An Excess of Buttermilk, Bananas, and Chocolate Chips

I, like many other bakers, have a horrible habit of hoarding; whenever I walk past a grocery store, I feel the need to stock up on eggs, butter, flour, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, etc. In fact, I just did it again yesterday, and upon doing a quick inventory check, I found that I have:

• 3 1/2 cartons of buttermilk
• 2 x 500g bags of all purpose flour
• 3 x 500g bags of self-raising flour
• 4 x 250g butter
• 3 x 8oz packets of cream cheese
• 2 x 1kg powdered sugar
• 3 x 500g caster sugar
• 6 x 30l bottles of vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cartons of 10 large eggs
• A drawer full of berries, oranges, lemons
• A hand of very freckly bananas
• 4 x 250g packets of raisins
• 3 x 11oz packets of butterscotch chips
• 2 x 11oz packets of bittersweet chocolate chips
• 3 x 500g tins of Van Houten cocoa powder
• and an assortment of leftovers... 

As you can imagine, along with the random baked goods and leftovers from dinners or lunches, I have very limited space in my fridge and pantry. My mum is threatening to throw my stuff out, and rightly so! Most of this stuff has a limited shelf-life, and quite a few of them are probably expiring by early next week. Though to be honest, the only thing I'm getting worked up over is the buttermilk as it's so bloody expensive here.

So this weekend, I'll be working on depleting my supply of goods. I'm thinking pancakes, bread, muffins, a chocolate cake, baked red snapper and tomato roasted cous cous!

Now, first up is yet another Banana Bread recipe! Except this time, I'm ditching the health and diet, and going for the good stuff. In an effort to whittle away at my pantry, I've whipped up a batch of Buttermilk Banana Chocolate Chip bread, recipe courtesy of Marc Matsumoto over at [No Recipe], with some teeny-tiny adjustments (think... brown... butter...).

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 113g butter, browned
• 2 large eggs, cold from the fridge
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 large freckly bananas
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, and butter and line a 9" loaf pan with parchment paper
2. Brown your butter, watch this poorly edited, yet incredibly soothing video on how to make positively voluptuous aromatic brown butter
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and chocolate chips
4. Pop the bananas and lemon juice in the food processor and whizz
5. Separate the eggs into small bowls then... 
6. Whisk the egg whites with the buttermilk and vanilla
7. Whisk the yolks with the brown butter
8. Then pour both egg mixtures into the banana mixture and whizz again
9. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until just combined, then pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. When done, allow the bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack completely

You must resist the urge to dig into the completed product while it is still cooling in the pan. You must do this and remind yourself that completely cooled bread is always easier to get clean slices of. Also, you do not want a repeat of a previous brown butter banana strawberry bread incident where you had burnt your tongue. No, you do not.

If you try this recipe, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and isn't it just easy peasy lemon squeezy?

xx Nabs