Chocolate Banana Bread

You know you have serious food issues when you just bake for the sake of a blog!!

Well not exactly - but I haven't had much to blog about lately, and I was feeling particularly inspired by Liss from www.frillsinthehils.com - she had had a bit of a baking session on Monday.  That coupled with the fact that I was shackled to the house with a sick child meant that I had nothing to do (well nothing enjoyable that was!!)  So I made a couple of baked items (ostensibly to add to the children's lunch boxes - if, and when they all returned to school!!)  Here is item number one that I baked.

Chocolate Banana Bread
From bills food by Bill Granger


250g (2 cups) plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125g unsalted butter, softened (I used salted)
250g (1 cup) caster sugar
4 ripe bananas, mashed (I used 2 - they were massive)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g (1 cup) chocolate chips (I used 1 bag which was 230g - little over a cup)

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Lightly grease and flour a 19x11cm loaf tin.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.

Mix the butter, sugar, banana, eggs, vanilla and chocolate chips in a separate bowl.  Add to the dry ingredients and stir to combine, being careful not to overmix. *

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the bread is cooked when tested with a skewer. **

Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

Serve in thick slices with butter. (If you are feeling particularly decadent!)

* When mixing the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients it is important not to overmix as this works the gluten and the end result is a tough and dry bread.  A loose (just mixed) mixture ensures a moist delicious result.

** I baked mine for 1 hour - then checked - mine was done at this stage - so I suggest you check at the 1 hour mark - and go from there.

As I had a lot of baked goods in the house I decided to take this along to tennis this morning - and it was given the thumbs up by all the ladies there - they even asked for the recipe as they thought their kids would love it!!