Mostly-real banana bread

We looove banana bread in this house! Actually, we just love bananas, in general. It's rare that bananas sit on our counter long enough to ripen for baking, but when they do, I always make sure to whip up a loaf of our favorite chocolate chip banana bread. I knew I was going to have to come up with some substitutions for our tried and true recipe to better fit into the "real food" criteria.

I admit I cheated a little and added chocolate chips. I couldn't bear to leave them out, it felt like I was profaning the institution of Chocolate Chip Banana Breadery and feared punishment. I decided to take the safe route and not insult the CCBB. I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, which is as real as I could find. It only has five ingredients, all of which I can pronounce - granted, one is sugar and another soy lecithin, as an emulsifier. 

Thanks to fabulous Google, I learned that I can substitute 3/4 cup of maple syrup for every 1 cup of brown sugar. I also learned that using maple syrup requires a lower cooking temperature because it has a much lower melting point (made sense since it does sit in the pantry as a syrup, whereas brown sugar is solid), so I lowered the oven temp by 25*. 

I also replaced all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I like to use the King Arthur brand white whole wheat flour. It's made with white spring wheat instead of red wheat, so it has a much lighter texture and breads are less dense. It is still 100% whole wheat and also tastes better to me. Apparently, it also tastes great to the boys because the entire loaf was gone by the following morning. I'd call that a Win!

So those are the changes I made and I'm excited to share our new favorite recipe for "Mostly-Real Chocolate Chip Banana Bread"!

mostly-real banana bread

::ingredients::

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup pure maple syrup

2 eggs

2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

3/4 cup Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips

1:: Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. (I used coconut oil for greasing.)

2:: In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips.

3:: In a separate bowl, cream together butter and maple syrup. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended.

4:: Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

5:: Bake in preheated oven for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.