Thanks for Helping Me Change a Flat Last Month: Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread

Sometimes, my life has days. Real days. Days that make me yearn for chocolate chunk banana bread in sizeable quantities.

Days such as the day six weeks ago, when I had agreed to drive a coworker in DC to and from a surgical procedure, even though I also had a meeting in Rockville all day. My coworker assured me that he could stick around the recovery room and wait for my meeting to finish up, so it appeared this would work. The meeting even wrapped up a few minutes early, and I was on my way to retrieve him from the recovery room after he’d already sat there for a few hours.

And then I found that my car had a flat tire.

Interestingly, I was wearing a skirt suit that cost more than I care to admit, and high-heeled slingbacks. For reference, this is not exactly “tire-changing” apparel. Despite this, I pulled out the jack, tire iron, and spare tire, and got to work.

Then, one fellow from my meeting, who was there all the way from Birmingham, saw me. He stopped, worked with me to get the spare on just so, and we were finished up in less than five minutes. Quite the team we made.

He ran back to Birmingham that night, so I wasn’t able to properly thank him with baked goods. Fortunately, we’ll be at the same meeting in Atlanta this week, so I’ll be able to stash this little thank-you gift in my luggage.

To make this chocolate chunk banana bread, I adapted a recipe from Nick Malgieri’s Bake!, as his was for a 9”x5” loaf pan, and my loaf pans are both 8”x4”. I also incorporated some cinnamon to add a bit of a kick, and replaced the walnuts in his recipe with chocolate chunks because…because…oh seriously, do you need to ask?

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread Ingredients (as adapted from Nick Malgieri’s Bake!)

1 ¾ cup flour

½ cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 eggs and 2 egg yolks

1 1/3 cup mashed banana

6 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

10 ounces chopped semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (Callebaut semi-sweet 54.5% cocoa)

Start out by combining the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl; set this aside. Whisk the eggs, then the bananas, then the butter, and finally the vanilla, waiting until the previous addition is fully incorporated before adding the next.

Now before combining the wet and dry ingredients, you simply must treat your chocolate well.

To ensure that the chunks remain uniformly distributed throughout the final product, use a trick that I learned at the seminar with Nick Malgieri: take approximately two tablespoons of the dry ingredient mixture, and toss with the chocolate chunks.

This assists the chocolate in rising along with the batter as it bakes.

Now, yes now, you may pour the liquid mixture on top of the dry mixture.

Fold with a spatula until they are mostly incorporated.

Then mix in the prepared chocolate chunks, folding until just mixed. Pour the batter into an 8”x4” loaf pan, butter and bottom-lined with parchment paper.

Bake the loaf at 350° F for 50 minutes, and take note of just how well-distributed those chocolate chunks are near the top of the loaf.

Let it cool, and then wrap it and pack it in your carry-on for Atlanta. To express your gratitude for the speedy tire change.

Daring Bakers November: Vanilla-Lavender Scented White Chocolate Custard Crostata

As I’ve started getting into food blogs of all sorts over the past year or so, I’ve been amazed by all the community blog activities that go on, both in-person, such as local get-togethers and long-distance meet ups, and virtually, via chats over Twitter and blog groups. Some of these are ad hoc, like the group that Evan, Julie, and Heather threw together for the Macaron Monday challenge. Others, like Tuesdays with Dorie, are regular occurrences. One such group that posts on a regular schedule is The Daring Bakers, which is sponsored by The Daring Kitchen. I was accepted into the super-secret society for November, which means that on November 1, I was able to access the details of the challenge, and had until today to contemplate my approach, craft my creation, and draft my post before the reveal date, which is: today. See my completed product, a slice of vanilla-lavender scented white chocolate crostata.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well. If you are interested, she has made a .pdf file with the details of the challenge and the crostata recipe available here.

Pasta Frolla Ingredients

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Grated zest of half a lemon

1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten

When I read “cold,” my brain translated that into “frozen,” so I began by cutting the butter into small pieces and freezing it.

I got out one of my favorite things, my food processor, and briefly pulsed together the sugar, flour, and salt before adding the cold butter one chunk at a time, and watched this fine meal form in the bowl.

I then removed the meal from the food processor, placed it in a pile on my counter, and made a well in the middle for the egg and egg yolk mixture.

It was then time to mix this together with a fork. I wondered why Simone didn’t have us simply mix the egg in through the food processor, and I have ascertained that the reason was so that we would make our kitchen counters look like a dough murder scene.

I gathered up the dough, shaped it into a flat disc, wrapped it, and refrigerated it for two hours.

When it was time to put the chilled dough in the 9 1/2” tart pan, I used the technique that I learned from my seminar with Nick Malgieri last month. I broke off 1/3 of the dough and set it aside, and pressed the remaining 2/3 into the bottom of the floured tart pan. I then divided the dough that I had set aside into three equally-sized strips.

It was then time to finish prepping the dough in the tart pan by pressing these along the edges of the tart pan such that the edges were fully covered.

I decided to blind-bake the tart, so I poked the bottom with a fork a few times.

Then I put some parchment paper on top of the dough, and weighted it down with dried garbanzo beans before baking it at 375° F for 10 minutes, and then baking it for another 10 minutes with the beans and parchment paper removed.

I found myself with a crust substantial enough to support something nice and creamy.

This was fortunate, because I was planning on using the vanilla-lavender scented white chocolate custard that I posted about earlier this month.

I used about 2/3 of the prepared custard (2 cups of liquid) in the crostata, and then baked the filled tart for 35 more minutes.

Now that looks nice, but I wasn’t quite done. For the stand-alone custard post, I used purple-tinted powdered sugar for decoration, but for the crostata, I did something a little more elaborate. I started with some plain paper, and then cut out a little freehand design that I thought looked nifty.

I used this as a guide for both purple and uncolored powdered sugar to complete the crostata.
I took this to a meet where I was coaching, and my fellow coaches had no difficulties finishing it off. Thanks, Simone!

Holiday Recipe Exchange: Inside-Out Buckeyes for the Butter Theme

Sometimes, inspiration works in funny ways. Sometimes, inspiration causes you to completely turn a recipe inside out. Like I did with these Inside-Out Buckeyes.

But wait. How did I get here? Did this just pop into my head out of nowhere? Sadly, I’m not that creative. You see, this week’s Holiday Recipe Swap theme is butter.

Sweet, wonderful butter, that can really be used in any recipe. I had butter ganache on the brain anyway, after enjoying a Teuscher Buttercrunch truffle, and reasoned that I could use butter ganache as a base for my recipe.

And then I kept seeing recipes for Buckeyes, those chocolate-covered peanut butter confections that are constructed to resemble the nuts of a buckeye tree. Suddenly I realized what I had to do.

I had to make buckeyes with chocolate centers and peanut butter coating. I had to. And I had to call them Inside-Out Buckeyes, because that’s what they are.

If you think this sounds as wonderful as I do...vote for them! Come join the fun at the My Baking Addition and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap Sponsored by Kerrygold.

Alternatively, you could take a stab at making them on your own. Here’s how it goes.

Inside-Out Buckeye Ingredients

16 oz semi-sweet chocolate (El Rey 61% Cocoa Mijao), melted and cooled

8 tbsp butter

4 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt

2 10-ounce bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips

Obviously, chocolate is a key ingredient. As it is in all recipes here.

Once the chocolate was melted and subsequently cooled, I whipped it together with the butter, slowly mixed in the powdered sugar, and then added in the vanilla and salt.

It was delicious. Trust me. I took the portion that I didn’t eat, and rolled it into balls ¾” in diameter.

Since these were to be inside-out buckeyes, meaning chocolate inside and peanut butter outside, I needed something special for dipping.

Reese’s chips! I’d debated trying to make my own coating out of coconut butter and peanut flour, but grabbing some of these chips and melting them is much easier.

In preparation for dipping the chocolate balls in the melted peanut butter chips, I chilled them and poked toothpicks in them to make dipping easier.

Then, one by one, I rolled them around in the melted peanut butter chips.

I shook off the excess coating, and set them on parchment paper to solidify.

After about an hour, they were nicely set, and ready to eat.

I had to hide these from myself. In the back of the refrigerator. Peanut butter and chocolate are usually a delicious combination, but these things are unreal.

So unreal that you should vote for them as this week’s best butter-themed recipe. Seriously. It’s just not possible to do better than this.

Cherpumple Part 2: Completing the Ultimate Structural Baking Challenge

In case you missed part 1 of the Great Cherpumple Development of 2010, you should read it before you read this post. Then you’ll understand why I made a 10.5” diameter monstrosity of cake, pie and frosting that stands 7.5” tall.

Well, you probably still won’t. But aren’t you the nosy one, reading about it anyway?

So we left off with all the pie-cake layers complete. This is the point where most cherpumple makers just used pre-made cream cheese frosting.

But not me. I mean, I made the pies and cakes from scratch! And really, how hard is it to gather up a little softened butter and cream cheese?

And once you’ve done that, it’s super easy to whip it together.

After doing that, adding some powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt is easy.

So I made my own frosting for this thing. Not a big deal.

Then I had to start assembling this thing. This is where things can go wrong in the structural stability department. To avoid this, I’d frozen the layers individually for two days, but I was still unsure. But there’s nothing to do but plow ahead like a crazy woman, so I got out a prepared cake board.

Then I spread some cream cheese frosting on the bottom.

This was to anchor the first layer: the spice cake with a pumpkin pie baked in.
I put cream cheese frosting on top of that layer.

Because I needed something to hold the yellow cake with an apple pie baked in.

And that, layer, of course, needed cream cheese frosting on top of it.

And to finish it off, a white cake with a cherry pie baked into it.

I then wrapped THE WHOLE THING and froze it for a full day, thus allowing the frosting to better anchor the layers together. The next day, I pulled it out along with more cream cheese frosting, and frosted up the sides and top.

And there, ladies and gents, is a cherpumple. Made from scratch. Don’t forget to go to Jenna’s blog to bid on it and make it your very own.

Now before we call that a wrap, several people have asked questions about this process, and I want to answer them.

• First, how much did this &)*^%*& thing cost to make? I saved receipts, and estimate $36. Totally worth it for the experience. You should do it, too.
• Second, how much time did I waste, er, spend on this? As far as actually creating it goes, it took about twelve hours, though some of that time was baking time when I could do things around my apartment, but couldn’t leave because the oven was on. Again, totally worth it.

And a few other things I want you to know about. Specifically, I want you to know that while making this cherpumple, the following things DEFINITELY did not happen:

• I did not set off my smoke alarm. Nope.
• I did not contemplate calling it quits while the first pie-cake was baking.
• No way did I eat a dinner composed mostly of cream cheese frosting.
• I certainly didn’t break a springform pan at 6:15 am.
• There’s no chance that I almost called my mom to whine afterwards.
• I most definitely did not spend most of a 60 minute medical scan thinking about how to approach frosting the cherpumple while optimizing its structural integrity.
• My friend who observed part of the cherpumple making did not spend half an hour debating different ways to make a chocolate version of this beast. We had other things to talk about. Honestly.

So there you have it. A chermpumple, from scratch, from start to finish. Now go bid on it.

Vanilla-Lavender Scented White Chocolate Custard: It's Game Time

When I saw that Jamie of My Baking Addiction and Katie of GoodLife {eats} were hosting a virtual Holiday Recipe Exchange, I was excited to participate.

Then I saw that there were prizes. Yes, prizes. This just got real, folks. Competition. It’s on. With that...Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Beanilla.

And make sure you GO VOTE.

For this week, the knock-out competition, er, exchange, was to involve recipes featuring vanilla. Although vanilla is used in many dark and milk chocolate creations, it’s difficult for it to really shine through against the strong flavor of chocolate.

Enter: white chocolate.

Bringing you soft cocoa butter and sugar to deliver whatever flavors you desire. Including vanilla. Or, if you are trying to do something special, vanilla AND lavender. In custard form.

Vanilla-Lavender Scented White Chocolate Custard Ingredients

2 cups of heavy cream

12 ounces white chocolate, chopped (suggest Callebaut)

4 egg yolks

1 tablespoon vanilla paste

½ tablespoon lavender extract

Purple powdered sugar for decoration

Since the theme of this week’s exchange is vanilla, I tried to make sure that the ingredients included a sufficient amount of vanilla, with the lavender extract added in for some extra interest.

First, though, it was time to heat the cream to a simmer, and then add the white chocolate chunks. After I let that sit a bit, I stirred the mixture until the white chocolate was all melted and then added the vanilla paste and lavender extract.

I pre-heated my oven to 350° F, and let the mixture cool slightly before whisking in the egg yolks.

Now it was time to get baking. This recipe will yield about 28 fluid ounces of custard, and I poured four ounces into an eight ounce glass dish.

You can divide the prepared custard into dishes however you like; just be certain that the center is fairly firm before removing the custard from the oven. In this case, I baked the custard for 20 minutes to achieve this firmness.

It needs some visual sprucing up, though. Enter: purple powdered sugar.

This is easy to make. Just put a bit of powdered sugar and a few drops of purple food coloring in a food processor.

Whirl away until you have purple powdered sugar.

Sift it on top of your custard to help visually signal that there’s lavender in there to compliment the vanilla.

Then eat.

Enjoy the vanilla with the hint of lavender, carried by sweet, creamy white chocolate custard. If you really like it - go vote for me at My Baking Addiction.