Tuesday, January 26, 2010

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread


There are some weeks at Tuesday's with Dorie that feel like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders. Where one bad decision could upset the balance of nature. Like this week, where TWD bakers the world over wrestled with the age-old question, "do chocolate and bananas really go together?"

One look at this deep, dark, chocolatey bread and I can hear you saying "what bananas?"


Oh, they're there all right... exactly as dictated by this week's TWD recipe, Cocoa-Nana Bread, chosen by Steph of Obsessed with Baking.

Yep, I decided to defer the decision and potentially life-altering results by baking the recipe exactly as written.

Thank goodness.

I thought this bread was fantastic, very chocolatey with just the right hint of banana flavor. Moist too. (You should try it toasted, with butter... oy vay!)

Here's the one thing I did change up... I down-sized my loaf pan and made half batch. (I thought I was very clever, until I remembered that I stole this idea from Audax Artifex, a Daring Baker.)

Anyway, check this out, it's cool...

I took a piece of cardboard and cut it down to the same size as a cross-section of my pan (or just a tiny bit larger, so it will stay put), then wrapped it in foil.


I wedged it into the pan so it made two equal sized sections.


Then I lined the pan with parchment so the batter wouldn't leak underneath the wall.


I scooped my half-batch of batter into one side, and then wedged something in the other side to keep my cardboard wall from scooting over under the weight of the batter (a small cake pan, in this case).


Then I baked as normal. It seemed to take as much time as a full size loaf would have.

And voila! A perfect little cube of cocoa-nana bread!


OK, you'll have to excuse me while I go pour a big glass of cold milk and pop a thick slice of this cocoa-licious bread into the toaster.

Until next week... you can find the recipe at Steph's blog or Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking: From my Home to Yours".

25 comments:

Steph said...

Wow, that is really cleaver! Hahah.. I knew people were going to be a little skeptical about the banana-chocolate combo, but I'm glad you enjoyed it and wasn't too freaked out or scared to give it a try.

Marthe said...

How inventive of you! I baked an entire batch and am happy I did, otherwise I would have been in big trouble with my coworkers!!

chocolatechic said...

What a brilliant idea.

Just brilliant.


I didn't make it.

erin said...

I made cupcakes with half a batch but I really like your idea of making just half a loaf. I will have to try that next time! Your bread looks delicious!

Bella Baker said...

wow, what a cool trick!!! Your bread looks awesome and I am so glad to hear you loved it as much as I did!! I thought it was fabulous!!

Cindy said...

What a great idea! I love the 'cocoa-cube'! I thought it was a yummy recipe.

Juliana said...

Love the idea of using half pan :-) Very creative! The cocoa bread looks so yummie, full of flavor and very rich! Nice pictures as well ;-)

Nichicakes said...

haha thats genius!

Susan said...

Wow! How ingenious! Your cube of cocoa-nana bread looks great!

grace said...

thank you so much for sharing that trick, jacque--it'll definitely come in handy for me! i think i prefer the look of a square loaf to a rectangle anyway. :)

Teanna said...

HA! Amazing! Genius! I would have never thought of something like that! The breads look GREAT! I loved this recipe as well!

Paula said...

O-o-o-oh I bet that was good straight out of the toaster--especially with milk.

Katrina said...

Brilliant! Ooh, toast. I guess it would be a little hard for me to toast the muffins I made, but sounds yummy. Love the half pan tutorial!

Carol Peterman/TableFare said...

I'm stealing your great pan divider idea. Awesome! I loved this bread too. Couldn't get enough of it. I added a hint of cardamom which worked well with the chocolate & banana.

vibi said...

WOW! What a beautiful, amazing half loaf! LOL Shiny and all!

And what an ingenious contraption you realized! You should be an inventor! Ingenuity is mother of "I don't have a half mold"!LOL LOL LOL

NKP said...

That loaf looks totally delicious to me, and what a brilliant contraption!

mike said...

Ok - that is just genius... how creative! I'll have to try that sometime! Glad you were able to make this - it looks so cute!

Anonymous said...

Very clever! I've wondered about dividing a pan in half and now I know how to do it! Your little loaf looks very chocolaty and delicious!

Emily said...

I'm loving the idea of splitting the pan...so many times you don't need the full one! I'm so going to be using this trick!
And about the banana/chocolate debate, bananas are SO much better with a little dark chocolate! :)

Megan said...

Here I was, thinking how smart I was because I've done the exact same thing. And you know what? It works every.single.time.

Pamela said...

What a smart idea! I love the look of that little square of chocolaty goodness, too!

Mimi said...

Great idea, you have eliminated the need to have loaf pans of every size.
Mimi

Jill @ Jillicious Discoveries said...

So creative--I love your idea! This bread looks really yummy--and I'm one who thinks banana and chocolate goes great together! :)

Y said...

Square bread! Cute :) The fact that it's chocolate and banana, is even better!

Unknown said...

Yours is the best looking cocoa nana bread I've seen! And that idea is simply fabulous! So what if Audax did it first, you bought it back to out memories, so that we can use this idea too!