Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chunks:

Have you ever noticed how there always manages to be a perfectly-bad banana in every bunch? The banana that accumulates one-too-many speckles. The one that gives, ever so slightly, when touched. The one that releases a potent punch of banana fragrance as it sits, helplessly forgotten, on the kitchen counter. No matter how many bananas you manage to eat within the week, there always seems to be one that reaches the perfectly-bad banana stage. While others may feel fine tossing it into the compost bin, I just can't seem to bring myself to simply get rid of it. Instead I toss them, one by one, into a zip lock bag in the freezer with hopes that one day soon, that perfectly bad banana will find its way into a perfectly delicious banana bread.

Well, as fate would have it, my perfectly-bad banana collection has gotten out of control. Seriously, there must be 20 of them just taking up space in my freezer right now, space which I need to stock up on farm fresh meats, once the farmer's market rolls back into town! So in an effort to make room, I pulled a few out of the freezer the other day and whipped up an absolutely splendid banana bread. Full of rich, banana flavor, moist throughout and yet still firm enough to withstand a (slightly ridiculous) dose of butter. I even let my honey talk me into adding some chopped dark chocolate, which takes this bread from the standard morning-cup-of-coffee-companion, to an all-day-worthy-affair!

Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chunks

6 large, frozen, very ripe bananas
8 tablespoons salted butter
1/4 cup filtered water
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 vanilla bean scrapings or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 + 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3.5 oz dark chocolate, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan (8 1/2 x 4 1/2 was recommended).
2. Heat a large non stick saute pan over medium heat, place the frozen bananas into the pan and heat until the banana is warm to the touch and gives a little when touched.
3. Remove the (now thawed) bananas from the pan and peel, being sure to reserve as much juice as they might have given off while thawing. Chop the bananas into smaller pieces.
4. Continue to hear the large non stick saute pan, add the butter and melt completely. Remove from heat and add the chopped bananas and any juices they have released. Mix well and then transfer the mixture into an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed for about 15 seconds to help break the bananas down a bit.
5. Return the large non stick saute pan to medium-high heat. Add the water and brown sugar, stir over the hear until the sugar has melted, add sugar syrup to the banana-butter mixture, along with the vanilla innards. Beat briefly on low speed until combined.
6. Add the eggs to the wet ingredients and beat briefly until combined, about 15 seconds.
7. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. On medium speed, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, beat until the batter had just combined (about 30 seconds).
8. Finally, add the roughly chopped chocolate to the batter and mix until incorporated (about 5 seconds).
9. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake approximately 55-60 minutes, or until you think it's done, your call.
10. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Cover the pan with a piece of plastic wrap and allow bread to cool completely before slicing (the plastic wrap will seal in moisture to create condensation which will help create a moist, sticky top.

Enjoy.

(Note: As is usual, I started with a recipe from Cook's Illustrated (seriously, have you signed up, yet!?!) and began to make changes as I saw fit. First of all, my brown sugar was hard as a rock, which explains the melting of the sugar in step 5 (in my defense, I think the extra 1/4 cup water helped add some serious moisture to the finished product). Second, I'm horribly impatient, nor do I own a microwave, so the thawing of the bananas may be a bit unconventional, but I think it helped with this recipe. As a baker who doesn't often take the time to melt and cool the butter before adding the eggs, I think my unconventional step really saved me this time, adding the cool bananas to the hot butter helped balance out the temperature of both, plus I didn't have to wait around for the bananas to thaw and instead was able to make the whole recipe, from beginning to end, right when the baking bug bit. Cook's Illustrated recommends you microwave the frozen bananas for about 5 minutes in a microwave safe bowl to help release their natural post-frozen juices. If you do that, then leave the water out of the recipe and whisk the sugar directly into the post-microwaved banana juice.)