Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Bread

This is one of my favorite comfort foods...moist, chocolately, and delicious! And it doesn't hurt that it makes the house smell fabulous! This recipe might be a little different than your mama's.
Obviously, the chocolate chips are a little twist, but there is also buttermilk and toasted oats in here as well. Start savin up your old, brown bananas (you can keep them in the freezer until you have enough; and yes, I know I have yellow bananas in the pic, but that's only because I failed to take the ingredient pic before, and well, old greasy brown banana peels do not a pretty picture make) and get ready for some knock-your-socks-off bread that does double duty as both breakfast and dessert.

What you need:

1 1/4 c sugar

1/2 c butter (I always use Smart Balance)

2 eggs

2-3 black bananas (2 if they're big, 3 if small)

1/2 c buttermilk

1 T lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

2 c. self-rising flour (White Lily - TN local!!)

1 c toasted oats (turns into 1/2 c after grinding)

1 c nuts (I use walnuts)

1 c semisweet chocolate chips


First, measure about 1 cup of OLD FASHIONED oats and spread onto a jelly roll pan. (Yes, I'm sure you could replace these with instant, but you really should replace that pantry staple altogether with the Old Fashioned kind. They are healthier, as they are the "whole" grain, they have more flavor, make better cookies, and let's be honest, they are still instant, and can even still be cooked in the microwave.) Place in a 350 deg oven for 10-15 min, until just starting to toast.

(This is also something you should do any time you're making home-made granola, especially granola bars. It will give the bars a better texture, more like what you would expect from a granola bar, and less like those delicious, but not-what-you're-going-for chocolate/peanut butter No Bake Oatmeal Cookies, which tend to be soft and crumbly.)

While your oats are cooking, go ahead and mix the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time. Add your mushy bananas (which will be especially disgusting if they have been frozen and thawed, but don't worry, they're not bad, they're actually perfect!) and mix until smooth-ish. Add vanilla, then buttermilk and lemon juice (if you don't keep buttermilk on hand, don't buy it just for this, just replace it with milk, but add the 1 T lemon juice listed in the ingredients directly to the milk and let it set for about 15 min. The acid will curdle the milk, and voila! you have buttermilk)

Now it's time for flour, so before you start adding that, take your oats out of the oven
and grind them into a "flour" in the food processor. Don't worry if it seems grainy to you, rather than powdery, just get it as fine as your processor will alow.  If you don't have a food processor, just leave the oats out altogether and only use plain, self-rising flour.

At this point the oats should measure about 1/2 cup. It doesn't really matter, you just want 2 1/2 c total of a flour, so take however much is in your cup, and add regular, self-rising flour to it until you have 2 1/2 c. This is a good time to EMPHASIZE that the oats are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. You can opt to simply use 2 1/2 c of flour, instead, which I do every now and then, too. The oats just add more depth of flavor, and I'm all about a good secret ingredient!

Add your flour, 1 cup at a time to the batter. Now it's time to add the nuts. I have found I don't like to bite into a nut, but I like the richer flavor they provide, so I just toss the cup of nuts into the food processor and grind it down, pretty much the same as the oats. They won't turn into a powder because they contain oil, so they look more like teeny tiny crumbles. They will decrease in volume tho, that's why I measure it before I grind it.

So add the nuts and the chocolate chips....which brings me to another tip and trick. Any time you're adding something to a batter, and you don't want it to sink down to the bottom, toss it around in some flour before adding it to the batter. This works great for chocolate chips and nuts in brownies, cakes, pies, you-name-it!

(I forgot to take a pic of this, so I had to add a few more for your benefit...what a shame! Hate to add more chocolate :o)

Grease a loaf pan REALLY well, then put the batter in the loaf pan (also makes FABULOUS muffins, that are less-dense than the bread, in about 15-20 min) and bake at 350 deg for about an hour (yes, rediculous long, but worth the wait). Check on it after about 45 min, to see if the top is getting too brown. The inside will NOT be done, so I recommend tenting it with some foil to prevent further browing.



You can check it by inserting a toothpick, when you get closer to 50-55 min. When it's done your house will smell heavenly and your bread will look like this Let it cool for 5-10 min, then turn it upside down and let it sit for another 10 min or so, until it falls out of the pan. Then turn it right-side-up, slice and enjoy with a big-ole glass of milk. Mmmmm...