Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

A few years ago, I made some recipe or other that called for turbinado sugar.  I have no recollection of what the recipe was, or whether the turbinado sugar made the difference in its taste.  I do remember that I had to visit four stores before I found the damned sugar.  It was at one of those organic food stores, and I seethed at its exorbitant price, completely pissed off that I was dumb enough to spend hours looking for the ingredient, and far too committed at that point to pass up its purchase, even if the price was stupidly high.  

As it turned out, I was even dumber than I thought, since turbinado sugar is just a fancy name for Sugar in the Raw, which is found at pretty much every food store at a reasonable price, and in those little brown packets at most coffee shops for the best price of all: free.  (Not that I'm advocating swiping a bunch of those packets or anything.)  

As it also turned out, I love turbinado sugar.  It comes down to size: turbinado sugar is to regular sugar what sea salt is to kosher salt.  So, when you sprinkle turbinado sugar on just about anything you are about to bake, it lends a really nice crunch.

Which brings me to banana bread.  Recently, I found myself in possession of some rotting bananas, and decided to bake bread.  (Of course, my surplus of rotting bananas kept coinciding with the hot, muggy weather that invariably shows up in May -- and that I just as invariably resent as unfairly premature -- but I digress.)  After playing around a little, I hit upon a seriously good banana bread, made almost ludicrously moist by the addition of sour cream, and extra flavorful thanks to the brown sugar and vanilla.  Plus, there are chocolate chips, because my feeling is that any banana bread that is good without chocolate chips is better with them.

But by far the best part of the bread wound up being the top, because the turbinado sugar made a burnished, delectably crunchy crust.

The only down side is that my kids have gotten so used to have chocolate chip banana bread around the house that they don't want to eat plain old bananas anymore.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

3-4 Bananas, smushed up 

1 cup white flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

3/4 cup brown sugar (unpacked)

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup chocolate chips

2-3 Tbsp turbinado sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar together.  (I like using a hand mixer, but you can mix it however you like.  I will say that the more air you can beat in, the fluffier the bread.)  Toss in the eggs and blend well, then add the bananas, sour cream and vanilla.

Fold in the white flour, wheat flour, salt and baking soda.  Then fold in the chocolate chips.

Sprinkle the top with turbinado sugar, and bake until it is set, about one hour.

Makes one loaf.