Banana bread

Miss B has a deep-seated antipathy towards bananas, which dates back to when she was too small for it to have been a deliberate rejection. After happily eating banana mashed up in various things for several months, one day she started gagging when she came in contact with raw banana in any form, including mashed up and hidden in oatmeal. As far as I could tell, this was an involuntary reaction, based apparently on smell, and after testing it a few times to be sure, I gave up on feeding her bananas in anything.

As I discovered when she was in preschool, however, she will quite happily eat bananas in baked goods – particularly those that also involve chocolate. What I find strange and interesting about this is that I am the exact opposite: I am quite happy to eat raw bananas almost every day for breakfast (much to Miss B’s vocal dismay), but I don’t particularly like them incorporated into any cooked food. Which makes it all the more unusual that I like, and will willingly eat, this concoction.

Double chocolate banana bread

This recipe has grown from one that I found on Chocolate & Zucchini a long time ago and which, ironically, originated at a farmstand in Lexington, Massachusetts. I’ve been using it, and tinkering with it, for years, and it was only when a friend requested it that I realized I had never posted it.

banana bread

200 g/7 oz plain/all-purpose flour

7 g/1.5 tsp baking powder

7 g/1.5 tsp baking soda

3 g/.5 tsp salt

.25 tsp cinnamon

55 g/2 oz butter*, softened

200 g/7 oz sugar

2 eggs

2 small bananas**

60 g/2 oz greek yogurt

5 ml/1 tsp vanilla

180 g/6 oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease a loaf pan and set aside.

In a small bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, 2-3 minutes with a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating each one in thoroughly. Add the bananas, yogurt, and vanilla and mix in completely.

Add dry ingredients and mix in, then stir in chocolate chips until evenly distributed through batter. Scrape batter into prepared pan and put in oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until top of cake is lightly browned and a cake tester comes out clean.

Leave loaf to cool completely before glazing.

chocolate glaze

90 g/3 oz icing/confectioners’ sugar

40 g/1.3 oz cocoa

30 ml/1 oz milk

3 g/.5 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together into a thick, shiny glaze. Add more milk if necessary to achieve a spreadable consistency.

Remove cooled banana bread loaf from pan to a rack set over a baking sheet to catch drips (which there will be). Pour glaze over loaf and spread to coat evenly. Glaze will harden as it cools.

Makes 1 loaf.

* My favorite way to make this is using cooled browned butter.

** Some people use chopped ripe bananas, but I like my bananas to be so mushy that they melt into the batter.

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