Tag Archives: chocolate

Banana Cake with Mocha Ganache

October 17, 2010 Keep It Sweet 38 Comments

I usually really like the desserts I bake. Sometimes I love them. And then, every once and a while, I make something new that automatically climbs to my list of top desserts. If this cake isn’t one of those, it sure is close. And without a doubt, I WILL be making the ganache again, and soon!

When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it. Coffee and banana together? That was a flavor combination I had yet to try but was very intrigued. I’ll tell you right now, I was not disappointed! Make this Banana Cake with Mocha Ganache and you will not be either.

This recipe is time consuming, but not very difficult if you have some baking experience. I actually thought the ganache was much easier than the last time I made one (that could be because I was relaxed and not rushed, though).

This banana cake is worth trying, even if you already have a favorite go-to recipe. The flavors are a little different with a richness from the coffee and the delicious scent of cinnamon. This is what you need:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees

Spray your cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper

You then need to sift your dry ingredients; I don’t have a sifter, so I improvised!

This worked out perfectly- goes to show you that you don’t need fancy tools to make delicious desserts

Sift all of your dry ingredients together

Flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt

Then whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside

Next up, cream together the butter and sugar

Do it for a few minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy

Then add the coffee grinds and vanilla

I’m telling you, this makes an excellent addition to the banana cake

Add in your eggs, one at a time

Then add in the half the dry ingredients, banana, and sour cream, mixing between each addition

Mix in the remaining dry ingredients just until combined; don’t overbeat

Divide batter evenly between two 8 or 9-inch cake pans

Bake for ~30 minutes, or until lightly browned and a knife comes out clean

Meanwhile, your ganache is made up of 3 simple ingredients:

You can get started on this while your cake is in the oven

Chop up the chocolate, coarsely, and prepare extra-strong coffee

Slice up your butter and set aside

Now set up your double boiler; bring water to a simmer

Place heat-proof bowl over the pot

Pour the coffee over your chocolate

Continuously stir until chocolate is melted and smooth

Remove bowl from heat and whisk in the butter

Your ganache will get very creamy

Then allow ganache to cool, stirring occasionally

You know it is ready when the mixture gets nice and thick

Time to put together your cake!

Run a knife along the edges of each layer to loosen cake from the pans

Take your serving platter and put it over your bottom layer

Hold pan and platter together as you turn over the pan; the cake layer should come right out

Remove parchment paper; notice that the bottom of the cake is nice and flat which will work nicely for layering

Use a large spatula to spread the ganache

Cover the entire layer

Use the same methodology to flip your top layer onto a separate plate

This way you will have the top layer right-side-up on the cake

To ice the rest of the cake, pour generous amounts of ganache on top and then spread

Be careful not to spread to thin, this will keep you from collecting crumbs on the outside of your frosting

Use up all the ganache, because you can never have too much frosting on a cake

Run the spatula gently around the sides of the cake to smooth out the edges

Store cake at room temperature for up to three days

Banana Cake with Mocha Ganache
Recipe from La Mia Vita Dolce, and originally from David Lebovitz
Serves 12-16

Ingredients:

Banana Cake
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon instant coffee grinds
2 large eggs
6 tablespoons sour cream (I used reduced fat)
2 cups mashed ripe bananas (~5 medium bananas)

Ganache
10 ounces semi-sweet baking chocolate
1/2 cup extra-strong brewed coffee
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Directions:
Banana Cake
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
Spray your cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper
Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt)
Then whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside
Cream together the butter and sugar for a few minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy
Then add the coffee grinds and vanilla and mix
Add in your eggs, one at a time
Then add in the half the dry ingredients, banana, and sour cream, mixing between each addition
Mix in the remaining dry ingredients at low speed, just until combined; don’t overbeat
Divide batter evenly between two 8 or 9-inch cake pans
Bake for ~30 minutes, or until lightly browned and a knife comes out clean

Ganache
Make ganache while cake is in oven
Chop up the chocolate, coarsely, and prepare extra-strong coffee
Slice up your butter and set aside
Now set up your double boiler; bring water to a simmer in medium pot over low-medium heat
Place heat-proof bowl of chocolate over the pot
Pour the coffee over your chocolate
Continuously stir until chocolate is melted and smooth
Remove bowl from heat and whisk in the butter until creamy
Then allow ganache to cool, stirring occasionally
Ganache is ready when the mixture gets nice and thick

Build Your Cake
Run a knife along the edges of each layer to loosen cake from the pans
Take your serving platter and put it over your bottom cake layer
Hold pan and platter together as you turn over the pan; the cake layer should come right out
Remove parchment paper from cake
Put just under a cup of ganache onto the cake layer
Use a large spatula to spread the ganache, covering the entire layer
Use the same methodology to flip your top layer onto a separate plate
Then place layer gently over frosted cake
To ice the rest of the cake, pour generous amounts of ganache on top and then spread
Run the spatula gently around the sides and top of the cake to smooth out the edges
Store cake at room temperature for up to three days

Do you have any new favorite recipes?

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Showing Almond Butter Some Love

October 13, 2010 Keep It Sweet 20 Comments

Bars are such an easy thing to make and serve. Rather than dropping dozens of cookies onto several baking sheets and switching pans in and out of the oven, you can spread the batter into one large pan and bake it in one batch. Once they are done and cool, you just slice and serve. Pieces can be as big or small as you want.

Since I have a ton of baking to do over the next month or so, I have found a few recipes that are less time consuming to mix in with the more complicated desserts. Besides, as it turns out, sometimes the easiest desserts are the most popular! I am really excited about the recipes I will be making over the next several weeks, and I think you will enjoy them as well. This recipe is a good start to the holiday baking season but can be used year round. I was excited when I found it because it uses almond butter as a main ingredient. I haven’t baked with almond butter before, I am more of a die-hard peanut butter lover, but I do enjoy it for variety. This Food &Wine cookbook actually has a ton of great recipes and this recipe for Chocolate Chunk Almond Butter Bars is one of the more simple that I found.

For a change, I didn’t make any tweaks, and I don’t think it needs any. These crispy and chewy bars would be terrific with a glass of milk, but I’ll be serving them among a selection of many other desserts.

The details to the recipe can be found here.

For this recipe you will need a food processor and just a few ingredients

Side note: the hardest part of making these was getting my food processor down from the back corner of my top kitchen shelf

Chop your nuts and set aside

Then mix up the dough in the food processor (you don’t need to clean it between these steps)

Stir in chocolate chips (I used chunks) and chopped almonds.

Spread it out in your baking pan

Bake

Crispy, chewy, delicious

done 3

Have you baked with almond butter before?

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Chewy Chocolaty Cookies with Mint

October 7, 2010 Keep It Sweet 15 Comments

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with these for a while now.

This is sort of my vice (well, I may have a lot of food vices), but this is one that the husband tries not to support (he tries to save room for my desserts instead).

One of my big memories from growing up is making trips to CVS with my mom and sister every time we were at the mall. Our visit was solely to seek out candy on sale. M&Ms, chocolate bars, skittles, you name it we’d buy it (oh, unless it had coconut in it). I grew up with multiple filled candy dishes around the house. As kids, our friends ALWAYS liked coming over for that reason. Actually, I think they still like it as grown-ups:-) Anyway, now after every holiday, I make a trip to CVS to check out what candy is on sale. There is always a use for Hershey Kisses and Reeses Peanut Butter cups in my opinion, even if the candy is orange and brown, pink and red, or red and green. Luckily, if stored well and you can’t decide what to do with it for 10 months, your candy will still be in good shape.

Then, a few days ago, I started thinking about chewy chocolate cookies. Not chocolate chip cookies, but the chocolate chocolate kind that is almost brownie like in flavor and texture. I thought, now this is the perfect use for the mint chocolate bars. Who needs plain chips when you can have minty chocolate chunks instead? I made Chewy Chocolaty Cookies with Mint with this cookie dough recipe.

These cookies are rich, sweet, chocolaty, chewy and really melt in your mouth. They also have a good deal of mint from the candy melting into them when you bake them. The recipe is pretty basic as far as cookies go and the hardest part is just chopping up your chocolates.

Here are the steps:

Chop candy bars into chunks (no precision needed)

Mix together the dry ingredients and set aside

Now, cream your butter and sugar. There is a lot of it, that is why they are so good:-)

Beat in the sugar, eggs and vanilla

Gradually add your dry ingredients with mixer on low. Then mix at medium speed until well-combined

Stir in your candy bar chunks

Drop dough in heaping tablespoons on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake at 375 for 8 minutes

They will come out with only a slight puff (this cookie isn’t meant to be fat and puffy)

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Chewy Chocolaty Cookies with Mint

Makes ~4 dozen large cookies

Ingredients:

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Dash of salt

1 ¼ cup unsalted butter (2 ½ stick) at room temperature

2 cups granulated Sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups chopped mint flavored candy bars (I used an entire 10 ounce bag)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375

Chop candy bars into chunks and set aside

Mix together the dry ingredients, except for sugar, and set aside

Cream your butter and sugar

Beat in the, eggs and vanilla

Gradually add your dry ingredients with mixer on low; then mix at medium speed until well-combined

Stir in chopped candy

Drop dough in heaping tablespoons on baking sheets lined with parchment paper about 2 inches apart

Bake at 375 for 8 minutes or until cookies are slightly puffy

Let cool on cooling rack

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Do you have any surprising vices to share?

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Mix and Match Chocolate Candy Bars

September 20, 2010 Keep It Sweet 9 Comments

Often in the blog world, I find really exciting new foods that are much more expensive than their regular counterparts. Sometimes I give in, but usually I remind myself that spending $15 plus for nut butter is a little bit insane. Ahem, unless they come to me as gifts:-) However, there are occasions when I realize I can make the same item myself at a fraction of the cost.

Have you seen these websites where you can build your own chocolate bar? The companies have all sorts of fun ingredients from dried fruit and nuts to cereals and spices. I’ve checked out this website and this one too, but the high cost has kept me from ordering anything. Lucky for me, and you, this is something fairly easy to do on your own! Here is a very easy recipe for Mix and Match Chocolate Bars.

Step 1: Pick out your ingredients.

The most important part is to pick a good tasting chocolate. If the chocolate you start with doesn’t melt in your mouth and give you that rich satisfying flavor, the final result isn’t going to either. I found Pound Plus 72% Belgium dark chocolate at Trader Joes for just a few dollars! Note that you could make almost a dozen large chocolate bars for this amount of chocolate! You could use white or milk chocolate as well.

As for toppings, feel free to use those websites for inspiration. Go with whatever flavors you like. I knew I wanted to have contrasting flavors and textures so I went with pretzels and peanuts for a crunchy and salty as well as a selection of dried fruits for chewy, tart and sweet. You probably only need about 3 cups total of toppings per pound of chocolate.

Step 2: Set up your space.

You will need 1 medium pot or microwavable bowl for melting your chocolate and a jelly roll pan lined with parchment paper.

For ease of working, you will want to lay out your toppings so that they are easy to access once the chocolate is ready to decorate.

Step 3: Melt the chocolate.

If you do this via microwave, take it slow. Once the chocolate is about 75% melted stir it to eliminate any remaining clumps.

On the stovetop, work with low heat and stir constantly. Again, remove the pot from heat a little before the chocolate is completely melted and stir the rest.

Step 4: Make your chocolate bar!

Spread the melted chocolate out on parchment paper to be about ¼ inch thick.

As soon as it is smoothed out, decorate it with your toppings. Lightly push the nuts/candies/cereal pieces, etc. into the chocolate so that they will stay when it gets hard. Imagine what you want to get in one bite and let that be your inspiration for how dense you want your toppings to be.

Once you finish, let the chocolate cool and harden. Cut bars to desired size. I actually made mine more like bark because I thought it would be better for serving.

Store finished product in an airtight container (5 days) or refrigerator (up to 2 weeks).

Oh, and buy yourself something nice because you saved money on fancy candy bars!

Notes:

Don’t let the chocolate get wet at any point. Your chocolate will discolor.

You can customize this recipe to do as much or as little as you want at a time.

This could make a great gift for the holidays . Use crushed candy cane or ginger snaps for a festive theme.

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Mix and Match Chocolate Bars

Ingredients:

1 pound of chocolate of your choice

3 cups of fun toppings

Directions:

Line jelly roll pan with parchment paper and set aside.

Layout toppings to be easily accessible.

Melt the chocolate on stovetop or in microwave, being careful not to burn.

Spread the melted chocolate out on parchment paper to be about ¼ inch thick.

Let the chocolate cool and harden. Cut bars to desired size.

Store finished product in an airtight container (5 days) or refrigerator (up to 2 weeks).

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What is an expensive food product that you refuse to buy even though you REALLY REALLY want it?

Keep It Sweet Desserts

Tag Archives: chocolate

Banana Cake with Mocha Ganache

Showing Almond Butter Some Love

Chewy Chocolaty Cookies with Mint

Mix and Match Chocolate Candy Bars

Cookie cakes, dessert platters, pop-ups and more!