My mom baked two things when I was a kid, cinnamon rolls and boxed cake mixes with canned frosting. It was my Aunt Rosie and Aunt Angela that were the bakers in the family. My Aunt Rosie was the only one that made banana bread and she always added chocolate chips to it. I remember loving it so much that I had to add them to my recipe, to be honest I don’t think I can have banana bread without them haha!
To make it extra special, I sometimes sprinkle mini chocolate chips on the top of batter.
I have been asked if you can use butter instead of oil, so I tried it myself as I didn’t want to answer without knowing how it would work out. I have to say the taste of it is nice and buttery but I much prefer the oil for this bread. The oil makes it moist, not that it was dry with the butter, it just didn’t have that crumb that I like in a banana bread. So if you prefer to use butter you can, but I recommend trying with oil first so that you can compare it and it is possible you actually prefer the butter.
I usually bake with olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil, it is a lighter tasting olive oil and no one has ever detected an olive taste in my baked goods. I do at times use sunflower oil. Any vegetable oil will work really, I try to avoid GMO oils when I can, so olive or sunflower is my choice of oil for baking and cooking.
NOTE: If you like, you can use 1 full cup of chocolate chips or walnuts. It can be a walnut or a chocolate chip banana bread.
What you will need:
- 3 ripe bananas mashed
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup oil (I use light olive oil)
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup walnuts (optional)
- 1/2 cup semi- sweet chocolate chips
Place the bananas, eggs, sugar, milk, and oil in a mixing bowl, and blend at medium speed until well blended. Sift together the dry ingredients and add to banana mixture; mix for one minute. Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips if using. Pour into 2 greased 8.5 x 4.5 loaf pans or 5 mini loaf pans or one 1 and 1/2 lb pound loaf pan. Top with mini chocolate chips if desired. I also like to add a sheet of parchment paper in the loaf pan, as it makes for easy clean up and the bread doesn’t stick to the sides or bottom.
Bake at 350 for 55 minutes to 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you are baking them in mini pans, bake for 30-40 mins and check with toothpick.
If you are using a large 1 and 1/2 pound pan it may take a bit longer to bake, check with a toothpick, maybe an hour and 5 minutes or so. I usually use two 8x 5 inch pans, and they take 55 minutes to bake, with my other oven it took 60 minutes.
Delicious Banana Bread. I added some fudge chunks to my mine as well as the chocolate chips and then i drizzled melted chocolate over the top :0)