So I had some bananas in the fridge that were at banana bread making potential (aka brown and squishy) but I wanted chocolate. I thought it would be neat to make the chocolate chip cookie bars that I love and throw in bananas, but there weren't enough chocolate chips left in the bag (don't judge...granola, Greek yogurt and chocolate chips make the perfect study snack!) In my search of the house for something chocolate to mix with these bananas, I found a box of chocolate pudding. This is what ensued:
Use 2 large eggs (at room temp because they mix better with other things if they aren't freezing)
2 sticks of butter at room temp
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
vanilla extract to your liking
2 mushy bananas
a pinch of salt
about a teaspoon of baking soda
one box of (Sugar-Free- check out the sugar content of this thing already...) Instant Chocolate Pudding
2 cups of flour
Mix these all together. If you are a mixing wiz then you can dump it all in at one time and hope that it doesn't get all over the kitchen. Or, if you are a normal human you should mix after the sugar, then after the instant pudding powder and then after each cup of flour. Chop the bananas up before you mix them in...its easier.
That's what I did. What I suggest is that you mush the bananas up and then add them to the liquidy stuff (including the sugar because you want the sugars to evenly distribute the whole time) Then add the pudding mix and the flour. Because I didn't do this, the bananas still broke down, but there were visible spots where the bananas settled that were a different color* than the rest of the loafish like dish.
The loaf turned out beautiful, it wasn't "bar like" at all but more cake like. There aren't pictures because we dug into it right away when it was warm. I used an 8x8 pan and it rose to the top and was super moist and delicious.
*Okay, the spots where the bananas settled had a bit of green-ish tint that Taste Tester #1 (my mom) said were "slightly off-setting." However, if you use the bananas a day or two early in their life than I did, or blend/mush them like I suggested. You shouldn't have a problem.
P.S. Chef Anthony was hard at work this morning making Chili for a work function, so of course I had to taste it. I made two pieces of Pumpernickel Toast, Fried two eggs, and poured some of the chili on top of it. Amazing, it was! And huge...it was more of a brunch than a breakfast.
This is what it looked like:
The picture doesn't do it justice...but I made it scratch and sniff so you could smell the deliciousness yourself.
