Nutella banana bread is to die for

The girls love that I bake, and sometimes like to join in.  So this Nutella Banana Bread was a special request for one of them.  She remembered it from a few months back, and was sure it was to die for so wanted to have some more.

Personally I didn't remember it that way, but I'm not so keen on bananas as the kids are - though I am coming around to them slowly - but I do love chocolate, and Nutella.  We always have some bananas in the house (and Nutella for that matter) because they're such a nutritious, healthy and handy snack to have, so this cake may well have been made with some slightly overripe bananas - it doesn't affect the taste or texture of the final bake so I think it's a great way to use them up.

I like chocolate (did I mention that?) so I added in some totally unnecessary chocolate chips to the mix.

Then drizzled over lots of melted Nutella, in the middle and on top.

And baked it.

And shared it round.  Mmmm, that didn't last long (but it stayed deliciously moist while we had it). 

Peanut butter choc chip banana cookies, or how to use up bananas

As usual, I am way behind in updating you with all the baking that's been going on here at Becca Towers over the last few months.  I always meant, right from the outset, to blog at the very least weekly so that you would have an idea of how often and what types of things we were baking in the The Kitchen.  But then things happen - kids have toddler groups, and then school and after-school activities, and playdates and so on, and updating the blog with all the info and photos on the computer gets moved to the bottom of the priority list.  It's not that it's not important, just not in the same league as getting name tags sewn on to clothes, or organising gym kits, or swimming lessons and so forth.

So there's another baking blogger I like to read, Rose Bakes, and she has much the same issues in her blogging life - she bakes more often than I, and homeschools her 6 kids, so is even busier than me.  I think she just doesn't sleep, otherwise how does she manage?  :)  So anyway, she is honest and just blogs a post and says 'Oh, I made these last October...' so I think I may head along that path...  What do you think??

But just to mix things up a bit, I have a bit of time now so I'm going to quickly tell you about the cookies that Mini-2 and I made a few hours ago!!  School resumed after our lovely long and busy 6 week summer holidays this week, and Mini-2 had asked to make (or technically, eat) some chocolate chip cookies.  Then this recipe popped up on my Facebook newsfeed and I was sold.  I mean, don't you always have one or two slightly overripe bananas in the house?  No?  Oh, just me then, ha ha.

It's been many years that I've been baking regularly, and if you've been following the blog or my Facebook page, you'll recall that Mini-1 is bored of cake - won't even eat it if she's away from home - but Mini-2 still enjoys whatever I bake.  She really enjoys helping too, whether it's baking or cooking we're doing (Mini-1 not so much).  So here she is adding the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

And this next shot is a gratuitous one really, just so we can see that she's grown, but still likes a wee helping hand to reach into the bowl more easily.

Once both the Reese's peanut butter chips (imported by a pupil from his family's holiday to Florida late last year) and chocolate chips were added the mixture had to be cooled.

And thus we have the result - the first batch quite soft and golden-coloured (I didn't like those as much, but The Team preferred them) and subsequent batches more tanned and crunchy.  A not too-strong taste of banana and I'd say we have a winner folks!!  

Choc chip spiced banana loaf

I was really enjoying the taste of the pumpkin pie spice, and we had some bananas going spare... so Spiced Banana Loaf was born!!

It went down a storm with The Team, and the select few taste-testers who were lucky enough to get some.  A definite winner for next autumn!

Christmas cupcakes in winter-fun flavours

P and B fancied an end-of-school/Christmas treat, so asked for a dozen cupcakes in Red Velvet and Banoffee (spiced banana cupcakes with toffee buttercream icing).  I had bought some gorgeous icing toppers from Jade at The Cupcake Company, and was only too keen to use them and make decorations to coordinate.  You'll recognise them from the Teacher treats post, as they were done soon after.  

I had just recently visited my local TK Maxx store, here in Dundee, and bought myself some Jem bow cutters.  I've tried in vain to make bows free-hand, based upon watching a selection of YouTube videos, and despaired of ever doing them well.  Then I spotted the small bow cutter set at the store, and didn't think twice.  I was able to follow the instructions, and was really pleased with the result.

These decorations were really fun to make, and coordinated well with the vintage style toppers I planned to use on the Red Velvet cupcakes.  

The banoffee ones I did a little bit differently this time, as I had some toffee sauce leftover. 

They look pretty luscious, right??!  They got great reviews too  :)

Too many bananas this time...

Ok, so sometimes we're not so efficient at the weekly food shopping.  I'm not sure efficient is the correct word, but I mean we over-estimate our needs and so end up with too much of an item.  This time it was bananas, and what better way to use them than to bake?  Obviously, a smoothie comes to mind, but I don't really know how to do one healthily (they always have ice-cream and chocolate sauce, don't they?) and am bored of Banana Bread/Loaf cake (as are The whole Team). 

I wanted to try something from my other birthday book, Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache, so had a wee read through.  And discovered that not only did I not have any white rice flour, I didn't have a courgette (yes, seriously.  And that's a zucchini to you non-Europeans out there) and some other slightly obscure ingredient.  So back to the almost fail-safe Hummingbird book 1 and their Banana Chocolate cupcakes. 

Things seemed quite simple and straightforward but when it came to mashing the banana before adding it, I baulked.  Regrettably or otherwise, I simply don't like bananas.  Never have, as far as I can recall - I blame my mother (sorry Mum) as she can't stand the smell and as far as I can remember, didn't even have them in the house!  Suffice it to say, I don't want the kids growing up as fussy as I seem to be (but don't feel that I am) so we have them, and they eat them and love them - mostly.  Getting back to the point, I chickened out of mashing it and releasing more banana vapour and just cut it and popped it into the mixer.  Sooooo.... there were chunks of banana throughout the otherwise runny mixture, which went into 16 cases then into the oven.

Just a matter of minutes later, they came out - looking and smelling wonderful, thanks to the inclusion of a few spices in the mix.  I couldn't resist, so bit into one almost immediately - wow!  Soft and moist and fab.

Then onto the icing.  I'm still trying to copy the lovely fat icing swirl that Georgetown Cupcake have as their signature swirl (somewhat unsuccessfully I feel), so used my Wilton 1A nozzle and went for it.  What do you think?

I added a touch of gold lustre spray and chocolate decorations, and they were just delicious!!  A few friends taste-tested and loved them.  Mr Becca agreed but felt that he could hardly taste the banana (I know, great) but the girls felt there was something  not quite right about them, the spices I guessed.  Ah well, you can't please all of the people all of the time ;)

I took some around to my friend Jill, who runs Aspire2be creative photography and she took a fab photo of them.  What do you think?

National Baking Week UK

No sooner has National Chocolate Week finished, than National Baking Week starts.  Come on, guys - do we need help to get into the kitchen?

In honour, I started with a refridgerator Mars Bar Slice and dusted it with neon orange and graphite grey/blue glitter, as Halloween is the next upcoming holiday.  Here's a full-frontal shot, with the little pots of gorgeous glitter...

And a sexy interiors shot...

Mr Becca likes banoffee and had bought the ingredients to make the recipe on the back of the pack of dried banana chips.  It wasn't hard, just crush up the digestive biscuits and some banana chips and mix with melted butter.  Press into the base of a 20cm tin and cool in fridge.  Then whip up mascarpone cheese, banana yoghurt and some icing sugar for one layer and melt brown sugar and butter with condensed milk for the other.  Finally decorate with choc-dipped dried banana chips (you'll note that I didn't choc-coat the chips...).  So I made it for him just now, but he says he's not hungry.  Grrrr

Bananas are my least favourite fruit, so here's hoping he tucks in soon!

P.S. I took it to a friend's for lunch the next day and they all loved it, but felt it would have been better with fresh rather than dried banana, so you wouldn't have that crunch on top.  Mr Becca had some this evening and pronounced it good - yay!!