Remember my previous post about banana bread? Don't ever make it. It sucks. What was I thinking? THIS is banana bread. With dark chocolate chips and bits of crystallized ginger embedded in it like treasure. This is banana bread as it should be and how I shall make it forever more.
Yes, this is from A Homemade Life, and the recipe itself comes from a friend of a friend of Molly Wizenburg, who got the stunning idea to add ginger to his banana bread. I thought for sure I could easily get crystallized or candied ginger at Trader Joe's but when I went there this weekend: none to be found. I asked one of the workers and he told me that they hadn't had any in months, not since their last shipment had been recalled.
Recalled. Mmmkay.
So I dashed to Stop & Shop and procured a bottle of McCormick crystallized ginger. I dumped out half the jar to chop into pieces. Well maybe a little more. A little more. That's it. Well...oh screw it, the whole jar went in. And a good thing because it wasn't very potent ginger, as it turned out. Of course that didn't stop us from eating the entire loaf in less than two days, but I'll be interested to see the results when this is made with really good candied ginger. Or perhaps I will try making it myself someday. Alton Brown assures me it's easy.
You can link to the full Orangette blog post about the banana bread here (and please do), and here is the recipe:
Glenn’s Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Candied Ginger
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 2 ripe medium-size bananas
- 3 Tbs milk
- 2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 cup chocolate chips (I used Toll House dark chocolate chips, oh my God...)
- Small chunks of candied ginger, to taste
- ½ cup chopped walnuts, optional (I didn't use)
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with butter or cooking spray, and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, egg, and butter.
In a separate bowl, mash bananas; then mix with milk.
In another separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with banana-milk mixture in two parts, stirring by hand until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips, ginger, and optional nuts.
Turn batter into loaf pan, smoothing top with the back of a spoon, and bake for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (My cooking time came out closer to an hour and 15 minutes)
Allow to cool for a few minutes; then remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack.
