Nigel Slater’s Chocolate Muscovado Banana Bread
I do like Nigel Slater, I like his style of cooking and I like his writing. I don’t, however, make many of his recipes because I generally operate freestyle when it comes to every day cooking. But when Sue of A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate and Janice of Farmersgirl Kitchen started #dishofthemonth, a new monthly challenge to cook Nigel’s recipes, it seemed like a good time to find out what chocolate recipes he might have up his sleeve.
I made these chocolate biscuits for the first challenge, but haven’t managed to participate again until now.
With a pile of bananas in the fruit bowl I thought I’d better try out his chocolate muscovado banana bread which I found in my pile of recipe scraps and cuttings (source sadly not recorded). As per usual I didn’t follow the recipe exactly and used wholemeal flour rather than white. I altered quantities, made a few additions and I used a bar of Green & Black’s butterscotch chocolate that I’d been saving up for just such an occasion. Butterscotch and bananas make natural bedfellows and I couldn’t see how this would do anything but add to the final sumptuousness.
This is how I made:
Banana Chocolate Butterscotch Bread
- Mashed 5 peeled small bananas (made about 300g)
- Roughly chopped 100g bar butterscotch milk 34% chocolate (G&B).
- Creamed 125g unsalted butter with 225g dark muscovado sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Beat in 1 tsp chocolate extract.
- Beat in 2 duck eggs, one by one.
- Sifted in 230g wholemeal flour, 1 scant tsp maca, 1 heaped tsp mesquite, 2 level tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
- Stirred this in together with 1 dessertspoon of malt vinegar.
- Added the banana and chocolate, stirred until just combined then turned into a 2 lb loaf mould. I found there was too much mixture, so made a mini loaf as well.
- Baked at 180C for about 45 minutes until it was well risen and a cake tester came out with just a few moist crumbs sticking to it. The mini loaf was ready after about 20 minutes.
- Left to cool for about 15 minutes then turned out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
I was so right about using the butterscotch chocolate, it elevated a good banana cake into the hoped for heights of unputdownable deliciousness. It was moist, tasted of bananas, but had a rich caramel flavour – the bottom notes of banana really allowed the butterscotch to sing. The downside of all this of course, was that this particular banana loaf didn’t last anywhere near as long as some of its predecessors. As CT put it it, “it was a victim of it’s own success and had it coming”.
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Our Monthly Chocolate Challenge
manu
27th May 2013
Stunning!!
Have a nice week
Choclette
29th May 2013
Thank you Manu
Katie
27th May 2013
Looks fabulous! Love the idea of using the dark caramely sugar.
Choclette
29th May 2013
Thanks Katie, it’s a flavour that works well with bananas.
Foodycat
27th May 2013
Looks good! I think it was on his Simple Suppers show – I certainly saw a repeat on iplayer that looked similar!
Choclette
29th May 2013
Ahh, I didn’t get to see the man himself make this, but it would be good to know the source.
Janice Pattie
27th May 2013
Thanks for joining us for Dish of the Month again, you are always welcome. I’m not great for sticking to the recipes either, but I think that works really well with Nigel Slater recipes as he tends to operate that way too. I’d love a slice of that banana bread, it sounds heavenly.
Torviewtoronto
27th May 2013
deliciously done
Kate@whatkatebaked
27th May 2013
I love CT’s comment- and rightly deserved from your wonderful descriptions! Do you think The Great Britsh Bake Off is need of a third judge?! I too am a big fan of Nigel’s
Baking Addict
27th May 2013
I do love a good banana bread especially paired with chocolate and butterscotch – how could I resist? 🙂
Caroline
27th May 2013
Oh yum! I think this is very similar to one I’ve just made and posted about. Muscovado sugar works so wonderfully well with bananas and that G&B Butterscotch chocolate is so delicious I can imagine it improved the recipe too!
Susan
27th May 2013
OH thats lovely! I can imagine the butterscotch really made it, will have to try this one…if I can stop myself from eating the choccie. xxx
Cheah ~ No-Frills Recipes
28th May 2013
I like the first picture, creative and natural. Cake…. looks yummy too!
snowy
28th May 2013
It looks delicious, and I love the use of butterscotch chocolate. I’m a Nigel fan too, and didn’t know about Dish of the Month, so will have a look.
thelittleloaf
28th May 2013
Obviously banana bread/cake is on both our minds – I just posted a similar recipe! This cake looks absolutely gorgeous – I love Nigel’s recipes and have made the original but would love to try it with your tweaks.