They say that necessity is the mother of invention. (As a side note … do any of us know who “they” are?)
Anyway, in this case, “they” were right. I wanted to make banana bread for church last night, but had more bananas than it takes for one batch, and less than it takes for two. And I really wanted to bring two. So I twiddled a little with my usual banana bread recipe and came up with something that I think is much better than plain old banana bread.
My little plan backfired, however. Zac loved this so much that I had to leave one loaf home for him. Which was okay. 🙂
Better Than Banana Bread
- 4 ripe bananas
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 15 oz can of pureed pumpkin
- 2 eggs
- 1 stick butter, melted
- 3 3/4 cup flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
In mixer, mash bananas and sugar till creamy. Add pumpkin and eggs. After I did this I noticed how splattery it was and had to snap this picture. It reminded me of a favorite verse from Psalms that says, “Where there are no oxen, the stalls are clean.” Life is messy — especially if you want to be artsy about it.
Boy, you hit the jackpot today, didn’t you? You get a recipe AND a deep philosophical commentary!
Melt butter and add to batter. Blend well.
Combine dry ingredients and add to mix. Because this was an experiment, I added flour until it looked right. Here’s where that happened:
Add chocolate chips and mix just to combine.
Pour into greased loaf pans and bake 1 hour (maybe a little more) @ 325.
Test before you take out of the oven. Mine looked done at one hour, but ended up needing another 7 minutes.
I calculated this for 10 slices per pan, but if you can cut it into 12 slices, the calories drop to 198 per slice.
Oh, how I love when an experiment works!
And in other news …
We finished 10 baby quilts! Thank you so much to everyone who contributed, and especially to Marlene Blanton, who took the three quilt tops I gave her and finished them, plus took all the leftover flannel and somehow turned those little scraps into several more.
At the time this posts, I will be down at the pier handing out the baby blankets and hopefully taking pictures. 🙂
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Yum! I have had the same problem before: not quite enough bananas. At that time I substituted applesauce since that was what I had on had. That turned out delicious too! (In my recipe, I leave out the chocolate chips and let my kids dump cinnamon to their hearts’ content. I handle adding nutmeg on my own.)
That’s a great idea! Cinnamon is much better for you than chocolate chips. Although I can’t actually say I’ve ever craved cinnamon. 🙂
Absolute yes on the applesauce! I’ve done that a few times, occasionally with cinnamon applesauce. Oh, BTW, cinnamon applesauce makes a great replacement for oil in brownies MMMM.