Two-Minute Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Sorry, I know this isn’t new nor earth-shattering, and I’ve offered up banana bread recipes before. But we spent this morning at the park eating warm banana bread studded with melting chocolate pieces, a great way to wrap up a bit of a nutso week. We decided, since our house looks like someone picked it up and shook it and I had absolutely no desire to rectify the situation, to have a potluck brunch at the park. It was great. There was cinnamon sticky biscuits, and cherries, and cheese, and devilled eggs. The kids ran and played, and none of us had to do dishes afterward. This may be a new Sunday morning tradition until the first snowfall starts cooling down our brunch.
Since I always have a glut of black bananas in my freezer, I threw a few into a bowl of hot water to quickly thaw, and made the standby two minute potato masher banana loaf that has become a near-daily ritual around here. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll have the batter mixed up before the oven is preheated. I toss all manner of ingredients into these loaves, since everything goes so well with banana – nuts and seeds, coconut, dried fruit, chocolate – I always add a glug of flax oil too boost omega 3s (a teaspoon has as much as a filet of salmon!) and let me tell you, banana bread is pretty spectacular toasted with peanut butter with coffee first thing in the morning.
Two-Minute Banana Bread
3 very ripe bananas
1/2-3/4 cup sugar
2-4 Tbsp. canola, olive or flax oil
2 large eggs
a big splash of vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour (I usually use half all-purpose, half whole wheat, oat or quinoa flour)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
a handful of chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, raisins, coconut, fresh or frozen blueberries (optional)Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas, sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla with a potato masher – don’t worry about getting all the lumps out. It will look sort of cottage-cheesy.
Add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir until almost combined; add any additions and stir just until blended. Spread into a buttered 8”x4” loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes, until golden and cracked on top and springy to the touch.
(GalleryCalorie was a spectacular success yesterday, by the way! A long day-almost 12 hours of sun and fun, between setup and teardown. It was so great to see some of you there. We ate and drank our way up and down 17th Avenue, and partied in the park afterward. I brought my camera, but left it on a bench and forgot to use it. You’ll just have to come see for yourself next year!)
June 13 2010 | bread and breakfast | 17 Comments »
