Banana & Chocolate Farmhouse Bread

 

To celebrate the fact that it's oh-so-almost the weekend I have decided to share with you one of my all-time favourite recipes!

This Green & Blacks recipe creates THE perfect banana and chocolate loaf. It is moist but not stodgey, with a perfect balance of flavours and it is suuper tastey. If you are in a rush and need a failsafe recipe this is my go to.

 

Use good chocolate though as this makes a big difference. Fortunately living in Europe's chocolate capital even the supermarket's own-brand is 70%+ in cocoa content. Brussels has its perks!

Happy baking!

Ingredients
225g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
100g butter
175g sugar
2 eggs
2 bananas (the riper the better)
100g dark chocolate chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C
2. Cream the butter and sugar together
3. Add the eggs, banana and milk and mix making sure bananas are fully broken up
4. Add the flour and salt and mix (stop mixing as soon as it combines)
5. Fold in half the chocolate
6. Pour into greased loaf tin (c.23x13cm should do)  and pop rest of the chocolate on top and push the pieces in slightly

Pop in the oven for about 45mins and voila!

Fentimans' Curiosity Cola

This weekend I was in London and came across this must share product!

I'm a big fan of Fentimans - a company which takes pride in it's craftsmanship and quality, which brews herbs and plant roots as a basis for its drinks. They are probably best known for their gingerbeer, but they also do many other flavours including Curiosity Cola which I opted for.

With it's classy label, rustic bottle and rich (but not sugar heavy) flavour, this is a top quality beverage. Fentimans are ideal for when you're having a night off the alcohol, so don't reach for an on tap/canned beverage pick up one of these beauties instead. 

Super Simple Apple and Cinnamon Muffins

Recently I purchased a new silicon muffin tin and I have been addicted to muffin making since.

After reading and testing several different recipes I came up with this easy recipe for apple and cinnamon muffins.

It's super simple. Using a combination of melted butter and olive oil as opposed to the recipes that use olive oil only ensures that the muffins are moist but not greasey. The texture is great, and cinnamon and apple always makes a tastey combination.

The sliced apple topping is simple and effective. In hindsight I would:

1) have added a little less mixture to each mould as they rose and rose.

2)  brushed the apples with some apricot jam to add a nice sheen to the topping

These are easy, quick and make a good addition to any cup of tea or coffee. Yum. 

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Ingredients:- 190g all purpose flour

                   - 1.5 tsp baking powder (if you use self-raising flour, only add ½ tsp of powder

                   - 1 tsp cinnamon

                   - 2 eggs

                   - 30g sugar (ideally brown but can use white)

                   - 60g butter (melt it)

                   - 60ml olive oil

                   - 150-200g apple compote/sauce

                   - 2 Apples

                   - Apricot jam for brushing (optional)

To make: 1. Mix together your flour, cinnamon and baking powder

                2. In another bowl mix your eggs, sugar, oil, butter and compote/sauce

                3. Add the mixtures together and mix (but make sure you don't overmix!)

                4. Pop in to your muffin moulds (gresed if necessary)

                5. Thinly slice apple and place a couple of slices lightly on top of each muffin

                6. Brush apple with apricot jam for sheen or sprinkle some sugar over

                7. Bake at 180 Degrees Celcius for 20-25 mins (until the tops are browned and springy)

Pop Off to Antwerp

Recently myself and the mister had a cheeky day trip to Antwerp. We enjoy Brussels but sometimes it's good to get out of town and see somewhere new. So we have drawn up a list of places to go, and this exploration saw us head to Antwerp.

Compared to Belgium's more touristy town's (Brugges and Ghent), Antwerp is very different. Brugges specialises in being like a real life toy town, and Ghent city centre is not far off. But where Antwerp flourishes in that respect is that it's refreshingly normal with far better shops than Brussels and also has some good foody corners. Enter Pop Off.

 

My sachetorte

This sweet little cafe is just behind the main square, and little is certainly the word. However with a window full of dribble worthy cakes, it draws in a tonne of people.

If you're lucky like us, you can land a table and then sit back, relax and enjoy! This cafe is a perfect spot for all. Gogreous acoustic music drifts through the rooms and you can see the owner/cake maker in action. When quizzing her over which cake to choose, she told us she loves them all - being her own boss she can choose her favourites, and try out new recipes if she fancies mixing it up. What a great way to live!

Pistachio-Cherry Goodness

We got a seat in the back, and chose the two beauties shown above- a Chocolate sachetorte for moi, and a pistachio-cherry mousey cake effort for the mister. All in all a great shout, the coffees even came with a square of sponge too (always appreciate extra cake).

So if you're popping off to Antwerp, you should definitely pop in to this little gem.

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Lime & Coconut Loaf

For this weekend's bake I decided to try a whole new concept...the healthy cake. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of eating a healthy and well balanced diet, and I always try to, but should that ever be introduced to cake?! I had my doubts, but I also had my hopes.

Anyways, part of my reason behind dipping my toe in this particular water was Lorraine Pascale. This beautiful and talented lady always conjures up the most wonderful food and so when I saw her recipe for a healthy lime & coconut loaf I had to try it.

This recipe (which you can find HERE) is all part of Lorraine's new campaign to have healthy baking, as well as being a chef she is also a model, so I am happy to take any tips she wants to send my way.

The recipe cleverly subs out butter for yoghurt (low fat of course) and contains reduced sugar. Due to the yoghurt the sponge was slightly fluffier than a usual loaf. I had my slight suspicion that a sneaky trick may be pulled in making this loaf just really small, however I can safely say it provided plenty slices, and this was one tasty cake! 

The zesty lemon toping had real zing and combined with the coconut sponge Lorraine has created a real winner. So if you've ever wondered, it looks like you can have your cake and eat it (even on a diet).

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