💛🍌🐒🍫🍞🤎Claire's Crazy Cakes Bakes And Kitchen Hacks -Chapter 83 - Banana And Chocolate Swirl Loaves💛🍌🐒🍫🍞🤎

This morning , being a Saturday morning, I was up at an insane hour of 3am. I really didn't expect anyone to come downstairs and I also almost gave up because we had run out of sugar and Zak had stolen oil from my baking cupboard (for our romantic dinner so he is forgiven 😝). But since I had aready gone to al the effort of finding my loaf baking pans and getting all the ingredients I needed together on the dining room table, I couldn't really give up.

I have had this craving, and so has @merenludick, for banana loaf. As I said, I was wide awake and determined to bake some so I made some magic happen and substituted some ingredients for others, and whether or not it has been successful will obviously be determined with "the proof being in the pudding."

Well, I did go to bed super early last night (about 10h30). @zakludick and I had 3 hours of "alone" time last night as all three kids were out of the house. We used our time (cough, cough 🤫) very efficiently and even had time to share a gorgeous meal of pork rashers, fresh avo and the best potato chips ever. all that excitement rally tired me out though and I totally crashed.

Anyway, I apparently cant sleep more than 5 hours at a time and hence the stupid o'clock rising time.

@aimeludick has work today and her morning schedule also starts super early, so by the time I was set up at 4am, she came downstairs and we had some amazing time together! I find that waking up this early gives me special time with at least 1 person who also wakes up early and we get some really lovely bonding time in.

Earlier this week, it was Zak who was up super early with me, and he and I just plonked away at our keyboards making Ecency posts and having lovely conversations in between. We have hardly had any time together lately as I have had a very bad patch/ flare up of pain and emotional distress/ anxiety/ depression, and Zak has been waking up early, posting before he leaves for work, going to work, coming home making supper and then studying towards his UCT (University of Cape Town) Project Management Course, which meant he only got to bed at 2- 3am, giving him roughly 3 hours of sleep, and since I was binge watching series or desperately trying to make myself sleep, I was basically waiting for him and ended up only being able to go to sleep when he came to bed. My internal body clock has gone to the birds. Mother F****.

I also had some bonding time with @merenludick during the week as, even though he is on holiday, his internal body clock wakes him up early. He's not quite in holiday mode yet, although he's getting there now.

@Matthew-williams has gone to his dad for an undetermined amount of time during the holidays but also had his turn and on his morning, he made me breakfast in bed!
He got to lie next to me and choose what birthday cake he wants. He is turning 13 and I wanted to make something special, but he was insisting on something simple but yummy. First, he pitched a chocolate cake covered with white buttercream icing and Cadbury's Astros, but we found this red velvet image and clicked on the recipe and it definitely won us both over. I have never made red velvet before, so I'm looking forward to the results although I do feel slightly intimidated👀👀👀.

After all, I am very public about my baking adventures and I would really like to add Red Velvet cake and cupcakes to my repertoire!🎂🍥

The kids are all on holiday for three weeks now for the winter break, which is lovely for me because I don't have to be lonely 🥰🥰🥰 and have helpers all day which has really helped me get the rest I have needed to heal/ get a bit of a break from my pain, as I basically get to stay in bed and I am "waited on, hand and foot." I have been trying to bake something yummy for the family as often as I can in return for the love and effort that is shown to me, but also so that I can post and boast a bit😜.

Aime made us hot cocoa this morning (which was delicious!) while I tried to put my evil plan together that I've even been plotting in my sleep. Lol. she was a very helpful baking elf and helped me create what I was hoping to be, something magical out of something experimental. God, I realize now that I truly I find baking so much fun, especially when I'm challenged! food is a love language for me and I was determined that the family wake up to the smell of banana loaf.

So, enough with the background story, lets get down to business, shall we?

Banana And Chocolate Swirl Loaf

Preparation:

The idea was some how to combine chocolate and banana muffin mix to make like a half half thing with muffins. Meren said that he had been craving banana loaves and since I have annoyingly also run out of baking paper cups, I had plenty of baking paper and two lovely loaf tins, ready to go.

The recipe below can be used for both muffins and loaves. The ingredients for both muffins and loaves are pretty much the same. It's just the baking times and temperatures that differ, with muffins being around 35-40 minutes at 180° Celsius and loaves being baked at about 200° deg Celsius and a baking time of about 45-50 minutes.

I was making the latter, so I preheated the oven to around 200° Celsius.

I then very generously sprayed my baking tins with Spray and Cook and lined them with baking paper. This might seem like overkill for non-stick pans, but I have been traumatized by cakes sticking to the bottom before, but this was when I used to grease the baking pans with butter/margarine/oil. You just cant beat Spray and Cook.

Ingredients:
(English measurements)

• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 1/4 cup sprinkling nuts
• 1 and1/4 cups icing sugar (because it was 4 in the morning and we had run out of ordinary sugar - which meant all the shops were closed, but I was awake and and determined to make this work!. I didn't even have any brown sugar or castor sugar! So the tick is for every cup of granulated sugar, you need to use 1/14 cups of icing sugar although it's not recommended as a substitute as icing sugar contains additives like shortening and anticaking agents that affect certain recipes. Especially cakes. It's recommended that you "compensate" but they didn't say how, so I just used a little extra baking powder and a little extra oil as indicated in this recipe.)
• 4 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cups of milk (of your choice - I used regular full-fat dairy)
  *1 and 1/4 cups of oil (of your choice - I used sunflower)
• Vanilla essence - I rarely actually measure this out. I just pour till I feel satisfied. As I've said numerous times, "I let my ancestors guide me"😜❤️) I suppose it equated to about 3 tablespoons. I'm normally very generous with it.
• 6 large mashed bananas
• 1/4 cup cocoa (again that's an estimate. I did not actually measure this, I just chucked in what was left in the bag that I wanted to use up as it wasn't enough for a whole recipe of chocolate cake or much else, but would work nicely in this swirl recipe)
• 4 teaspoons of cinnamon ( roughly - letting my ancestors guide me again 😍)

Tools:

• An accurate measuring cup
• Scissors
• Baking Paper - remember, shiny side up!
• Spray and Cook
• 2 x large loaf baking trays
• A large bowl for mixing
• A big wooden mixing spoon
• a big serving spoon
• A teaspoon
• A Soup or dessert spoon
• A fork and a bowl for beating the eggs and mashing bananas
• A cloth for sticky fingers

Method:
Remember to spray and line your tins before you get started and preheat your oven to around 200 degrees Celsius.

Beat the eggs gently and add to the bowl.

Next, mash the bananas and add that in.

After those two things, everything else can literally just be chucked in (gently).

Do not over mix as this will cause your loaves to flop/ not rise, however, do make sure that all your ingredients are well combined. No one wants a mouthful of baking powder!🤦‍♀️

I left the cocoa out for the first round, my base being ordinary banana loaf.

I spooned in a quarter each of the entire base mixture into each pan.

I then added the cocoa and mixed that in. I spooned that on top and used a chopstick to make a sort of "swirl effect" by just dragging it in a zigzag across the two-layered mixture.

I almost forgot the nut sprinkles, but Aime helped me add them just before baking!

I Originally set the timer for 40 minutes, but when I took the loaves out, they failed the skewer test - inserting a skewer into the loaf: if it comes out clean, the loaf is cooked through, If it comes out with mixture on it, it has to go back into the oven, and fast.-
so I returned them to the oven for another 10 minutes, thinking that I had selected the correct temperature and the bake setting but totally forgetting to turn the main oven switch on the wall back on. However, it worked as the residual heat from the oven was enough to do the job.

The result was this:

It turned out PERFECTLY

I tried a slice just on it's own and it's so lovely, soft and moist that it can just be eaten as is, but I added a little butter to mine, luxuriously, for my well earned breakfast! And I am busy munching as I edit the rest of this blog 😜😍😋🤤