Banana Avocado Bread with Pecans and Chocolate Chips

Easily, the best perk of working in a restaurant is all the free food. I take my perk payment in the form of dessert: lots and lots of dessert. The best part is the tiramisu, hands down. Owing to the way the tiramisu is cut from its large, rectangular, metal tray, there are always scraps leftover. I like to tell people I’m helping to clean the tray by hoofing into the scraps, and I like to think the dishwashers appreciate it. I certainly appreciate the dishwashers at our restaurant: three lovely guys – Franklin, Mario and Antonio –  with not too much English between them. It didn’t take them long to realise that offering me up platefuls of leftover dessert elicits joyful dancing and squeals of delight during service so this recipe is for them. I hope they like it. It’s moist and sticky and totally delicious. I’m not normally a fan of things that taste like banana but I had to restrain myself from devouring this bread after I pulled it from the oven.

175g / ¾ cup butter, softened

250g / 1 1/3 cup brown sugar + approx 25g for the top

2 medium eggs, beaten

2 medium, ripe bananas, mashed

1 summer avocado, finely chopped

100g / ½ cup pecans, chopped + a handful of whole pecans for decoration

100g / ½ cup dark chocolate chips

300g / 2½ cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

 

1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Grease a 1lb loaf tin (9″ x 5″ x 2.5″) and line the base with baking paper.

2. Beat together the softened butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

3. Add the mashed banana and finely chopped avocado. Mix with a wooden spoon.

4. Add the chopped pecans and chocolate chips.

5. Combine the flour and baking powder. Add to the wet mixture and mix well until the flour is completely incorporated. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin. Sprinkle over the extra brown sugar and arrange the pecans on top. Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 15 mins or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Keep an eye on the sugar and pecans on top. If they are starting to burn, cover with foil.

 

Easter Sunday Crêpes

Big Joe and I had great plans for a fun food blowout on Easter Sunday, including a breakfast of crêpes and a dinner of lamb chops with caramelized onion chickpea mash. Well, we certainly accomplished the crêpe task but we did too much grazing during the day (hot dogs and empanadas at Eastern Market; beer, ice-cream and pop tarts at Ted’s Bulletin) to manage any kind of dinner. But, oh well…

Crêpes

3 eggs

2/3 cup flour

1 cup milk

Generous pinch of salt

 

1. In a medium bowl, make a well in the centre of the flour, add the eggs and beat til incorporated. Add the salt then gradually add the milk, beating well and scraping down the sides to make a smooth, runny batter. Leave, covered, for about an hour, to allow the batter to thicken.

2. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan over a high-medium heat and grease with plenty of butter, making sure to grease the sides too. Use a ladle to spoon the batter into the pan, swirling the pan around the coat the bottom evenly. Cook for 1-2 mins per side.

Big Joe made a lovely sweet syrup by heating butter, golden syrup and lemon juice in a pan.

Super simple and totally delicious. I managed to steal a shot before we gobbled it all up.

The Elvis Presley Breakfast

I made pancakes again last Saturday morning using my trusty pancake recipe. I used double the amount because I was cooking for three large men. Sadly, I had to run out to view a house (I’m finally going to have my own place with Big Sister!) and The Other Joe had to do some photography work at the market so it was just my Big Joe and Tim the Toolman to demolish the epic pile of fluffy, golden pancakes. Big Joe added some bacon and made a delicious potato hash with kale, using the potatoes we found in the garden plot when we were digging! But despite the appetites of the two hungry men, a sizeable pile of pancakes still remained.

The next morning, The Other Joe had the ingenious idea of using the leftover pancakes to make peanut-butter and nutella sandwiches. Then I had the ingenious idea of frying the sandwiches in butter. Then Big Joe had the ingenious idea of adding bacon, maple syrup and a fried egg on top. Quinn, who was, incidentally, the birthday girl, also had the ingenious idea of adding whisky to her morning cup of coffee so it was a wonderful and naughty collaborative breakfast indeed.

However, I couldn’t help but hear Jamie Oliver’s voice in my ear as I tucked into my deathly delicious pancake sandwich. Having only watched him present a TED Talk in the previous twenty-four hours, I was very much aware that this is the kind of food that can kill you. Thankfully, we’re all sensible adults and this kind of breakfast happens maybe once a year, if at all. So take note, DO NOT feed this kind of thing to your kids, no matter how much they like it and how much they beg for it. And DON’T make this if you have any concerns for your heart or cholesterol levels. We balanced our unhealthy breakfast with plenty of fresh fruit and veggies.

M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies

Big Joe was rather cranky last week so I thought I’d make him some cookies in the hopes of getting a smile out of him. He said he loved chocolate chip cookies so, after work one night, I ran to the Rite Aid around the corner from the restaurant before hopping on the metro. But they didn’t have chocolate chips! I grabbed a bag of plain M&Ms and some Lindt white chocolate instead.

Making cookies at midnight is a totally new experience for me. I wanted to have them baked and ready to eat by the time Big Joe came home at about 2am. By that time, I was seriously fading. Happily, the cookies tasted absolutely great and everyone loved them, including The Other Joe and Tim, who were in the basement building the sauna (I know). Big Joe was smiling from ear to ear and said they were the best cookies he’d ever had.

The recipe is just your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe I found with the help of my friend Google.

1 cup butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp hot water

½tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips/M&Ms

100g/3.5 oz white chocolate cut into small pieces

 

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C/ 350 F.

2. Soften the butter and beat together with both sugars until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

3.  In a cup, dissolve the baking soda in the hot water. Add this to the butter mixture, then add the salt and mix together.

4. Mix in the flour then add the chocolate chips/M&Ms and white chocolate pieces, stirring until well incorporated.

5. Spoon rounded teaspoonfuls of cookie batter onto greased baking sheets and bake for 12-14 mins, or until the cookies are nicely golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Wellington Squares

Wellington Squares go by many different names including Caramel Squares and Millionaire’s Shortbread. They are flamin’ delicious regardless. I snagged this recipe from the lovely Avoca Café cookbook (so you’ll notice the measurements go by grams), a recipe my sister also regularly whips up for friends. They’re always a huge hit – watch how hungry sugar fiends stuff whole squares into their mouths, one after another.

I have added salt to my caramel because, after several taste tests, I decided they needed an extra kick. Start with 1-2 tsp of kosher salt when the caramel is almost ready and go up from there, depending on how salty you like it (goes great with really dark chocolate!).

350g self-raising flour*

225g cold butter (recipe calls for unsalted butter but you can use plain old salted butter)

110g caster sugar

 

225g caster sugar

225g butter (same as above)

5 tblsp golden syrup

397ml tin of condensed milk

1-2tsp kosher + (optional)

 

340g chocolate, preferably 60% +

 

* You can make your own self-raising flour: mix together 3 cups flour (384g) + 3¾ tsp baking powder + ¾tsp salt. Run a whisk through the flour mixture to aerate it a little.

 

1. Preheat the oven to 175 C / 350 F.

2. Dice the butter into cubes and cut into the flour until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar. Press the mixture into a 9 x 13 baking tray. Bake for 20mins or until golden.

3. For the caramel: Over a medium heat, melt together the butter, caster sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk in a medium saucepan. Stir continuously for 40-50mins until the mixture has thickened and turned a lovely golden colour. Add the salt to taste.

4. Spread the caramel mixture evenly over the crumb base and leave aside, or in the fridge, to firm up.

5. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or using a double boiler. Spread evenly over the caramel and leave aside to harden. Cut into squares and serve!