Chocolate Chip Banana Gingerbread

Hi Friends-

Don't you just love it when things fall into place for you? All day I've been looking forward to my Friday night baking. I had some of these:

on the counter and I was pretty much set on making a plain old loaf of banana bread. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE banana bread, but when I got home from class and was catching up on my blogs for the day this popped up:

Chocolate Banana Gingerbread

At first I wasn't crazy about the chocolate part...but upon further inspection, I saw that it just meant CHOCOLATE CHIPS! So I jumped right on board with this idea and my decision was made. I HAD to try it out. I love gingerbread and have actually been thinking about making this pumpkin gingerbread bundt cake for quite some time but just haven't gotten around to it....

So after I did some homework, I hightailed it to the kitchen and whipped up a loaf of this bread.

Here's the recipe:

1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup molasses
2 medium bananas, mashed
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I left this out)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I left this out)
1 cup buttermilk (I made my own, see below)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 tablespoons raw turbinado sugar (I left this out)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until pale yellow and smooth, about 3 minutes.

Stir in molasses and mashed bananas.
 

Add half of dry ingredients, just mixing until combined, then add buttermilk.

 
Add remaining dry ingredients.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray and pour batter in.

 Top with sugar if you'd like. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Those white spots are little banana and flour chunks.

**To make your own buttermilk, add one Tbsp lemon juice or vinegar to a measuring cup, fill to the one cup line with milk. Let sit for 5 minutes and voila!  It's science ;)

 

 

Did you notice these:

peeking out from behind the loaf of bread on the counter? They are pomegranates....When I was being a lovely wife last night and stopped at the store to get some beer for the hubby, I passed these. They were on sale for $1 each. Quite  honestly, I didn't even know what they were until I read the sign. I had no idea what they were supposed to look like....and I had no idea if $1 a piece was a good price. But I've been seeing a lot of pomegranate recipes lately, so I thought what the heck?!

And now, the question remains...What should I do with them? Any suggestions?

As for the bread, it's pretty good. The banana flavor is very subtle and gingerbread and chocolate chips really shine through. I'm waiting for it to cool down to have another taste ;)

Enjoy!

--Lindsay--