Pimp my banana bread

Yesterdaz (gah! foreign keyboard.. the y and z are interchanged from the kb I am used to, so just ignore any yz boo boo's, ok?)..

As I was saying.. zesterdaz, I looked in the fruit bowl and found that nobody had been eating the bio-banana's. Out loud, I mused about making a banana bread and heard a distinct 'ooo, yuk', from the lounge. Miss J is not a fan of baking with fruit in it. So, I revised my statement to 'chocolate loaf', which resulted in an interested looking pair of eyes appearing over the back of the couch.

We went shopping for chocolate chips. Look what I found at the Migros! A little piece of home, export quality ('scuse skanky red nail polish fragments, what can I say? I'm on vaycay). 

Speaking of little reminders of NZ, I've also been hearing Bic Runga, Brooke Fraser, The Exponents and Crowded House on the radio a lot more often than in New Zealand.  What's with that?  No wonder our muso's leave home. They just want to feel the radio love.

Once back zu hause, I distracted all non-fruit-loving persons and secretly pimped my banana bread recipe with chocolate.

This was groan-inducingly good: super moist, really chocolatey and a big hit with everyone. Here is the recipe, which was originally based on this one:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of flour (I used organic white this time, but have made it with rice flour also)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150g butter (the original recipe perplexingly calls for 1/2 cup butter,  so I made an estimation using this site)
• 3/4 cup sugar (brown, white, any sort will work)
• 2 eggs
• About 2 cups of mashed ripe bananas
• Cocoa powder and chocolate chips to taste - I used 2 tbsp cocoa and 150g dark choc chips

Do this:

Preheat oven to 175 C and line a loaf tin with buttered baking paper (this step is well worth the time investment).

Combine the flour, baking soda, cocoa, chocolate chips and salt in a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar - I do this on low heat on the stovetop. You just have to watch it carefully and it is easier if the butter is a bit soft when you start (i.e.  not solid from being in the fridge).

Mash the banana with a fork in a bowl and use an electric whisk to combine the banana and eggs.

Add the butter/sugar to the eggs/banana then add the butter/sugar/eggs/banana concoction to the dry ingredients and gently mix until all the ingredients are combined and moist. You want to do this a bit gently, for example with a wooden spoon. Do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the loaf tin, reserving some for eating with your fingers.

Bake for an hour or until a knife comes out relatively clean. As there are choc chips in there you will always get melted chocolate on the knife and will probably have to use the force to predict when it is ready. Generally if you gently touch the top and it bounces back, it is done. Mine took just over an hour.

Once it is ready, turn it out and let it cool. A baking rack is best for this, but I didn't have one and it was fine just cooling on a plate.

Makes 12 fairly hefty slices (or up to 20 less substantial ones)

Stats per slice, for those that like to do food maths:

Calories: 341

Fat: 17g

Protein: 5g

Carbs: 45g

Note: replacing half the butter with applesauce will bring the calories down to 300 per slice, with less fat. It's up to you. I prefer the full butter version and just eat less of it. Considering that a slice of chocolate cake is usually around 500 calories, I do not find this too bad in terms of a dessert or 'serious snack' for those ultra hungry moments.