Did you know that Friday, February 22, is National Banana Bread Day?? I didn’t either. I don’t have a clue who came up with this unheralded day of recognition, but we never really need an excuse to whip up a loaf of this delicious bread.

I’m calling this recipe the Chunky Monkey, because I’m adding toasted chopped walnuts and dark chocolate chips. The base of the bread is from The Joy of Cooking and their Banana Bread Cockaigne. If I could only have one cookbook (horrors!) it would be this one. Covers such a wide variety of dishes with solid recipes. Highly recommend.

As usual, I always play with a recipe to put my spin on it, and this is no exception. Before I lay out the recipe, a note on bananas: Overripe bananas are the best choice for baking. You can even freeze overripe bananas to use later.

But what if you don’t have overripe bananas? What if it’s time to go on TV and do a banana bread demonstration, and your trusty Food City produce section only has beautiful bananas in stock? And for the first time in WEEKS you have no overripe bananas at home? What is a TV baker to do?

No need to panic. Simply peel your bananas and break them into 2-inch chunks. Place in a small baking pan, sprinkle some brown sugar on them, and bake them in a 325-degree oven for about 25 minutes. You can smash them around a few times while baking. Take them from the oven, mash them well with a fork or potato masher leaving some small chunks, and let them cool. For this recipe, I used 1/4 cup brown sugar with 3 bananas, which was enough for 1 cup of mashed bananas.

You can also bake the bananas whole, in their skins, at 300 degrees, between 30 and 40 minutes. The skins will become very dark and might leak some juices, so putting them on parchment paper is recommended. Here are links to a King Arthur Flour recipe that bakes banana chunks and one on ripening bananas in the skin.

Chunky Monkey Banana Bread

Makes one 9 X 5 loaf

Grease a 9 X 5 loaf pan and sprinkle with ginger sugar (1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger in 1/3 cup of white sugar) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

With a mixer, cream together

1/2 cup of white sugar (use 2/3 cup if you aren’t baking bananas with brown sugar as noted above)

6 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter

Add and beat in:

2 large eggs

1 cup mashed bananas (see note above on baking them with brown sugar if desired)

Slowly add the dry ingredients to your wet ones with the mixer until combined. Don’t over beat.

Stir in:

1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Spread the mixture into your prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with turbinado sugar to add a sweet crunch. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes then loosen the sides and turn out to finish cooling.