Chocolate Chip Banana bread

Our household's favourite banana bread recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chopped chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease a loaf pan.
2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar. Stir in eggs.
3. Add mashed bananas and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips if using.
6. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Let cool before slicing (if you can wait that long).

The Art of Letting Go (and Making Banana Bread)
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There is a quiet sort of magic in baking. The kind that requires no fanfare, no elaborate ceremony - just the simple alchemy of flour and butter, sugar and spice, heat and time. It is, perhaps, the most tangible form of mindfulness I have recently adopted. A meditative act in which simple ingredients—some forgotten, some past their prime - are transformed into something warm, familiar, and deeply comforting.

Take, for instance, the banana. A fruit so full of potential and promise in its youth, but let it sit a little too long, and suddenly, it is unwanted. Bruised. Too soft. Too sweet. It slouches in the fruit bowl, perhaps a victim of our preference for processed goodies? This is where banana bread steps in. It does not judge your neglected bananas; it welcomes them. In fact, the riper, the better! Banana bread is redemption in loaf form. A testament to the fact that the best things in life often come from what we almost gave up on!

In my kitchen, the making of banana bread has become a sort of therapeutic ritual - one that pairs well with the soft hum of jazz or the distant chatter of kids playing in the background. The eggs crack, the sugar folds in, the sweet scent curls into the air like the beginning of something good. There is no rush, no expectation of grandeur. Just the gentle satisfaction of mixing, of pouring, of watching the oven door with anticipation.

And when the scent deepens, filling every room with the unmistakable promise of something warm and wonderful, it's a reminder that some things cannot be hurried. That some things - like ripening bananas, like the rise of a loaf, like peace itself - happen in their own time.
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When the timer dings and the loaf is coaxed from its pan, the world feels a little softer, a little kinder. So if your bananas are darkening, do not despair. Gather them close, turn on the oven, and start mixing. There is peace to be found in baking. And if nothing else, at the end of it all, there is banana bread.

Enjoy with a cup of tea, a moment of quiet, and the knowledge that sometimes, the best things take some neglected bananas and a little time.

​- E