Banana bread so good you'll slap yo mama

[spiced chocolate chip banana bread]

Happy Thursday, eaters! It's almost the weekend, which means you need to be thinking about what you're going to eat this weekend, right? ...Right?

Good thing we've been bringing you our favorite banana bread recipes all week so you can budget for some delicious banana-y goodness this weekend to impress your friends. What's your fancy: an extra kick in your morning muffin? What about a little sweet and buttery extra sumpin sumpin on top? Or is it all the chocolate chips? We three eaters just couldn't put enough chocolate chips in our banana bread this week.

Well, chocolate or no chocolate, this here recipe for banana bread is the absolute best I've found. I could make this in my sleep. This one's different for a few reasons: I use half whole wheat and half regular flour, but this recipe does NOT come out too dense, dry or cakey because of the whole wheat. I also use olive oil instead of oil and/or butter. It also has some added spices: ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Don't be afraid. Once you taste it, you'll be kicking yourself for not putting ginger in your banana bread before.

You'll need:

3-4 medium to large bananas

1/3 cup olive oil

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

To be alone when you eat this otherwise you might slap somebody

 

Preheat your oven to 325 and grease a large bundt pan (or bread pan).

Peel and mash bananas in a large bowl. Add olive oil, brown sugar, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract and beat until everything is incorporated.

In a separate bowl combine the flours, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking soda and mix well. This is important. I know I'm always tempted to skip the "in a separate bowl" step, but don't. You want your baking soda to mix properly with the flour. I've found if you skip this step, there is some kind of dark magic about baking soda in banana bread (in particular)- if you don't mix it well in the flour prior to adding it to the bananas, you get disgusting pockets of bitter baking soda in your banana bread.

Once all your dry ingredients are mixed, slowly add and gently stir to your wet ingredients. I'd like to reiterate here something Laura said on Monday: don't over stir your batter. The worst thing banana bread can be is tough and dry. Now, add your chocolate chips at this point if that's what you fancy.

Pop that sucker in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour and it's done when you can stick a knife in the middle and it comes out clean.

[no mamas were hurt in the baking of this banana bread]

Enjoy, eaters!

Until next time,