Banana Bread & Thoughts

I love banana bread! My favorite pie at Thanksgiving is Banana Cream. And Banana's on ice cream with caramel is O so yummy! And a trip to Disney land is not complete without a chocolate covered banana. But to me Banana bread with chocolate chips is just a waste of good ripe bananas. Why bother putting in the banana when that lovely flavor is just masked by chocolate. Don't get me wrong, chocolate definitely has a place in my heart, a very big place that I can't seem to over come. But Chocolate Chip Banana bread, just doesn't fit into that place. I don't even think I had ever even heard of such a thing until I made Justin banana bread for the first time after we were married and he wanted to know where the chocolate chips were. So now every time I make Banana bread, I make a 'boring" loaf and a chocolate "infested" loaf. And since everyone around here opts to eat the chocolate version, I get the "boring" loaf all to myself!

And by the way, don't get me started on nuts. Nuts do not belong in Banana bread. Especially not walnuts, can't stand them. If I find them, I spit them out- really I do!

Anyway, maybe you guessed already, but I made banana bread this weekend, and have been savoring every bit of my "boring loaf". I actually made 4 loaves- 1 plain, 2 plain with chocolate chips, and 1 gluten free with chocolate chips. One of the loaves went away with Justin to work, but the other three stayed here and tempted all of us for the past three days. And I think I might just get the last piece for breakfast tomorrow.

I have used the same recipe for Banana bread for as long as I can remember, I believe the original recipe came out of the Betty Crocker red and white cookbook at my moms house. But for some reason, I tried a new recipe. Something I found on Pinterest. Let's just say I only used it for 2 of the recipes (the bread fell in the middle, and it took too long to cook through so it got darker than I like), for the final loaf I used my tried and true recipe - and it turned out beautiful as usual! Again for the GF, all I did was substitute out the flour for a GF blend, Jules Flour blend to be exact.

Banana Bread

Makes one 9 inch loaf

Mix the following in order:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter (original recipe calls for melted shortening)
2 eggs
2 cups flour (Substitute GF All Purpose Flour Blend)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 ripe bananas, mashed

Fold in 1 cup of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, if using.

Pour/Scoop batter into greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.