Chocolate Nut Butter Banana Muffins

Costco, or the " Hundred-dollar store" as I like to call it, has amazing deals, yes?

Bananas for example, you get something like 10 bananas for a little over a dollar. Of course, when you bought them you had every intention of eating them on a daily basis ( for the potassium, you know) and were confident the rest of your family would join in, making sure the bananas disappeared in a matter of days.

.....Except you didn't and they didn't, and now you are left with a pile of bananas similar to this:

I had begun to doubt my baking abilities. Recently, my baking experiments were not coming out up to par, I think the latest one could be best described as an unintentional Pake ( See, Drop Dead Diva).  But, thankfully, I've redeemed myself -- even without eggs at my disposal I managed to create a winner today :)

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
 3 tbsp flax seed, opened with a few tablespoons of water
2 cups banana
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoon baking powder
10 squares trader joes dark chocolate ( lb)
1/3 cup sour cream

Directions

• Preheat oven to 360F
• Mix dry ingredients and set aside
• Cream together butter, peanut butter, almond butter, vanilla  and sugar until soft and creamy
• Add eggs, or in my case the egg replacement ( flax seed meal + water) and vanilla extract
• Now add the bananas.... cream until nice and smooth
• Add half of the dry ingredients, then the sour cream
• Add the second half of the dry ingredients
• fold in chocolate (chips)
• Bake for 25 minutes

PURE. CHOCOLATE. DECADENCE

Flourless Chocolate Cake
adapted from Cocao Web

2 sticks ( 1 cup) unsalted butter
Milk Chocolate ( 10 squares of the Traders Joes 1lb block)
Dark Chocolate ( 10 square of the Trader Joe's 1lb block)
1 inch of vanilla bean
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
5 eggs, separated

Ganache
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
5 sqaures milk chocolate
10 squares dark chocolate

Directions
 Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cake pan with wax parchment paper, or grease and dust the pan with cocoa powder.

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a double boiler along with the scraped interior of the vanilla bean.  In a separate bowl whisk 1/2 cup sugar with the egg yolks ( keep the egg whites in the fridge for now). Then, slowly add the melted chocolate mixture to the egg yolk to temper, and prevent it from scrambling. Whisk it in well.

Next, whisk the egg whisk the egg whites, slowly adding the other 1/2 cup of the brown sugar until it has stiff peaks.

Now, slowly fold the egg whites into the chocolate/eggs. Simply put, its beautiful.

Once the two have been successfully combine, pour it into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes.

The cake will come out with a crust, you can choose to leave it on or take it off. I chose to take it off in order to get a certain look. 

Make the ganache by melting the chocolate in the heavy cream in a double boiler. Once melted let it set for about 5  minutes, then pour over the cake.

 If you like chocolate , you will LOVE this cake. Perfect for Valentine's day ;)

50% of Your Daily Vitamin A Needs....

... IN A MUFFIN!

A Chocolately muffin at that.

This muffin has even less calories than the previous "autumn muffins" and came out to be moist, fluffly and satisfying.  When I was making the batter, it looked look chocolate mousse. Though, I'm going to need your help in coming up for a name. Any suggestions???

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup flour
1 serving Ghiradelli 60% Cocoa chips
2 eggs
3/4 pumpkin puree
1 medium ripe banana
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp organic sour cream
1/4 cup Ghiradelli semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
1/2 tsp cinnammon
1 tsp vanilla essence

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F


Melt the butter in the microwave ( preferebly a medium to large size mixing bowl)
Stir in the 60% cocoa chocolate chips until melted
Make sure the mixture is cool and whisk in two eggs ( if it is two warm, the eggs will cook, and u'll have choclate scrambled eggs)
Add the vanilla essence, pumpkin and banana and whisk
Next, stir in the sugar and sour cream
Finally, slowly add in the dry ingredients( flour, Baking powder/soda, pumpkin spice and cinnamon) .
Slowly stir until well incorperated, it should look light and fluffly ( mousse-like)
In the end, mix in the semisweet chocolate chips.

Place the batter in a muffin pan
Top each muffin with a few chocolate chips ( optional)

Bake for about 40-50 minutes checking on the muffins once the smell begins to permeate your kitchen.

Enjoy.... and please help me pick a name!! Thanks hehe