Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
Today is hot, humid, cloudy, windy and every so often the sun peeks through the grey sky causing it to feel sweltering. Blech! My least favorite type of weather. Here’s the good stuff, it is Friday, I baked Banana Chocolate Chip Bread! A bit of baking time in the kitchen brought a smile to my face on this grey day.
I chose banana bread because I had 3 bananas speckled with brown, actually 2 of them were more than speckled. The brown ones are the ones I believe make the best bread, as they are full of natural banana sugars and seem to add more flavor to the bread. There was a bottle of buttermilk in the frig pleading to be used and I like to throw chocolate chips into my banana bread occasionally because it brings a smile to Miss T. Chocolate chips in just about anything puts a smile on her sweet face. A large jar of honey sits on the counter and I was curious to see if it would enhance the loaf of bread. All tasty ingredients by my standards and I think you’ll be pleased with the fragrant loaf when you pull it out of your oven. It turned a beautiful golden brown and has a lovely split down the center, enough to see the moist bread peeking through. The whole wheat flour, honey and walnuts give it a natural, earthy flavor, while the chocolate chips add some gooey sweetness. It begs to be washed down with a cup of steamy coffee or a cold glass of milk.
Tomorrow adoring hubby and I will make our first solo bee removal. I’m quite excited! Stay tuned for my account of our adventure, provided it is eventful. The other day I went with Mr. Floyd to remove bees in a water meter and when we opened it there were about 15 bees inside, not much happening in there, but I located the queen easily, captured her and we loaded her majesty, along with her entourage into a hive. A fellow bee keeper was in need of a queen so we were happy to pass her along. Hopefully the experience tomorrow will be worthy of a tale.
Enjoy!
Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325*. Butter a loaf pan with a small amount of melted butter and lightly dust with flour. Using the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer beat the eggs with the sugar on medium high until thick and light, about 5 minutes. Add mashed bananas, buttermilk, honey, oil, vanilla, walnuts, remaining butter and chips. Mix.
Mix together flours, baking powder, soda and salt. Add dry mixture to wet ingredients and beat until just combined. Transfer batter to loaf pan and bake about 1 hour. Bread is done when a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let bread sit for about 10 minutes; then turn bread out on a rack to finish cooling.
