Banana Bread with Toasted Walnuts and Dark Chocolate

Believe it or not, this recipe comes from a leaflet I found in the Guardian called 'quick and healthy snacks'. To me that says 'eat me'. It's a booklet done by Tomasina Miers, who just so happens to have a very wonderful Mexican restaurant (make that plural) in London and very appetising Mexican cook book. It turns out she is also a dab hand at 'quick and healthy snacks'. Banana bread is very important to me, so I'm not about to share a recipe with you that I think is under par. For the best part of my life I have loathed the banana, except in 'bread' form. As it so happens I now love banana, so the bread form is even more enticing to me. Add some dark chocolate and toasted walnuts and you have a grown up version that lasts for days and certainly fills the elevenses slot without too much guilt. The only change I have made is to add more banana, I tend to use three when Tomasina's recipe calls for only 2 medium bananas, in weight: 250g. It's great for packed lunches as well as tea time. Just don't give it to someone with an allergy to nuts.

Ingredients:


125g softened, unsalted butter

120ml semi-skimmed milk

1 tsp lemon juice

150g walnuts

250g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

A couple of pinches of ground allspice

200g dark brown soft sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

3 very ripe bananas roughly mashed

A few drops of vanilla essence

150g 70% dark chocolate, roughly chopped

2 small loaf tins*

Preheat the oven to 180C and leave the butter out to soften. Mix the milk with the lemon juice and leave aside (this will curdle, and give it thickness). If you have good non-stick tins then all you need to do is line the bottoms with some parchment paper, keep the parchment in place with some dabs of butter.




Put the walnuts on a baking tray and warm through the oven until they are lightly toasted, about 5-8 mins then leave to cool. Sift the dry ingredients - flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and allspice - into a bowl. In another, larger, bowl, cream the butter and half the sugar until pale, light and fluffy. I am still of the wooden spoon school so just make sure you're arms are up to it.




Gradually add the eggs and a tablespoon of the flour mixture, then beat in the rest of the sugar, tha bananas and the vanilla essence. Best the remaining dry ingredients into the mixture adding the milk bit by bit.




Roughly chop the walnuts and fold into the mixture with the chocolate. Pour into the loaf tins and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until a metal skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes then turn out of the tins on to metal racks.




*I only have one small loaf tin so I split the batter into the loaf tin and into muffin trays. When you are using baking soda or power you can't really let the mixture sit for over an hour while one tin bakes. Take the muffins out (depending on size of muffins) after 20-25 or so mins.

Caramel Slice

If Belinda Carlisle sang a song about baked goods this would be the goods. Otherwise known as a Millionaire's Shortbread this is heaven. I'm calling it a caramel slice because this is more about the caramel than the shortbread. It features as prominently as the shortbread does and it's lightly salted flavour makes it a bit different to your usual Millionaire's Shortbread, but different is good. If I want to show someone I like them I will make this for them as it isn't the quickest to make. The components in themselves take little effort to make but having the patience to assemble everything is the real work. I actually found the recipe for the caramel and the shortbread separately in a book called Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes by Jennifer McLagan. Published in the US and the UK so I'm not being biased. Each part broken down here:

Shortbread

1 cup/8 ounces/225 g cold unsalted butter, dices, plus extra tsp softened for greasing

1/2 cup / 3 1/2 ounces /100 g caster sugar

2 cups / 8 1/2 ounces / 250 g flour

Pinch of fine sea salt

1/4 tsp fleur de sel (if making a sweetshortbread on its own then you can sprinkle with demerara sugar instead)

Line a 25 cm x 15 cm (ish!) tray with greaseproof paper making sure that it comes all the way to the top of the tin and use the extra teaspoon of butter to lightly butter the tin.

Combine the cold butter and sugar in a bowl and if you have a mixer, using a paddle attachment, mix on low speed for 15 seconds. If all you have is elbow grease (like me) they mix the two together until combined. Add both the flours and a pinch of salt and mic again until the dough comes together (if using the machine this will take about 3 to 5 minutes on low speed).

Form the dough into a ball and, on a floured surface, roll in out about 1 cm thick rectangle. Gently place the dough into the tin and pat it out until lit even fills the tin. Using a fork, prick the dough all over, right through to the tin.

Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour and preheat the oven to 150 C/300 F.

Take the dough from the fridge, and sprinkle with the fleur de sel and place the tin on a baking sheet. Bake until the shortbread is just firm in the center and beginning to colour, about 40 minutes. Take it out of the oven and let it cool in the tin. Please note that the shortbread is wonderful on it's own if that's as far as you care to go this time around.

On to the caramel...

Salted Caramel

1 1/4 cups / 9 ounces / 250 g caster sugar

1/2 cup / 4 ounces / 115 g salted butter, diced

1 cup / 250 ml whipping cream

Pinch of salt

Combine the butter and sugar in a deep, heavy saucepan over medium heat. It is easier if you use a silver based pan as that way you can see the caramel turning colour, this is not so easy with a black non-stick pan. Stir to mix and cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter and sugar caramelize, 10 to 15 minutes. The sugar and butter will go through several stages. First it will look like a flour and butter roux, then it will appear curdled and then the butter will leak out of the sugar mixture. Don't worry: it will all come together in the end!

While the caramel is cooking, pour the cream into a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Keep stirring the butter and sugar mixture, watching carefully as it begins to caramelise and remembering that the heat in the pan will continue to cook the caramel once it is removed from the burner. You want a rich, dark caramel colour, but you don't want to burn the mixture. When the caramel reaches the right colour, remove the pan from the heat and slowly and carefully pour in the cream; the mixture will bubble and spit. When the caramel stops bubbling, return it to low heat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve the caramel in the cream. Remove the pan from the heat and let the caramel cool in the pan. It may be wise to leave this overnight, if you have the time. Alternatively, let it cool for about 45 minutes then poor it directly onto the shortbread and leave it to set overnight.

When the caramel is set (be warned, it will always be slightly runny rather then a stiff fudge-like consistency you often get with a millionaire's shortbread) you can finish it off with the chocolate topping:

Melt 200g of the finest milk chocolate you can get your hands on - or if you prefer it slightly richer you can up the cocoa - in a bain marie and smother over the caramel. Leave this to set until the chocolate is hard and then here comes the only hard bit of this:

To cut the chocolate squares take a bowl of boiling water and a sharp knife. Gently cut straight lines in a sawing motion rather than just applying pressure as this will cause the chocolate to crack in uneven shards and wont look as pretty. Continue in the same method - you will need to dip you knife in the boiling water from time to time to help it through the chocolate.

Once they are cut into squares lift them out all together using the greaseproof paper as a handle and share with friends. They will like you for it.

Chili-Chocolate Brownie

Inspired by the flavours of Mexican chocolate, this is a more grown up brownie. However, if you take out the spices it is still an excellent mix to work with. It is fudgey with a flakey top and has continued to please ever since I was bestowed the recipe as a birthday present. Very easy (and always a crowd-pleaser) to prepare ahead for a dinner party or if you ever need to bring a baked good somewhere - and where would you not want to bring one I ask? As there is a little heat in these, you might want to serve them with a White Russian to really complete the grown up twist on a kids' classic.
A brief(ish) note on chocolate:
You may have noticed when reading recipes for baking with chocolate, time and time again it will tell you how crucial it is to use good chocolate. There is a simple reason for why this rule is repeated - it's true. Now you don't have to go and buy the purest 90% Venezuelan cocoa at a fair penny a gram, but I would say don't use anything with less than 50% cocoa in it (others will tell you this is blasphemy and that 70% should be the minimum). But not everyone wants to be overwhelmed by their brownie, some just want to be satisfied. I used a 62% chocolate by Green and Blacks called Maya Gold which has hints of orange and spices in it and I think a happy medium. I will say that being closer to 70% will give you a richer and more indulgent experience then if you melt a Dairy Milk or Hershey's bar and be done with it. On with the recipe...

100 g/3.5 oz unsalted butter
175g/6 oz caster (superfine) sugar
75g/3 oz dark muscavado sugar
125g/4.5 oz chocolate
2 tbsp golder (light corn) syrup
2 large eggs
the seeds of half a vanilla pod or 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
100g/3.5 oz plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1.5 tsp cinnamon

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F, grease and line the bottom of an 8x8 dish or spring form tin.
• In a heavy based sauce pan put in the butter, chocolate, sugars and syrup and keep on a low heat. Stir constantly until the chocolate and butter have melted, the mixture will still be a little grainy at this point. Take off the heat and let it cool slightly.
• In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa and spices.
• When the chocolate mixture has cooled slightly, beat the eggs together and slowly pour into the chocolate - make sure that you stir it briskly the whole time to ensure that the mixture becomes silky rather than scrambled egg.
• Using a metal spoon fold gently into the flour until completely combined.
• Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 17-20 minutes.
• Leave in the tin to cool slightly then turn out onto a cooling rack and cut into large slabs or bite-sized pieces depending on your preference.

If you are serving these as a desert and would like to make them a little more decadent, then here is a recipe for a chocolate ganache and almond praline topping. The almond is also another ingredient associated with Mexican chocolate so it is in keeping with the theme. If you are using a ganache ensure that you either use a spring-form tin or line a square tin so that the paper hangs out over the edge. Also leave the brownies in the tin to cool completely and only put the ganache on top once the brownie mixture is cold.

For the almond praline:

1 cup of caster (superfine) sugar

1/4 cup of water

2 cups of toasted almonds

Line a baking tray with foil. In a heavy based saucepan on a medium low heat add the water and sugar - stir until the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar has dissolved and the mixture starts to simmer do not stir anymore and let the sugarwater turn a deep amber - swirling the pan if necessary to stop any burning. Once it is dark enough, take off the heat and stir in the nuts. Pour out onto baking tray and let it cool. Roughly chop up the praline and set aside to do the ganache.

For the ganache:

175g/6 oz dark chocolate

2 tbsp unsalted butter, very soft

3 tbsp whipping cream

In a large bowl break up the chocolate into very small pieces along with the butter and cream. Place bowl over simmering water but ensure base does not touch the water. Stir until all the ingredients have melted together. Set aside and let the mixture thicken slightly. Spread the ganache over the brownie, scatter it with the almond praline and place in the fridge to set.

After about two hours or so it should be ready to slice. Make sure you run a knife around the edge to stop it from sticking before you attempt to remove the brownie. Cut as you please and enjoy.

Chocolate Nests

In the spirit of Easter here is a little chocolate nest to nestle some chocolate eggs in. Perfect for making (and preoccupying) kids should you be invaded by any this weekend. Funnily enough my dad is the biggest fan of these in our house so it's not only the little ones who benefit from the little effort that goes into making these treats.

200g chocolate - you can actually use which ever type you like, although I like to use 3/4 milk with 1/4 dark just to give it some extra richness
25 g unsalted butter
2 cups of Shredded Wheat (any cereal like this works just fine) bashed into strands
Mini eggs for decoration

• Melt the choclate and butter in a bowl over boiling water - make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water.
• Stir in the cereal you are using and spoon into cupcake cases.
• Make a little dip in the centre of the nests and put in the mini eggs.
• Leave in a cool area for the chocolate to set.

Variations on a theme of chocolate nests: everything.
The brilliance of these little nests is that you can decorate them with what ever you like - Reese's Pieces come in as my second favourite topping. You can even stir in some crunchy peanut butter or dessicated coconut for extra texture. So play with these to you heart's content, and whilst ever so simple they are hugely appreciated.