A Special Banana Bread

One of my early posts has to be devoted to banana bread.  It's one of the first things that I learned to bake and I make this fairly often.  It's a great accompaniment to breakfast,  a fabulous mid-morning snack and always great with my favorite tea in the afternoon.  I've tried many recipes and this is my favorite standby.  You can add chopped walnuts, raisins or chocolate chips to the basic mix.  Because today is a cold February day, I made chocolate chips from a bar of Pierre Herme Madagascar chocolate that I brought back from Paris for a day like today to make this a truly special banana bread.

Banana Bread
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 eggs
4-6 mashed bananas
1/3 cup water
1 and 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate (any will do but Pierre Herme's chocolates are simply the best)
(second option)
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease loaf pan.
Mix sugar and margarine in bowl.
Stir in eggs until well blended.
Add bananas and water.
Stir in remaining ingredients except nuts.
Stir in nuts or chocolate last.
Bake for approximately 1 hour 10 minutes (sometimes takes an extra 10-15 minutes)




For this bread, I used one cup of all purpose flour and 2/3 cup buckwheat flour and the results were amazing!