Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I think we can all agree that banana bread is one of the tastiest things ever created. With the addition of chocolate chips it's on a whole new level. 

This recipe is one of our favourites so we adapted it slightly to make it gluten-free friendly. What frustrates me with a lot of gluten-free baked goods is how dense and dry they can be. The great thing about this cake is it uses almond flour so it maintains that moist, gooey texture that good banana bread needs. 

Both versions are delicious and to be honest they're very similar so it's a great option for the gluten-free, cake lovers out there.. 

Ingredients

200 grams of chocolate (We used a combination of dark and milk) 

225 grams of all -purpose flour (of if you're going gluten-free of almond flour)

150 grams of caster sugar

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon 

3 large, very ripe bananas 

1 tsp of vanilla extract 

2 eggs

115g of butter

Before you begin, turn your oven on to 190°C and line the base of a 9'' x 5'' x 3'' baking tin with baking parchment. 

Start by combining the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt and cinnamon into a big bowl. 

In a separate bowl, measure out the butter and heat it in the microwave for around a minute until it's completely melted. Put it to the side to cool but don't let it solidify again. 

Peel the bananas and squish them up using a potato masher in a third mixing bowl. It's really important that the banana's are very ripe as the riper they are, the more flavour you'll get out of them. 

Add the vanilla extract to the bananas. 

Beat the eggs and then add them to the vanilla-banana mixture.

If you're not using chocolate chips, take two 100g bar of chocolate and finely chop it up into chocolate chip sized pieces. We opted for one dark and one milk. 

Next pour a little bit of melted butter into the egg-banana-vanilla bowl and mix it. Repeat this 3-4 times adding a little more butter each time until it's all mixed together. (N.B do not add hot butter to the banana-egg mixture as it will cook the egg so make sure it is sufficiently cool!)

Add the liquid  ingredients to the dry ones and mix this for no more than 10 seconds. It will be visible lumpy but thats okay! If you overmix the batter  then the bread will be too hard.

Gently fold in the chocolate pieces into the batter and then pour it all into the prepared baking tin. 

Pop in the oven for 50 minutes or so and then enjoy the banana-chocolatey deliciousness!

SO good and pretty straightforward. Eat it while it's hot!

love, 

Fiona and Samara 

xxx

Around the World in 80 Bakes: Aux Merveilleux

I think we have found our new favourite dessert-spot. Aux Merveilleux have recently popped over from France to open their first London shop in South Kensington, and it is definitely worth a visit. They have a fairly limited variety of goods, but they are the definition of 'quality over quantity'.

Their two main products are 'Les Cramiques', which are sweet brioche buns with a range of different additions, such as raisins and chocolate chips...

...And 'Les Merveilleux', which are, in our eyes, 'little puffs of heaven'. In reality, they are meringue covered in a very light whipped cream, and then rolled in a range of different toppings. They are bewilderingly airy, and seem to disappear in your mouth the second you eat them.

With strict instructions that they must be carried carefully and kept refrigerated, they are packed into a pretty little box to take home. (You can also eat them in-store, by why would you give up the chance to have one of these!)

We picked our four favourite flavours; praline, caramel, chocolate and coffee.

What a gorgeous little treat, but at almost £2 each, maybe we will save them for special occasions.

Lots of Love,

Fiona, Samara and Anna
xxx

Lemon Polenta Cake

Sorry for being absent for a while- a combination of exams, dissertations and holidays is to blame. Bad bloggers. But we're back with a great new recipe to make up for it!

I've recently had to go on a gluten-free diet, so to compensate for having to give up my regular diet of gluten-filled cookies, cakes, brownies and delicious-ness, we decided to bake this gluten-free polenta cake. We got the idea from trying a similar one in a cafe a few weeks ago and wanted to replicate it. 

We used this Nigella Lawson recipe  which is pretty easy, and the end result was super yummy. 

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 200 grams soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 200 grams ground almonds
• 100 grams fine polenta (or cornmeal)
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (gluten free if required)
• 3 large eggs
• zest of 2 lemons (save juice for syrup)

For the syrup:

• juice of 2 lemons
• 125 grams icing sugar

Before you begin, pop your oven on to 180°C and line the base of a 9inch cake tin with baking parchment and grease the sides with butter. 

Start by beating the butter and sugar in a big bowl, until it is pale and creamy.

In a separate bowl, mix together the ground almonds, polenta and baking powder. 

Add about a third of the dry mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, followed by 1 of the eggs. Repeat this until all the eggs, dry mixture and butter/sugar is one bowl. 

Once it's all mixed together it should look something like this: 

Somebody was lurking under the table hoping for a little bit of cake mix to go her way... 

Add the lemon zest.

And plonk it all in the cake tin. Pop in the oven for about 40 mins. 

While you're waiting, and bored, take a cute picture of your pet. (optional)

While you're (impatiently) waiting for the cake to be done, start on the syrup. Boil the lemon juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan. Until the icing sugar has dissolved into the juice. Then poke the top of your cake with a fork or something spikey to make little holes so the syrup can get into the whole cake. 

Pour the syrup over the cake and try and spread it evenly. Then leave it to cool. 

N.B. We left the cake in the tin while we did this to try and contain the cake in the syrup as mucvh as possible. 

Garnish the cake with a little zest of lemon and you're done!

Serve with blueberries and creme fraiche- soo delicious!

Good luck eating only one slice.. ours disappeared in a day! Not bad for a gluten-free recipe. Definitely one to make again. 

love, 

Samara

xxx