Alright, who wants some...

[bzarcher]

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe banannas. If they're a little over-ripe, so much the better.
1/3 cup of melted butter (doesn't have to be totally melted - softened's fine.)
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 & 1/2 cup of flour
8. oz of chocolate chips (about half the usual size bag)
Salt.

Hardware:
Big ass bowl
8x4 loaf pan
Mashing device of your choice
Whisk
Spatula or mixing spoon
Small bowl

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and let's begin.

Peel your banannas and put them into the big bowl. Mash them until even the dentist cannot identify the body.

Mix in the melted butter, then the sugar. Break your egg into the smaller bowl and whisk it up until it's nicely beaten, then add it to your sugar-bananna-butter mixture. Once it's good and in, add your baking soda, and a pinch of the salt. Work these in well, then add about a quarter cup of the flour. Mix it in thoroughly, without losing the smooth, pliable texture of the batter, and then add another quarter cup. Repeat this until you've got a good batter mixed up, and then mix in the chocolate chips.

If you don't want to do this by hand, you can use a mixer (at LOW speeds) up until the final part - Chocolate chips and high speed mixing beaters don't usually get along that well.

Lube up your loaf pan some more butter, and then pour the batter in. Smoothing the top out with your spatual once it's all in never hurts.

Put the pan into the oven, center rack, for an hour.

After an hour, do the toothpick test - if all you get is melted chocolate, or the toothpick comes up clean? You're probably fine. If you see any batter, go ahead and put it in for five minutes and then repeat the test. Let it cool on a rack, then slice it up and go to town.

Comments

[buschap.livejournal.com]

Hmm... my bananas got away from me over the weekend. This may be just the thing.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

It is a very, very tasty bread.

[buschap.livejournal.com]

I got about halfway through the second half-cup of flour with my wooden spoon, and then decided "nuts to this" and got out the hand mixer.

There's a tiny bit of odd texture along the bottom. Just inside the "crust", there's a bit of darker, not puffy stuff. Any ideas what's up with that?

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

*grins* Nothing wrong with the hand mixer if it's an issue.

As to the darker stuff...here's what comes to mind.

1) Uneven heating surface in the loaf pan?

2) Vanilla wasn't totally mixed in right?

[buschap.livejournal.com]

It's probably uneven heating. My oven can be crazy.

As for the vanilla, the phrase "or at all" comes to mind. Oops :) Still tastes good, even without the vanilla.

[hsadventurer.livejournal.com]

I love bananna bread! I am making some right now--yum.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Excellent!