Because I find myself with overripe bananas pretty much every other week, our family eats a lots of banana bread. The freezer also has become sort of a halfway house for wayward over-ripened bananas. But if you like to cook (and I do) and you hate throwing food away (again, me), then over-ripened bananas are a gift, a gateway ingredient to something delicious.
This particular banana bread came about because I have a big thing for crystallized ginger. My father’s father introduced me to it when I was a kid. He adored it, and even though he was born in Brooklyn in 1903, he was somehow attuned to the fact that ginger is a healthy ingredient, which in those days was not something all that widely known outside of Eastern cultures. Bernie Workman, ahead of his time. He would have loved this bread studded with nuggets of chewy sweet ginger and bits of melty chocolate.
If you use a glass loaf pan versus a metal one you may need a few extra minutes of baking time. This recipe also makes great banana muffins. Line 12 regular muffin tins with paper liners. Fill them evenly with the batter, filling them about three-quarters of the way full. Bake for 23 to 27 minutes, or until the muffins spring back when pressed lightly at the center. Let them sit in the tins on wire racks for 5 minutes, then gently turn them out of the tins and cool them upright on the rack. Eat warm or at room temperature.
