Banana & Chocolate Cookies

If I ever write a recipe book I think I'll call it "Recipes to Make Your Home Smell Fabulous" and I've already got the first recipe right here.

The recipe in question comes from Hungry?, a book I reviewed earlier in the year and I'm still using on a regular basis.  I've been wanting to try these for ages but, until this week, never quite managed to have all of the ingredients in the house at the same time.  They were definitely worth the wait though.

They're quite unusual, being wheat and egg free, and have a more cake-like texture than normal cookies but don't be put off as they taste great, especially when they're still warm from the oven.  Plus, as I mentioned above, while they're baking your kitchen will filled with the deliciously comforting aroma of banana and coconut.

Banana & Chocolate Cookies
(adapted from Hungry? from the Innocent Drinks people)

3 ripe bananas
100g/4oz butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
2 large handfuls porridge oats
100g/4oz ground almonds
100g/4oz unsweetened desiccated coconut
a handful of raisins or chopped dried apricots
a pinch of ground cinnamon
100g/4oz milk or plain chocolate, chopped into small bits (or just use a bag of chocolate drops)

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4.  Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper (you may need two).

2) In a big mixing bowl, mash up the bananas with a fork then add the melted butter and vanilla and give it a good stir.

3) Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the chocolate, and mix well. Fold in the chocolate pieces.  It probably won't look quite as firm as normal cookie dough but don't worry.

4) Spoon the mix onto the baking sheets, using about 2 teaspoons per cookie.  Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until golden. (The original recipe suggests leaving space for them to expand but mine didn't grow that much).

5) Leave to cook on a wire rack for a few minutes.  They're best eaten while still warm but will also keep just fine in an airtight container for up to a week.

Makes about 25

Banana Rock Cakes

This another great recipe for those times when you have some spare bananas sitting in the fruit bowl. I love rock cakes anyway as they are the perfect store cupboard bake and you can have them on the table in about 45 minutes, but adding some mashed banana to the basic recipe is an inspired idea. The banana adds an extra sweetness and they make your kitchen smell fabulous while they're in the oven.

The recipe comes from The Little Red Barn Baking book, an American book which I really should dig out more often as it contains some great recipes.

Being American, the measurements are in cups, which I've always found a bit of a faff to be honest, so I've converted the flour and butter into ounces and grams. I used cup measures for the raisins and chocolate but if you don't have these you can use something of a similar size as the amounts don't have to be exact. For reference, 1 cup = 250ml.

Banana Rock Cakes

(adapted from The Little Red Barn Baking Book by Adriana Rabinovich)

1 3/4 cups/250g/9 oz all-purpose (plain) flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup/75g/2 3/4 oz unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1 tablespoons light brown sugar

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup chopped semisweet chocolate

1 cup ripe bananas (about 2 medium bananas)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 egg

1) Preheat the oven to 400f/200c. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

2) Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Rub in the butter then stir in the sugar, raisins and chocolate.

3) In another bowl, mash the bananas then add the lemon juice and egg, and mix well. Combine the bananas with the flour mixture to make a sticky dough.

4) Spoon the dough equally into 10 lumps on the baking sheet, leaving some space for spreading. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cakes are golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 10 cakes

Mocha Banana Smoothie and Food Blogger Connect 2011

Every year food bloggers and writers from all over Europe and beyond have the opportunity to attend Food Blogger Connect, which is the largest food blogging conference in Europe and gives like-minded bloggers the chance to meet and listen to a number of high-profile guest speakers. This year the conference is being held in London on the 11th to 13th August and of course I would love to go but sadly I don't have the funds to take me there.

Luckily though, I might still be in with a chance of going as Cuisinart, one of the sponsors of FBC11, have launched a competition that will enable the two lucky winners to get free entry to the full weekend conference, including an opportunity to participate in the cooking demonstration with Celebrity Chef Anjum Anand.

Sounds good to me!

All I have to do is post a smoothie recipe of my own making or from any recipe provided by Cuisinart or Anjum Anand's books.

My recipe was inspired by a desert I used to have when I was little - ice cream mixed with Camp Coffee Essence. I love the sweet coffee flavour it lends to anything you add it to and it tastes great mixed up with bananas, ice cream and a little bit of dark chocolate.

Mocha Banana Smoothie

2 bananas

2-3 scoops of vanilla ice cream

1 tablepoon Camp Coffee Essence

1 tablespoon finely grated dark chocolate plus extra for sprinkling

a splash of milk

whipped cream for decoration

1) Pile everything bar the cream into a blender and whizz until combined.

2) Serve in a tall glass and top with cream and a sprinkling of grated chocolate.

Serves 1

Saucy Banana and Caramel Pudding

Now this is my kind of pudding. A Pudding with a capital P. A rich, sticky, seconds-for-me-please, where-did-all-the-leftovers-go? sort of pudding. Fantastic.

Thanks and praise for this little gift of a recipe should be directed towards Jo Pratt whose first book, In The Mood for Food is fast becoming my recipe book of the year. You can find three more of her recipes here, here and here but I do recommend you try and get hold of your own copy. It will provide you with inspiration for all occasions and will be a very attractive addition to your bookshelf!

Puddings like this are notoriously hard to photograph (particularly for a novice like me, short on props and good lighting) and this photo really doesn't do it justice. Just try to picture the dish beneath the spoon filled with a golden banana sponge floating on a lake of caramel sauce....tempted yet?

So, the next time you have a couple of bananas browning in the fruit bowl don't even think about making yet another banana cake....make this!

Saucy Banana and Caramel Pudding

(adapted from In the Mood for Food by Jo Pratt)

Serves 6

For the pudding

125g plain flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon or cinnamon

125g light muscovado sugar

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 large egg, beaten

200ml milk

75g unsalted butter, melted

For the sauce

4 tablespoons golden syrup

125g light muscovado sugar

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/fan 160c/gas 4

2) Mix the flour, baking powder and mixed spice or cinnamon in a bowl then beat in the sugar, mashed banana, milk and butter until well combined.

3) Pour into a buttered 1.5 or 2 litre ovenproof dish (the bigger the better to avoid it bubbling over and making a mess of your oven) or six individual dishes (about 300ml or 400ml each).

4) Place the golden syrup, sugar and 250ml water into a pan on a medium heat. Stir until dissolved and bring to the boil. Pour immediately over the top of the pudding (don't be alarmed by the resulting cake-mix soup, it will turn out fine!). Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until golden and just firm in the centre when pressed.

5) Leave to cool for a few minutes before serving with ice cream, cream or creme fraiche.

Bananas

More spring flowers!

I always like to try and use up bananas that have got a bit past their best so yesterday I made Banana Butterscotch Muffins from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson which used up all of the three overripe bananas I had in the fruit bowl.  The recipe calls for butterscotch morsels but I haven't managed to find these yet so just used a bag of plain chocolate chips instead.  I think the dark chocolate balances out the banana really well but still intend try the recipe with the butterscotch pieces as and when I manage to find some.