Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

New favourite banana bread recipe!!!

Because you can never have too many good banana bread recipes...

This one makes two loaves, but feel free to halve the recipe if you only need one. But really, you should make two and give one to some lucky friends or freeze one for when you really need a slice of comfort food.

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. table salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

4 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 and 1/4 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup sour cream or buttermilk

1 quart mashed, very ripe bananas (approx. 8 large)

Directions:

This is my secret amazing banana trick (it's totally optional but worth the extra step): Break the bananas into small chunks and place them in a large, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for about 2-3 minutes. This starts to caramelize the natural sugars in the bananas a bit and makes them extra sweet and delicious. It's an especially handy trick for when you have bananas that aren't super over-ripe and sweet yet.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two loaf pans with parchment paper so that it overhangs the two widest sides, then butter the paper and the other two sides of the pan.

With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Add in the vanilla extract, sour cream/buttermilk, and mashed bananas.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until just combined. Gently fold in the chocolate chips. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans. 

Bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with moist crumbs attached. Remove the pans from the oven and turn the loaves out onto a wire cooling rack to cool immediately, using the parchment paper as handles for easy removal. Let cool, then cut into thick slices.