Chocolate-banana bread

The end of August in Poland can be a strange time of the year. Days are getting shorter and can be drawn out with rain and overcast skies. But even when the sun is out and it's quite warm outside, you can feel the cold slowly creeping into homes. You can already sense the Autumn approaching, you can smell it in the morning air. A day like this calls for something warm, and sweet, something you can savour with a cup of cocoa. Like a slice or two of banana bread.

I think banana bread is one of the first things that come to my mind when I think of American cuisine. I know that many think it's an oxymoron to even call any cuisine American. Personally I have many fond memories involving food from my stay in the United States. And even though in my everyday cooking I favour Italian or French recipes, there's a special place in my heart and taste buds for flavours of the Promised Land, especially desserts.

Banana bread is a great example of comfort food. It's soft, fragrant with fruit, sweet, and feels of home. Probably every mother has her own special recipe that has been passed from generation to generation. Its goodness comes in part from its simplicity. You can vary your recipe with chocolate chips, chopped nuts or raisins. My 'secret' ingredient is grated chocolate. The tiny particles of brown gold melt into the bread making it incredibly moist and just a tad sweeter.

I think banana bread is one of the easiest cakes to make. The preparation itself isn't time consuming and I think it would take a lot of effort to actually mess it up. It's usually baked in loaf tins, but in the past I have baked it in square tins, muffin tins, basically whatever I had on hand at the time. You will notice that a warm loaf has a tendency to disappear rather quickly. Since it freezes really well it makes perfect sense to bake 2 or three loaves once you're already making it.  You just need to multiply the recipe. If you don't have enough tins you can use aluminum tins. Once the bread is cool just put it in a freezer bag and it can stay there for a couple of months. I usually slice mine first before freezing. This way I can just take one or two slices out, without the need to defrost a whole loaf. It defrosts rather quickly, but if you don't want to wait just put it in a microwave for a minute and it should be nice and warm again. Which also makes it a perfect emergency cake in case of unexpected guests. 

Bananas that are very ripe with brown spots are supposed to be best for banana bread, but I usually make it with regular yellow bananas and there isn't really any difference in the taste. They just might be a bit tougher to mash up with a fork.

Ingredients:

100g/3.5oz chocolate, milk or semi sweet, grated
100g/3.5oz butter
3 bananas
2 eggs
220g/1 1/2cup all purpose flour
220g/ 1 cup sugar
1tsp baking soda 
1/2tsp salt

Start with lining the tin with baking parchment. Next, melt the butter so it has time to cool while you're doing all the rest.

Set your oven to 160C/320F and let it heat up while you're making the batter.

Peel the bananas and mash them up with a fork in a bowl. Add all the other ingredients, except chocolate and mix it all for a minute with a hand mixer. Add the chocolate and mix it until it's all blended in.

Transfer the batter to the tin, smooth out the top and put in the oven. 

Bake for 1 hour. If your oven  tends to burn the top, take the bread out after 20-30 minutes, cover with aluminum foil and return to the oven. You want the top to be brown and not burnt.

Place it on a wire rack to cool down a bit, then take it out of the loaf tin and leave it to cool all the way down... if you can resist.

If you're going to grate chocolate by hand put it in the freezer first. It  won't melt as fast in your hands. If you can, use an electric grater, it's quicker and less messy.

Make sure you line your tin with some baking parchment. It will make getting the loaf out of the tin a breeze. To line the tin place it on a piece of parchment paper and trace its shape with a pencil. Cut it out and slip inside.