After years of tasting and baking the stuff, I have decided that while walnuts are the classic addition to banana bread, chocolate chips are much more interesting, especially after they have gotten all nice and oozy in the oven. A slice of banana bread with chocolate chips is especially nice after nuking in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Future banana breads will contain a 1:1 ratio of chocolate chips to some other ingredient, like chopped dried apricots. Dried apricots lend a lovely texture to the bread.
The next few breads will contain the following:
1:1 ratio chocolate chips to dried apricots
chopped dried figs
fresh/frozen blueberries
3:1 ratio chocolate to crystallized ginger
n:1 ratio chocolate to orange zest (where n is more or less 5 < n < 10)
I have already tried the following:
3:1 ratio chocolate chips to dried apricots (good, but not enough apricot)
chocolate chips (makes a happy breakfast)
currants (good)
raisins (good, but raisins can get too big)
walnuts (would have been good had I stored the nuts properly)
plain (meh)
Any other ideas are welcome. There has got to be another ingredient that goes all nice and oozy that isn't chocolate. The best entries, of course, will probably find their way to the 3S. Which is why not everything can have chocolate. We have to pretend to be healthy once in a while, after all.
I have also discovered that banana bread tastes best when it is spontaneous. That is, you didn't intend to let those bananas go all brown and squishy and uneaten at the end of the week. This could pose a problem for the 3S.
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2 comments:
How about butterscotch chips or chopped apples? Or, to get fancy, chocolate- or yogurt-covered blueberries?
As for the spontaneity, no problem. We'll have a fruit bowl at the 3S. With wipes on the side so people don't have to worry about eating fruit other people have put their greasy fingers on, and maybe a home-made caramel or chocolate dip in individual cups to go with it. But people don't buy bananas outside of grocery stores so we'll very often have overripe bananas for you to bake.
Butterscotch chips sound intriguing. Peanut butter chips sound even more fitting. Well, fitting to me because I like peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Dried apples might be good. Fresh apples might release liquid but are worth a try. My worry about chocolate or yogurt covered anything is how the texture will change after a trip through the oven. Chocolate chips get all melty and lose their crystalline structure permanently, which makes their texture much softer even if you eat the banana bread straight out of the fridge. Chocolate or yogurt coatings have vegetable oils added and were probably not crystalline to begin with, so it's unclear what will happen to them.
Worth a shot, eh?
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