Kitchen Adventures; Bourbon Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I got home from work earlier this week and all I could think about were sweets; leftover sugar cookie dough in the fridge, fig pinwheel cookie rolls in the freezer, chocolate chips in the pantry and overripe bananas on the bakers rack.

I had polished off the sugar cookies while hubs was out of town, and I didn't want to make a new batch of icing.

I cut up some pinwheels and threw them in the oven. There were 16 cookies. I ate 10 of them, maybe more. I lost count. Ask Tim how many he had. I had the rest.

I still needed to do something with the bananas before they got all icky and nobody wanted them. I had bought them for banana bread pudding, but custard required too much attentiveness. That would have to be postponed.

I did have everything else I needed for Joy the Baker's bourbon spiked banana bread. I treated myself to her cookbook a few months back and I love love love it. I have at least 20 recipes marked off, and so far have tackled 2 of them.

There's just a touch of bourbon in this recipe, but it doesn't make it taste boozy. It just adds a really lovely, subtle flavor that comes right up to the edge of warming and then stops.

So, I gathered up everything I needed and got to work.

Smashing bananas...


Mixing them into butter, egg, & sugar mixture...

Adding delicious chunky components

Yum yum yum

Pour into greased baking dish and

Bake.

Let it hang out and set for a little while, cool off before you take it out of the loaf pan and slice it up.

Then go nuts.

Recipe from the Joy the Baker cookbook. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm paraphrasing. Don't be mad.

2 eggs
2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1 stick of butter (softened)
3 ripe bananas
1 c. chocolate chips
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 c. chopped walnuts
1 tsp. lemon juice
3 Tbsp. bourbon

Preheat oven to 350, grease & flour a loaf pan, set aside.

Mix together the butter and sugar. If the butter is super soft, you can do this by hand. If not, you'll want a mixer (hand or stand)
Stir in eggs.
Peal and smash the bananas.
Add lemon juice, bourbon, and bananas to butter/sugar/egg mixture. Stir in evenly.
Add flour and baking powder. Mix in evenly.
Finally, stir in chocolate chips and walnuts...evenly.

Pour into your greased loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick, fork, or skewer comes out clean (or at least with only chocolate on it)

Tadaaaaa!

Happy Friday!