Chocolate Chip Banana Bread... Melted or Creamed?

With 2 bunches of ripe bananas, there wasn't anything better to make than banana bread, but I hope you aren't sick another banana bread post (this is my 5th one!). I love the Silver Palate Banana Bread recipe, but I don't like repeating a recipe without doing something a little different. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do a little recipe comparison, which I love! Since many banana bread recipes use melted butter, I thought it would be fun to compare melted vs creamed. It seemed kind of pointless, since it was no surprise that melted butter would produce a denser bread, but I was curious how big of a difference it would make. This usually drives my family crazy because sometimes the differences are very tiny yet I'm still forcing them to choose between 'A or B' 'left or right'?

Melted is on the left with the more open crumb and creamed is on the right. In case you were wondering, they went into and out of the oven at the same time, baked in the same pan and each banana was cut in half so there was no difference in banana ripeness. Both versions were really good, but I prefer the creaming method because I liked its lighter yet still dense texture. The rest of my family was divided so it was a tie between creamed and melted. The differences were noticeable so if you're finding that your banana bread is too dense, I would try creaming the butter to see if it improves. Next time I make this, I'll have to use whole wheat flour. I'll probably do another comparison even though I know it will probably be denser, may as well, right?

Silver Palate Cookbook Banana Bread: (makes 1 loaf)

8 T unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c whole wheat flour (I used all purpose)
3 large ripe bananas, mashed (1 1/4 cups - 1 1/2 cups)
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 c walnuts, coarsely chopped (I used chocolate chips)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. (I used a bundt pan)
2. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat.
3. Sift AP flour, soda, salt together, stir in whole wheat flour
Alternate dry mixture with bananas + vanilla, ending with dry until flour disappears. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Pour into pan. Bake 50-60 min, (it took 40 minutes in my bundt) or until cake tester comes out clean (I look for a few mini moist crumbs). Cool in pan 10 min, then flip it out onto a rack.