BANANA BREAD
Banana bread is a really yummy food that originates as a traditional African food. It is a sweet, cakelike bread which contains mashed bananas. A quick bread, banana bread typically uses baking soda as its leavening agent and is baked from batter, rather than dough. Banana bread first became a standard feature of American cookbooks with the popularization of baking soda and baking powder in the 1930s (and appears in Pillsbury's 1933 Balanced Recipes cookbook). The home baking revival of the 1960s and the simplicity of its recipe led to an explosion in banana bread's popularity, with cookbooks of that era commonly listing multiple variations which added other fruits and nuts to the basic bread. Chocolate and other sweeteners are frequently added to banana bread to make it into more of a desert. On most occasions, especially in Africa, banana bread contains nuts. Here is a no-nut recipe with chocolate:
INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
PREPARATION:
Mix all ingredients together except chocolate chips. Mix well with wooden spoon. Add chocolate chips to the banana bread batter and mix well. Pour batter into greased and floured loaf pan. Cover loosely with a tent of aluminum foil and bake at 325° for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted tests done. Cool for 10 minutes and then remove from pan and cool banana bread completely before slicing.
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