Going Banana's

When I was growing up I spent half my life at my best friends house. Her mom was really cool and made the most amazing Banana bread. I never got her recipe but adopted a recipe out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I can now offically call it my own recipe since I have altered it a bit, does one item count???My boys are huge fans of this bread and whenever I have made it for parties and gatherings it is a big hit with kids as well as adults. So this is my version of an old favorite from when I was growing up mixed with good ole Betty's recipe.

Chocolate Banana Bread

1 c. sugar

1/3 c. margarine or butter, softened

2 eggs

1 1/2 c. mashed ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)

1/3 c. water

1 2/3 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 c. milk chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350. Grease bottom only of loaf pan. Mix sugar and butter, I use my Kitchen Aid. Add next 3 ingredients. Then Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bake for 55-60 min. Cool completly before serving.

I acutally don't because my kids are impatient when it comes to baked goods and we have found that when it is still warm it is quite delisious.

All I changed was instead of nuts I put chocolate chips in. My boys prefer milk chocolate but I love dark chocolate and it gives it a wonderful rich flavor. I had several very ripe, overripe bananas that needed using so this morning we went ahead and made two loaves. In our first batch we used baking m&m's and in the second we put milk chocolate chips and toffee chips.

The banana bread with baking m&m's

Close up, you can see the colors ran a bit so the loaf is quite colorful. The boys loved it.

Banana chocolate toffee bread. You get the ooey gooey goodness of the milk chocolate chips with the crunch of the toffee bits. All the flavors go really well together, I'm quite proud.

Up close

I then saw that I had some coconut and was very tempted to throw that in as well but decided to make it in another loaf when I have more banana's and instead of the water put pineapple juice. Doesn't that sound great I could name it Hawaiian Bannana Bread or something. This actually gives me alot of ideas to tinker with the recipe some more in the future, although it needs to stay Banana Bread.

This was taken after the bread barley cooled enough to be taken out of the pan to be put on the cooling rack. I warned him it would be hot but Austin couldn't wait another second and had to have a slice. He bit down and his eyes grew big, then he dropped the bite and sucked some air in to cool his burning mounth. Do you think he learned his lesson?? No way this isn't the first time he has done this, I'm still waiting for him to get it. Although it is sweet he likes my baking.

Vanessa