Recipe: Banana Choco Chip Loaf

Now, let me just say that baking used to be one of my life frustrations. I’ve been wanting to bake ever since I was a kid. But it’s only the other night that I was finally able to make that dream come true.

Anywho. The first thing I tried to bake was the banana choco chip loaf from the Baked Hoven blog. It seemed pretty easy, and the ingredients were simple stuff I could easily find in the supermarket. First try, the loaf turned out browner than it was supposed to, though it wasn’t really burned. And there were too much chocolate chips–something I never thought would bother me ever. 😛

I tried again the next night, because of F’s birthday the next day. Not that he’d be able to eat it, being halfway around the world, but still. 😉 I tweaked the ingredients list to my liking and lowered the oven temperature a bit. And wouldn’t you know it, the resulting loaf was a winner! Iba talaga kapag baked with love! 😉 And so, without further ado, here’s my take on the classic banana loaf:

What I used:

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract/flavoring
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cups of flour, sifted
• 3/4 cup of chocolate chips

What I did:

1. Preheat the oven to 165° C and grease or butter a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
2. Mash the bananas in a mixing bowl with a fork until smooth. Add the melted butter and stir.
3. Add the baking soda, salt, sugar, egg and vanilla flavoring and mix until smooth.
4. Gradually add the flour while mixing until batter is smooth.
5. Add the chocolate chips and fold into the batter.
6. Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake at 165° C for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Turn off the oven, but leave the loaf inside for ten minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack.
9. Remove the loaf from the pan, slice and serve. Enjoy! 🙂

A few things to note:

• The baking temperature is not absolute; it really depends on the oven you use. For example, the original recipe called for 175° C but when I followed that, the result was less than satisfactory. I adjusted to 165° C and that worked better for my oven. For the record, I use a Hanabishi HEO-30SS electric oven with convection and rotisserie.

• The amount of sugar can vary depending upon your preference. The original recipe called for 1 cup, but I only used 3/4 cup.
• The amount of chocolate chips can also vary depending upon your preference. Or you can even skip it altogether if you want, though really, where’s the fun in that? 😛
• The banana loaf attains maximum sweetness and just tastes better overall the next day. That is why I baked this the night before the birthday. And no, I did not refrigerate the loaf.

So there. All in all, I was pretty chuffed that I pretty much got it right after only two trials, and in time for his birthday to boot. Oh, and I must mention that our four-year-old daughter helped me bake this. 😉 She was adamant about helping so I let her beat the egg and mix the batter a bit. Naturally, she also helped herself to quite a bit of the chocolate chips that were supposed to go into the batter. 😛

Let me just leave you with a couple more pictures of F’s lovely birthday banana choco chip loaf with its cute vintage wine candle: