“If summer had one defining scent, it’d definitely be the smell of barbecue”
— Katie Lee
Sometimes a man poor in wealth, poor in health, or poor in spirit, needs to feed on his hopes, dreams, and the promises of tomorrow because that is all he has. Sometimes, the same man reaches those hopes, dreams, and promises of tomorrow, and instead of settling for a loaf of crusty old bread, he noshes on Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Bread. The odds of significant success for the average person may not be excellent, but the odds of making a good banana bread are excellent especially today. Extra points if you bake it on February 23, National Banana Bread Day.
Food historians, whose job I envy, postulate that banana bread was…well…bread out of America’s Great Depression where frugal housewives looked for creative ways to use overripe bananas instead of letting them go to waste. Non-academic experts claim that banana bread made an appearance in standard cookbooks in the 1930s (Depression-era), but they maintain the recipe was actually developed in corporate kitchens to promote flour and baking soda. Maybe we can find the middle ground. Maybe banana bread, neither bread nor a cake, was another quirky recipe born out of necessity and baked at home using store-bought ingredients. After all, businesses supply that which is demanded.
Unlike bread, banana bread has baking powder and baking soda, so it does not require time to rise and unlike the savory banana cake, it has a firmer and denser texture and tastes a lot less sweet. That is noteworthy because misnomers get me as confused as a chameleon in a bag of Skittles.
What differentiates this recipe from the other ones you have tried is the use of sour cream, which cuts down on the amount of butter whilst adding flavor, tons of chocolate chips, walnuts, and caramelized banana chips on top. Be sure to grab the brown and well-spotted bananas because they work better than yellow. The blacker the fruit the sweeter the juice.
Serve drizzled with honey or a smear of peanut butter.
Pro-tip, don’t leave your baked goods on the kitchen counter. You never know when a squirrel decides to raid your kitchen and eat all your hard work. Keep your eye on the prize and Happy baking.
