Intro
Grandma always goes overboard at Christmas. With 14 grandchildren and by now I’ve completely lost tract of the number of great-grandchildren – just this year there will be three new babies (ours included), yet she blesses us abundantly. But no Christmas bag is complete without a fresh baked loaf of Grandma’s banana bread.
This year I nearly shed tears as I tore through my bag and found no banana bread. Everyone else proudly held their loaves and some began to devour them, while I was left loaf-less. Quickly grandma realized the tragic mistake and performed a Christmas miracle by uncovering the missing loaf and giving it to its rightful owner – me.
Grandma graciously shared her recipe with me. Our family has made a few adjustments – like the addition of dark chocolate chunks – however delightful the additions are they aren’t necessary. Grandma’s recipe has been providing Christmas cheer for many years and hopefully many more to come.
Many of the changes I make in recipe are out of laziness. This recipe makes two loaves but rather then searching through my messy baking pan cupboard I blindly reached in and grabbed one loaf pan and a cupcake pan. Laziness pays off sometimes as the banana bread cupcakes were a perfect snack size for my little munchers.
And for frosting? A large smear of butter is just what it wants.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
6 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup canola oil (or coconut oil)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
4 cups flour
1 bag dark chocolate chips (Ghiradelli 60% chips work nicely)
Mix in order. Fill two greased loaf pans 3/4 full. You can also bake these as cupcakes. Fill the pan 3/4 full and bake about 20 minutes in a pre-heated 350* oven. The loaves generally take about an hour. For both the cupcakes and the loafs you want a knife or a toothpick to come out clean.
Cool completely. Serve with plenty of butter.
so glad you’re back to posting food! you & your recipes have been missed (though the crafts were very fun). hope you are feeling fantastic.
great pictures, ashley! Seems so fitting, frosting? straight butter. No messing around 🙂
Love banana bread with chocolate. And that butter frosting would be perfect for me. 😉
You are killing me, Ashley!! and just butter for frosting..ohh GOD!! 🙂
Grandmas make the very best banana bread, don’t they?
Ashley – you are amazing! You continue to write beautiful posts with recipes that work while being a wife and mother to 2 boys and another in the oven 🙂 has someone bought you a nice bottle of wine recently? I’m so excited to see you next Thursday in class…would love to bring Jules (Julian) but I’ll be more attentive if he stays at home with daddy…see you soon!
this banana bread looks fantastic! I loved this post. Your love for your grandmother really shines through. The best recipes are the ones that are passed down through generations.
It’s great to see a recipe from you again. So nice to see that you’re back in the kitchen. This banana bread looks amazing. I have only lately learned to eat this kind of “sweet bread” since it’s not really a traditional thing here in Scandinavia like it is in North America. Butter sounds like the perfect topping! Have a wonderful weekend!
Now this looks GOOD! In Australia at the moment there is a veritable craze for banana and other fruit breads, but they are outlandishly expensive, and frequently disappointing. I need to whip me up something like this!
There’s not much better than banana bread. Unless it’s chocolate chunk banana bread! Thanks for Grandma’s recipe. It’s a keeper.
Yum! I love banana bread but I lost my recipe awhile ago so I’ve been without. I’m going to go pull all of my over-ripe bananas out of the freezer right now.
I just made this recipe tonight, and it is so good! Forget the butter, just eat it plain!
Thanks for the recipe, I’m definitely going to make it again.
YEAH! The pictures are amazing. I’ll definitely be making this for City treats.
What a lovely mash of bananas.
Great photo and recipe, thanks for sharing!
this banana bread has got my mouth watering!
Mmm, banana bread. I love it. This one looks terrific!
Banana bread is one of the most comforting and delightful things around, and I’m a firm believer that “everything is better with chocolate.” I’ve tried many banana bread recipes over the years but will have to add this one to the list! Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
This is the first time for me hear banana bread.I do not know the banana can be made of bread before i read this blog.
I just keep telling me that even there are a lot of butter but still with all those bananas it still health. It really looks good.
mmm… banana bread is my favourite. my grandma made the most delicious banana muffins so i can’t wait to try this, i know i’ll love it.
really good banana bread-i just made the muffin size. 25 minutes on the dot.
i prefer mine with cream cheese. yum!
Callie – Ohhh! I love it when people come back to report success. Thank you. Feel free to share some cupcakes – also, I agree – cream cheese is delightful on these.
I tried this yesterday. It was really really easy. Next time i think I’ll half the recipe because I only really wanted to make one loaf. I’m really mad at myself, though, because I couldn’t wait to cut it, so I cut it a few minutes after I took it out of the oven, and the pieces didn’t come out too neatly. I also didn’t cut only vertical slices–I sliced it horizontally, too. What was I thinking? Oh well, it was delicious
Delicious! Best *** banana bread *** I ever had! Thank you so much for sharing! Sunny greetings from Wiesbaden, Germany!
That looks great. I love anything with banana. And all the photos look so nice!
This looks like the perfect banana bread recipe! I was searching for one & Twitter friends just sent this to me. Thanks for sharing.
Just made this! It is delicious. Thanks for sharing.
Tried this yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with the results! I ended up replacing the oil with applesauce and the chocolate chips with 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder and it was heavenly. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
Just made this, it was so delicious. Did take a lot longer to bake in my oven, closer to 45 minutes maybe 1 hour