recipes on Ate by Ate

Let it be known that yours truly, Little Miss “I Love to Bake Lalalala”, has never made banana bread before. EVER. It’s crazy because it’s one of the easiest things to make! Easy clean-up, one pan, and one spot to pour the batter in. And let’s face it, mashing bananas is really fun! It’s a great stress reliever and the stuff smells lovely. There really isn’t a reason for my not making loaf cake or bread. My family actually loves loaf cake! It’s one of my brother and dad’s favourite snacks and they’ll eat the stuff for breakfast, afternoon snack, and midnight munchie. Come to think of it, they actually enjoy quick breads and loaf cakes a lot more than cupcakes and probably even cookies (it pains me that nobody in my family loves frosting the way I do, sigh) but I just haven’t gotten around to making any until now.

So what do you do when life gives you too many bananas to eat on their own or to eat with your yogurt? Make banana bread! I suppose I could have made the yummy Banana Chocolate Chip cookies from my beloved Hannah Swensen mysteries, but I really wanted to give the loaf pan some hugs so banana bread it was. And given how I work at Kraft, how folks rave about the banana bread recipes, and also how I have a ridiculous stash of Baker’s chocolate on my baking cupboard, I opted for the Chocolate-Chunk Banana Bread from the growing collection of banana bread recipes on the site at kraftcanada.com. I LOVE the golden crust that formed on the outside and the chocolate chips were all warm and melty on the inside!

Recipe for Chocolate Chunk-Banana Bread on kraftcanada.com (serves 15)

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. Magic Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup mashed fully ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
4 oz. Baker’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate, coarsely chopped *Deb’s Note: I didn’t feel like chopping chocolate so I used 1 cup of chocolate chips instead*
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Heat oven to 350°F.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl; set aside. Beat eggs, bananas, oil and milk in large bowl with whisk until well blended. Add dry ingredients; stir just until moistened. Stir in chocolate and nuts.
Pour into greased 9×5-inch loaf pan. *Deb’s Note: I used parchment paper, I just prefer it*
Bake 55 min. or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean *Deb’s Note: I took mine out after 50 min.* Cool in pan 10 min.; remove to wire rack. Cool completely.