Before our regularly scheduled post today, major shout out is in order.  Carrie’s bakery (The Bread and Cheese Cupboard in Stone Harbor, NJ), was highlighted by South Jersey Magazine in a Best Of article about the Jersey Shore.  If you’re in the Stone Harbor area this summer, the bakery is a required field trip for coffee and morning treats for the fam.  She also has a ton of cheese (obvi), and gourmet packaged food like chip dips, snacks, spreads, the list goes on…  Ok now, back to bananas:

The opportunity to bake with bananas is contingent on poor planning.  I rarely get extra bananas at the grocery store, so I never have really ripe bananas that are only good for banana bread.  This week, I bought extra bananas so I could wait for the extras to get too ripe to eat. And then I made banana bread.  I forget where I got this recipe, but I think it’s a good one.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Yields 2 8 x 4 loaves, or 4 mini loaves

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cup AP flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
• 2/3 cup plain yogurt
• 8 oz chocolate chips
• 1 cup walnuts (chopped and toasted)

Method

1. Preheat over to 375.  Prepare loaf pans with non-stick spray and/or parchment.
2. Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs, banana, yogurt, and vanilla.
3. Add flour and the rest of the dry ingredients.  Fold in chocolate chips and nuts.
4. Portion the batter evenly into prepared loaf pans of choice.
5. Bake 35-40 minutes for mini-loaf pans.  Longer for larger loaves, until tester comes out clean.

I’m curious, do you prefer the mini loaves or an 8 x 4?

I go back and forth between the two.  Mini loaves if I’m giving them to friends, larger loaves if I’m making it for a breakfast crowd at home.  My pet peeve, however, is when recipes just say “loaf pan” and they don’t specify the size: 8 x 4, 9 x 5, mini?  Godspeed…