Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Bread

We all know the story here. You buy some bananas at the store. You eat some. You forget about the rest of the bunch.

Fast forward several days.

Bam. You are looking at a bunch of bananas that look bruised, battered and too far gone to eat. Before you get sad and frustrated at tossing what was once perfectly good food, you have another option...make banana bread.

Well I made the obvious choice. In fact, this was my first time making banana bread and I only learned one very important thing - I should have been making banana bread way long ago.

Process

If you didn't know, banana bread is actually super easy. This is because banana bread is more muffin-like rather bread (e.g. no rising required).

So the first thing you need to do is buy bananas and let them ripen on your counter-top. Let them over-ripen. Let them go beyond you actually being interested in eating them. Okay, now you're ready.

Take off the peels and plop them in a medium sized bowl with the melted butter. It is at this point that you mash those bananas into a buttery-banana concoction.

Combine the sugar, egg and vanilla until well mixed. Sprinkle the salt and baking soda in by hand, taking caution to not over mix. 

It is at this point you have two options:

1. Bake your banana-only bread or
2. Bake your chocolate chip banana walnut bread

I personally wanted to dress up my banana bread. I luckily had some walnuts so I just chopped them up and tossed them in. Furthermore, I figured, "hey, I like the way bananas and chocolate tastes, so why not add some into my bread?" I always keep a bag of Ghirardelli Semi-sweet chocolate chips around for any food emergency, so in go the chips.

After you put whatever else you may want to add to your bread, pour the batter into a normal greased bread pan. One hour at 350°F and you have a tasty treat that served as my breakfast for a couple days.

Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Bread

Ingredients

3 bananas (very ripe)

1/3 cup butter (melted)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg (beaten)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup flour
pinch salt
1 cup chocolate chips **
1/2 cup walnuts (chopped) **

** optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mash bananas in a bowl with the butter.
3. Mix in sugar, egg, and vanilla.  Sprinkle in the baking soda and salt.
4. Combine with the flour and mix thoroughly.
5. Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips if so desired.
6. Pour into bread pan and bake for 1 hour.