Monday, October 13, 2008

Hazelnut, Chocolate & Banana Bread


From my apartment’s window I have a beautiful view on... squirrels. Only for my first few months in Canada, I have seen more squirrels, than during my whole life in Poland. I love to watch them jumping in the trees, running next to the window, or eating delicious nuts. Today, I got jealous of the squirrels delicacies, and decided to bake something with nuts too.

I opted for Nut, Chocolate & Banana Bread from one of my favorite food blogs, La Tartine Gourmande. The author of the blog, Béatrice Peltre takes the best food (and not only food !!! ) pictures I’ve ever seen. And I don’t mean only the quality (even though this is highly professional too), but mainly the food styling. Served on colorful dishes, decorated with fruit, flowers, and fresh herbs, Béa’s cakes, desserts and other meals, look so delicious that it makes you want to eat them all right away and ask for more ;)

The original recipe asked for walnuts, but since I was feeling more like hazelnuts today (Aren’t they squirrels’ favorite nuts???), I replaced them. Also, I increased slightly the amount of chocolate and I used milk chocolate in place of dark chocolate. Even though I think dark chocolate would be delicious as well.


The hazelnut and chocolate combination turned out perfect as usual. The bread tastes absolutely delicious. I don’t know if it’s the flour, or the addition of almond butter (which, I absolutely love, by the way), but the bread has a very original flavor I have never encountered before. Both I and my husband truly loved it :)

The recipe below is my adapted version of B
éa's bread. The original version of the recipe can be found on her food blog, here.

Hazelnut, Chocolate and Banana Bread

¾ cup (100 g) quinoa flour
½ cup (80 g) white rice flour
½ cup (80 g) tapioca starch
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed

2/3 cup (150 g) blond cane sugar

2 tbsp almond butter
1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil or canola oil

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

¾ cup (80 g) hazelnut, toasted

3 tbsp pumpkin seeds, toasted

¾ cup (75 g) milk chocolate, roughly chopped

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanill
a extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350
°F (180°C)
2.
Grease and flour an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch loaf pan.
3.
In a bowl (or using stand mixer equipped with a paddle), lightly beat the sugar with eggs.
4. Add the oil and almond butter, and then vanilla extract.
5.
Add mashed bananas, mix until smooth.
6.
In a separate bowl, combine quinoa flour, white rice flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, and baking powder.
7. Fold in the egg mixture. Stir until combined.

8
. Add nuts and chocolate and stir until the ingredients are just combined.
9.
Place the butter into the loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool before unmolding.

Przepis po polsku:
Ciasto orzechowo-bananowe z czekoladą

3 comments:

La Tartine Gourmande said...

Wonderful! Thanks for making the recipe, and the feedback. I am thrilled to hear that you and your husband liked it.

Anonymous said...

Perfect timing for a banana cake. The recipe sounds great and the photos look wonderful. Can't wait to try this!

GollyGumDrops said...

This looks great, I've got into a relaxing habit of baking a cake loaf of some sort every Sunday, and I'm ready to get a little more adventurous, I'll give this a go next week, but will have to leave out the chocolate as I have one allergic person in the house. It's not as bad as it sounds, it keeps my chocolate consumption under control!