Finally Back, Small Recap. Dorie's Cocoa-Nana Bread

It feels like I haven't been blogging in months. I just clicked on the link then only to find it has been since June.

All that was left after a day...

Some exciting news! Finally opened my own Pilates Studio. Everything is quite busy at the moment which is great but not so great when you love cooking and cannot seem to find the time these days.

Quite a bit has been going on lately and I often use cooking as a stress release. Some people meditate. I simply cannot. There is something so comforting about baking. Maybe its the concentration needed to bake something with 20+ steps that in the end leads you being so consumed in the recipe the simple thing on your mind in the first place has somehow now disappeared...

Being always on the go I sometimes find it hard to make a decent breakfast. However one of my favourites is a protein shake blitzed up with a frozen banana. When I go to the supermarket I will always stock up when they have a special on those big bags of blackened bananas. Usually $1 for 2kg! Steal.

However due to the small space of my freezer, I somehow was left with quite a few banana and no recipe inspiration coming to mind. A few months ago I recently bought myself Dorie Greenspans Baking Book and weekly will check the blogs doing Tuesdays With Dorie, or TWD.

Something that caught my attention was Dorie's Cocoa-Nana Bread. At first I turned up my nose at the combination of chocolate and banana considering they are too very different flavours... if you are thinking this too, change your mind RIGHT NOW! Seriously an amazing loaf cake. Very dense, very moist and very easy. At first I was worried I had overcooked it as the centre was still quite gooey. The recipe reads to let it cool but being the impatient person I am I began to ate it and thought it was - just okay.

After coming home from teaching 6 hours this morning I had a piece, only to find that 'just okay' had now become, 'Wow I cannot believe I made THIS at that hour of the night'. (For a Pilates Instructor with very early morning starts, I seem to have a strange addiction to the middle of the night).

If you are bored. Have some bananas and are looking for something a little different. I would definitely give it a go.

For the recipe see Dorie Greenspan: From My Home To Yours. Or alternatively google, Dorie Greenspan Cocoa-Nana Bread.

I also thought I would include some snaps of what I have been cooking over the past few months considering I doubt I could ever go a week without cooking something insanely naughty...

Torta Alla Gianduia

I FINALLY RECEIVED MY KITCHENAID! YAYAYAY

Yesterday my father picked up my beautiful candy apple red kitchenaid for my birthday. Although my birthday is the 31st of August I was allowed to have an extra extra early birthday present for the fact that like myself, my parents are addicted to food and couldn't deprive themselves of all the sweets that I would be churning out.

Being extremely sentimental, I decided that I HAD to make something uber special that I would remember forever. After browsing through every cook book I own (I probably own close to 40) I stumbled upon my favourite, How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. A book that I hardly ever use surprisingly even though its a favourite. I think mainly because of the amount of sugary goodness in all of her recipes. Not exactly for the health conscious.

I finally decided on the Torta Alla Gianduia. Consisting of chocolate and nuts, my two favourite things.

Fairly simple to make and much like any torte I was quite pleased with how it turned out and the beautiful flavour it had. Extremely rich, a beautiful textured cake and the ganache complemented it very well. You don't need much and coming from me that is saying something.

I decided to decorate mine a little differently as well. Nigella, in her variation, toasted the hazelnuts then scattered them on top. In attempt to make mine look a little more posh, i roughly chopped them and made a circular pattern with some in the middle.




Recipe: Torta Alla Gianduia by Nigella Lawson

Cake:
6 large eggs, separated
pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella
1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water
100g ground hazelnuts
100g dark chocolate melted

Icing:
100g hazelnuts
125ml double cream
1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water
125g dark chocolate

Butter and line with grease proof paper a 23cm spring form pan and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a large bowl whisk eggs whites and salt until stiff but not dry.

In a separate bowl beat butter and nutella together. Add frangelico (or whatever you are using), egg yolks, and ground hazelnuts. Fold in cooled, melted chocolate, then add egg whites in 4 batches gentling folding all together.

Pour into prepared tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cakes beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.

Toast hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden brown in parts, making sure you keep shaking the pan so they do not burn. Transfer to a plate then let cool and roughly chop.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur and chopped chocolate and heat gently. Once the chocolate has melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until all lumps are remove. Refrigerate until mixture slightly thickens then ice the top of the cake. Garnish cake with hazelnuts and serve.

NOTE: I found it VERY hard to remove cake from spring form tin without it mildly splitting. I found it sort of 'glued' itself back together with the ganache.

Torta Caprese

In celebration of my mothers birthday I made her favourite cake, a Torta Caprese. Intensely chocolately with a gooey texture inside like a brownie with the outside browned slightly and crisp like meringue. Its gluten free which makes it that little bit richer for the fact its packed with almond meal (yum).

Sorry about my poor quality photos, thats what you get with a 2 megapixel camera phone and a shakey hand.


RECIPE
By Sophie Grigson, from Wicked by Delicious Magazine.

200g unsalted butter
200g dark chocolate
4 eggs separated
170g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g almond meal
Icing sugar and cocoa powder, to dust
Serve with icecream

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. on fan forced oven. Grease and line 24cm springform cake pan with non stick baking paper.
Melt butter and set aside to cool.
Meanwhile, process chocolate or coursely chop making sure chocolate still retains a little texture.
Place egg yolks, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat until pale and thick. Fold in chocolate, butter and almond meal. (The mixture should be very thick)
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggwhites until soft peaks form. Gently fold the chocolate mixture into the egg whites in three lots using a big metal spoon.
Spoon into the cake pan, level the surface and bake for about 50-60 minutes (my oven cooked it in around 40) or until just firm to touch.
Set aside to cook in pan then remove.
Serve dusted with cocoa and icing sugar and with a scoop of vanilla icecream.

Enjoy.