a slice of it, served warm, with a pat of butter melted on it, and a cup of good English tea.

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup milk chocolate (or semi-sweet) choc. chips

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup brown sugar, softened

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup), melted and cooled slightly

4 overripe bananas, mashed well

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a loaf pan.

Sift together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon, and toss in chocolate chips, coating them  in the flour mixture well.

Mix together brown sugar, vanilla, and butter until creamy and smooth, with no lumps,  and then stir in the beaten eggs and the mashed bananas.  Combine the wet mixture with the dry mixture and mix lightly just until fully incorporated. Pour into loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

By the way, simple recipes like this one are great ways to get your children baking with you.  I wish I would have taken a picture of the kidlet in his apron – or the finished bread.  I’m learning. 🙂