Well, I did a bit of housekeeping on here yesterday and I lost my old blog theme. I did save the html to a word document, but I have no idea of how to sort that type of thing. I managed to keep my header, so I guess I should be happy for that. And I guess I do like the cleaner look without any busy background, and I like the way the blog posts are showing. It is a neater, tidier look and I can live with that! Growing pains, they are never easy are they?
Over these past couple of months not a lot of new cooking has been going on due to the fact I was writing my cookbook, but I manage several new recipes a week, which was pretty good I thought. I cooked a few cringe worthy things also that I would never show you. Thing which I thought might be really tasty, but which ended up being blecch. I hate it when that happens, but it does every now and than.
This banana loaf recipe is one I got from The Complete Canadian Living Cook Book. I have had the book for yonks, but haven't really cooked a lot from it. I have made it my goal this year to try to cook more things from the books I have, and if I find a book that doesn't have a lot of redeemable recipes in it, then I am getting rid. Life is far too short to carry excess baggage, like too many cookery books.
This is a fairly decent banana loaf. It is pretty dense however and heavy. So I suppose whether you like it or not will depend on what you are looking for. If you want dense, then you have struck gold. If you are wanting more cakey, keep looking . . .
I do have some really good Banana Loaf recipes on this site. This one is extremely good and so is this one.
My absolute all-time favorite one is this one, and that's probably because it is incredibly moist from the sour cream and more cake like. I like cake. My ex-bosses husband used to request this once a week. He liked it toasted and buttered. It is very good.
There are plenty of chocolate chips in this one I am showing you today. It is not overly sweet either. I used a really good quality chocolate chip, almost more bitter than sweet. I think milk chocolate chips would be better actually. In any case it was very nice buttered and served with a hot drink. I hope you will try it and then let me know what you think!
*Banana Chocolate Chip Loaf*Makes one 2 lb loaf (9X5)Printable Recipe The tastiest thing to do with brown speckled bananas.
280g plain flour (2 cups)50g sugar (1/4 cup)2 tsp baking powder1 tsp baking sodapinch salt180g chocolate chips (1 cup)4 large over-ripe bananas, mashed (2 cups)125g butter, melted (1/2 cup)60ml milk2 large free range eggs, beaten
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter and line a 2 pound loaf tin (9 X 5 inches).
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside.
Mash the bananas and then stir in the milk, butter and eggs. Pour this mixture over top of the dry mixture. Mix together just to blend. Spoon into the prepared loaf tin. Bake in the center of the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes until well risen, golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, before tipping out onto a rack and cooling completely.
Note - I've been using those pan liners which are like muffin cups a lot lately. They are so simple to use and nothing sticks as they are silicone coasted. I highly recommend!
