Banana Bread -- Mom's and Chocolate Bits Banana Cake

Mom's Banana Bread

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2 tablespoons sour cream, yogurt or milk

1/2 cup chopped nuts (or 3/4 cup)

2 large eggs, beaten

Have butter and eggs at room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Put in parchment lined or greased 9 x 3 loaf pan.

 Shift flour, salt and baking soda.

Mix butter and brown sugar, then add eggs and mashed bananas.   

Work flour mixture in gradually.

Add nuts

Bake in 350 degree oven for one hour, check at 50 minutes.

 

Chocolate Muscavado Banana Cake

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup plus one tablespoon Muscavado (dark brown) sugar

3 medium bananas, mashed

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

3 1.2 ounces dark chocolate (shaved, chips or nibs)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  You will need a non-stick loaf pan 9.5 x 5 x 3 inches deep lined with parchment paper. 

Sift the flour and baking powder together.

Using an electric mixer cream the butter and dark brown sugar together until light and fluffy and pale coffee colored.

Put the bananas in a bowl and mash them with a fork.  Gradually add them into the butter and sugar mixture.  Stir in the vanilla extract.  Whip the eggs and beat them into the sugar butter mixture.  Introduce a teaspoon of flour at any sign of curdling.

Chop the chocolate into the size of fine gravel, or use tiny chips or nibs and fold into mixture.  Add 1/2 cup pecans if you wish nuts.  Gently fold in the flour and baking powder mixture.

Scrape the mixture into a lined loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes.  Insert a skewer to see if it comes out clean at the end.  Let the cake settle in the pan for a few minutes, then lift out by paper and let cool on a regular surface.  Carefully peel off paper.  Serve cool in thick slices.  Very good with cream cheese.

NOTES: 

The major variation between the two is baking soda versus baking powder.  The Muscavado recipe gives you a smoother, more cake like texture.  The baking soda version, Mother's, give you more of a normal fruit bread like texture which is darker and coarser.

I always put chopped pecans into banana bread, so it's not an optional with me, and I usually use slightly more than 1/2 cup.

I grew up buttering and-or flouring cookie sheets and baking pans.  More and more I find myself turning to parchment paper.

Using dark brown Muscavado sugar versus light brown means you are adding more molasses and therefore a deeper flavor which complements and doesn't obscure the banana flavor.