Posts tagged as:

banana

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Crystallised Ginger

October 19, 2009

Banana Bread Slice
Doesn’t everyone just love a thick slice of banana bread?
And coupled with a glass of cold milk or a dollop of whipped cream, it makes for an offer that is hard to turn down.

But what if it has crystallised ginger and a good handful of chocolate chips thrown in? Yes. Just as I thought – you will sit up, take notice, and quickly bookmark this recipe.

Or you won’t. Crystallised ginger in banana bread? Uh, no way!

Chocolate chips + Candied Ginger
I would have been one of the folks in the second category if I were to try the recipe 6 months ago. Worse still, I’d skip the candied ginger all together (I didn’t know how easy it is to make!). But luckily for me, I not only made some really awesome crystallised ginger, but  also had a delicious gingerale concentrate in the process. Just as soon as I began relishing candied ginger, I went back to the banana bread recipe in Molly Weizenberg’s book, A Homemade Life. Here, she extolled the goodness of banana bread with crystallised ginger and chocolate chips and said that, “the flavours of banana and chocolate get along so well, and the ginger makes it even better, cutting through its richness with its spicy heat.” I knew I had to make it.
Like most recipes that call for banana, this one too requires ripe bananas. But, I’m not a huge fan of a strong banana-ey fragrance in the bread and neither do I fancy using bananas that are dark, black, spotted and ugly. I always use bananas that are ready to be eaten. Also, once this is baked, you will be tempted to eat this straight out of the oven, but hang on, the banana bread tastes a lot better the next day.  Just let the flavours play together overnight – you will taste the difference, I promise! Oh, and the best part is finding the pockets of melted chocolate as you take one bite after another.
Banana Bread Loaf

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips and Crystallised Ginger
Yield: 1 large loaf that serves 8
Adapted From: A Homemade Life

6 tbsp / 3 oz. / 90g. butter
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4th cup sugar
3/4th tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt (skip this if you’re using salted butter, like me)
3/4th cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3rd – ½ cup crystallised ginger – chopped finely or into strips for a more recognisable bite.
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups mashed bananas (approx 3 large bananas)
1/4th cup yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan with butter or cooking spray, and set aside.
  2. In a small bowl, melt the butter in the microwave or atop a double boiler. Set aside to cool.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add the chocolate chips and crystallised ginger. Set aside.
  4. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs with a fork and add the mashed bananas, yoghurt, melted butter, and vanilla and mix well.
  5. Pour the banana mixture into the dry ingredients and gently fold in the batter with a silicone spatula, incorporating all the dry ingredients until it looks like it has come together. It’s okay if it looks kinda lumpy.
  6. Pour the batter into the loaf tin and bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
  7. Let the banana bread cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to the cooling rack.
  8. Cut yourself a slice, because you can hardly wait – and let the entire loaf cool completely.

{ 28 comments }

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry + Banana Nutella Crepes

July 1, 2009

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry

I can’t remember how I heard about The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry first; I think I bumped into on Amazon where it was listed as one of the books customers bought along with the one I was looking at. When I found out that this story has Le Cordon Bleu as the main focus, I was overjoyed! I ordered a copy immediately.

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry is a lovely memoir of Kathleen Flinn who pursued her long standing dream of studying at the world’s finest culinary school. Once her job let go off her, her boyfriend encouraged her to follow to go to Paris and said, “Do you want to be on your deathbed, wondering why you never went?” 24 days later, she was at Le Cordon Bleu.

The book chronicles her way though cooking school with a little bit of life thrown in (though I would have loved to read more about what goes on in the kitchen). Through the book you will have gone to Paris and back.

Inspiring, riveting and emotional – I couldn’t keep the book down (even while climbing the stairs to my office!) I loved it so much – I want to give a new copy of this book to one of you!

There are a whole bunch of recipes in this book, but French haute cuisine is not for me (just yet :) ). However, I did make the Banana and Nutella Crepes from this book.

Banana Nutella Crepes

Banana and Nutella Crepes
Yield: 8 crepes
Recipe source: The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry

For the crepe batter
¾ cup / 80g all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup / 250 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 tbsp butter, melted

Filling for the crepe:
Thinly sliced bananas
Nutella (the proportion of this can never be defined – dollop them on the crepes to your hearts content.

  1. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl, making a well in the centre.
  2. In a Pyrex jug or another bowl, mix together the milk and the vanilla.
  3. Add a third of the milk mixture and the eggs to the well, slowly incorporating in the flour.
  4. Whisk in the remaining milk and melted butter.
  5. Allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
  6. Heat a non-stick pan on a low-medium heat and dab or brush it with a little butter. (However, if yours is a newer non-stick it will be fine so you don’t worry about it sticking to it too much.)
  7. Scoop about ¼ of the batter and pour it on the heated pan, making sure it is not too hot.
  8. Tilt the pan to evenly cover with the batter.
  9. The crepe is ready to flip once the edges are slightly browned. Stack them up.
  10. Now with each crepe, spread some Nutella on it and line with slice bananas. Have it the no-fuss way by rolling it up or simply fold it over like an omlette and serve. YUM!
Rules for the giveaway:
  1. Leave a comment on this post telling me about what you are currently reading or which book is next on your list.
  2. Facebook fans and e-mail subscribers, automatically qualify for the giveaway. To up your chances of winning, become a fan of The Purple Foodie and subscribe to my regular email updates!
  3. Follow me on Twitter and tweet about the give away, making sure you include the link to this post. The more you tweet, the higher your chances! Each time, come back here and comment with the link to your twitter status to qualify.
  4. Stumble this post.

The giveaway is open to local and international readers until the 25th of July, 2009.

{ 79 comments }

Chocolate Chip and Banana Pancakes

May 13, 2009

Banana and Choc Chip Pancake

I don’t always have an elaborate breakfast; maybe a fruit or a milkshake at times. But when I’m feeling a little indulgent, and I want to sit down and relish my breakfast, I make myself banana pancakes – topped with maple syrup and lots and lots of butter.

The soft and fluffy pancakes are a breeze to make, and they require basic ingredients; so you can have these ready in no time and have them every other day for breakfast. Unless of course, you’re in the habit of dousing it in butter, like me. This time around I added some semisweet chocolate chips to the pancakes – chocolates are always a good thing in the morning.

Banana and Choc Chip Pancake

Chocolate Chip and Banana Pancakes
Yield: 4 pancakes

1 cup/125g all purpose flour
3 tbsp fine sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 large egg
3/4th cup/ 175ml milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1 banana, sliced
2-3 tbsp chocolate chips

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – flour, sugar and baking powder.
  2. Make a well in the centre and add the egg. Whisk the egg to break it up. Add the milk. Incorporate the dry ingredients slowly by drawing in the dry ingredients from the walls. Keep stirring till it forms a homogeneous mixture.
  3. Pour in the melted butter and stir till evenly incorporated.
  4. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes (I tend to skip this when I’m in a rush).
  5. Heat a non-stick pan. Brush with butter if the pan is a little old and not as non-sticky.
    A Tip: For the gorgeous pockets for holding your maple syrup pour the batter from a height of 15-18 inches.
  6. Pour a ladleful of the batter into the pan. Tilt the pan to spread the batter if you’d like thinner pancakes.
  7. Half a minute into cooking, top the partially cooked pancake with the banana slices and chocolate chips.
    Another tip: Refrigerate the bananas overnight or few hours before making the pancakes. This way the bananas won’t get mushy with the heat, but will remain firm.
  8. Flip the pancake over after 2-3 minutes (peek through to check if it’s nice and golden).
  9. Stack it up in a plate and serve it with honey or maple syrup.

{ 24 comments }

Banana Cupcakes with Double Chocolate Chips

January 1, 2009

I wish all my readers a happy, healthy and delicious 2009. May your taste buds be tickled pink with scrumptious decadence during the year!

image_2
Oh and do you know what Santa got me? A KitchenAid! I’m now a proud owner of the Classic Stand Mixer, thanks to my uncle who carted the 15-odd kilogram thing all the way from London. I’ve got family over from there for the New Year’s, so the house is full of energy with the 3 boys (aged 2, 5 and 13) running amuck playing with their toys and doing what young boys do. They’re such angels and it’s so nice to have them around.
image_1
So while I have been a delinquent blogger in the past two weeks, my oven has been working overtime, thanks to my cute little 5 y.o. cousin who demands vanilla cupcakes with frosting and chocolate chip muffins! I absolutely *LOVE* my new KA and I can’t believe I finally own one! Baking has become soooo much more efficient – I can go all about the place doing my thing and be back and have the luscious and shiny creamed sugar ready in no time. Hooray, Kitchen Aid!
So back to bringing in the New Year – why not indulge a little with cupcakes for breakfast followed by a tiny generous, smear of Nutella. You just can’t go wrong then, can you?

image_4
A bunch of bananas in the fruit basket and the jar of chocolate chips tempted me to put both of them together for the softest banana cupcake ever. Although this recipe is inspired from The Banana Cupcakes seen at Allrecipes, I’ve made some changes based on user feedback, some on intuition and some for taste to get these light and moist banana cupcakes – a far cry from the dense banana bread.

image_3
Banana Cupcakes with Double Chocolate Chips
The batter yields 6 large cupcakes and 3 mini loaves

1/2 cup / 100g butter
1 ¼ cups / 250g sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup / 225g bananas, mashed (I didn’t use ripe ones as I didn’t want the banana to have a very overpowering flavour)
½ cup / 100 ml warm milk
2 cups / 250g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup / 50g Dark chocolate chips
¼ cup / 50g White chocolate chips

  1. Preheat oven to 175°C / 350°F
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
  3. Add the eggs, vanilla, mashed bananas.
  4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  5. Add flour and milk in the following order: 1/3rd flour, ½ the milk, 1/3rd flour, rest half of the milk and finally the remaining 1/3rd flour till well combined.
  6. Stir in the chocolate chips and reserve some for the top.
  7. Bake for 20-25 (when using mini loaf pan or large cupcake mould, else reduce the time and check with wooden skewer) minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.
I like to have them when they’re still a bit warm and down some immediately with milk or spread with Nutella! Yummy! Result : 6 cupcakes made, which were eaten by the cousins and my sister and the 3 loaves for the adults. And it only took a couple of minutes of working time to make and was ready before the boys were up!

{ 32 comments }

Pain au chocolat et à la banane

June 18, 2008

Someone at work lent me a French cookbook yesterday. It looked quite interesting and I immediately felt like sampling some of those recipes. To begin with, I picked a chocolate banana bread. Everything was in French and it was kinda fun trying to figure what it meant, and if it was way beyond my understanding I’d resort to using the mighty Google translator.

This is my version of the banana bread from Tartes Tourtes & Cie. It turned out to be more cakey than bread-like and very moist and dense. Something that I’ll definitely repeat albeit with some tweaks just for the fun of it. Another good thing is that the bread will keep for 3 days in an airtight container.

The nut butter turned out really well, too. I’m going to make a bottle of this to keep in the refrigerator and exploit its versatility.

Pain au chocolat et à la banane Recipe

2 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
165g powdered sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
60ml olive oil
60ml milk
200g flour
1 tsp baking powder
90g pecans, toasted and crushed

Buerre Nut
100g butter, softened
30g pecans, toasted, finely crushed

  1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line and grease a loaf tin.
  2. Mix the pureed bananas and sugar in a bowl. Incorporate eggs, oil and milk. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together.Incorporate the wet and dry mixtures till a consistent batter is formed. Stir in the pecans.
  3. Spread the preparation in the mould and smooth. Bake for about an hour and let stand 5 minutes in pan before turning the bread on rack.
  4. Meanwhile, prepare nut butter. Whisk until the butter is light and sparkling and then incorporate nuts.
  5. Serve the bread with the nut butter. Oh, the bread would also be good with some Nutella spread over it.

{ 6 comments }