Joy's Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Why I Love This Recipe
Banana bread is one of my favorites BUT most kids (mine at least) refuse to eat it with nuts in it (which is what makes it so good in the first place!). Because I still wanted something in my bread, I added a bag of semi-sweet choc. chips one day, just to see how it tasted. I knew it would be really, really sweet so I decided to use my tiny bread pans (1/2 cup pans) so that it was just a couple of bites instead of an entire slice. Well, it turned out to be EXCELLENT! I haven't made banana bread any other way since then. This is now my most requested baked good.
Ingredients You'll Need
1 1/8 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
4 over ripe bananas (I throw any extra into the freezer, when you thaw them out, they're good and mushy) - mashed up
2 tablespoons of lemon juice, combined with enough milk to make 1/2 a cup (make this first and let sit together at least 5 minutes until the milk curdles a bit)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups ap flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 bag (8 oz) semi-sweet choc. chips
1/2 cup sized pans, grease bottoms only
Directions
1. Heat oven to 350 - move rack to just below center
2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add mashed bananas, milk/lemon juice mixture (give it a stir before adding to make sure you get the lumpy parts too) and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in the choc. chips.
3. * With a measuring cup, put 1/3 cup of batter into each pan * and bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pans then loosen sides of bread from pans and remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.
* from my Betty Crocker cookbook - if you're using mini pans, here is the chart for the amount of batter to use for different pan sizes: (find the volume by filling them w/ water, then pouring the water into a measuring cup)
1/3 cup pan: 1/4 cup batter :bake time 15-20 minutes
1/2 cup pan: 1/3 cup batter :bake time 15-20 minutes
2/3 - 3/4 cup pan: 1/2 cup batter :bake time 25-35 minutes
1 cup pan: 3/4 cup batter :bake time 35-40 minutes
