Chocolate Banana Bread for Grammy

You know when we come up with something good in the kitchen, something we thing we created only to find out later...NOT!! lol!

Years ago my Grammy had a stroke and was pretty much living in her chair.
She couldn't get around easily. She was all there, however her body just wouldn't cooperate. She lived like this for a very long time.
My Grammy loved and I mean loved Chocolate.
Since I can remember she always had boxes of Whitmans (a local candy company) by her side. Later in life as she sat living her quite life in her chair, her comforts were her family, audio books and candy...mostly chocolate. Seriously for about a year she lived off of chocolate and Ensure....I kid you not. She was healthy, just didn't want to eat food. Chocolate...THAT is all she wanted.
By her chair were boxes of chocolates...she was so tiny...some days she ate a boxful...who knows maybe more...the grandkids teased her that her blood was made up of chocolate!

In an effort to bring her something a bit more substantial, I threw a bunch of chocolate chips into banana bread I was making, thinking the chocolate would lure her in...and it did. I made that bread many times for her.
I had never seen banana bread with chocolate in it, just thought she would enjoy it, and to this day it's the only way I make it...they way I taught my little ones to make it. Once again a food in my life is tied into a powerful memory...just the way I like it!

What's one of your food memories?

Chocolate and Banana Bread
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
⅓ cup milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
4 brown bananas

¾ to a cup of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix flour and baking soda in a medium bowl, set aside.
In a small bowl or mug, combine the milk and the lemon juice, set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar, add in the eggs and whisk until combined. Add in the bananas and using a potato masher, mash them into the butter, sugar, egg mixture. If you don't have a potato masher you can use a big fork or your clean hands - it is quite fun squishing bananas! Add in the milk mixture, stir well.
Add in the flour mixture and the chocolate chips, stir well, until fully mixed.

Spray or butter a loaf pan, then pour your batter in. (You can add extra chocolate chips on top if you like or some raw sugar)

Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Variation: Instead of a loaf, make banana bread muffins, just pour your batter into a sprayed or buttered muffin pans or cupcake liners in your muffin pans and bake for 10-15 minutes for mini's or 20-25 minutes for regular sized.

Tip: Once you make the muffins, freeze a bunch to be used for school lunches, or after school snacks.

Enjoy!!

Colleen