These days my life is divided into four compartments – my job, my family, this food blog and my novel writing. Work is easy. I get up in the morning and leave for work. I get home a bit after 5pm and work is done for the day. Family is pretty clear too – I travel to and from work with Adriano, dinner is always together with Dario and Adriano. and we spend some time together in the weekends. But the rest of my waking hours are divided between my blog and my writing. This is where the dilemma lies. There is always a to-do list on my study desk and it is a question of what I do first. This weekend, Friday evening actually, I decided to get one of my e-published novels into print using Createspace (Amazon). I thought, a few hours and I will be able to move on to the next item on my list. It is now Sunday night and I have stopped only to sleep, eat and bake this dish on Saturday afternoon. I finally think I might have cracked it but it’s almost 9pm and I have done nothing else.
Anyway, this is what I cooked during my Saturday baking session. The recipe has been adapted from the banana loaf at Delicious as it looks. But I used mini loaf tins and snuck some pieces of chocolate into the middle for a special surprise. Gluten-free baked goods are wonderful on the day baked but don’t last as well as goods baked with gluten. The best thing to do is to eat what you can while they are fresh and then freeze the rest. They thaw in about 20 seconds in the microwave and taste delicious.
Mini Banana Chocolate Loaves
Ingredients
2 ripe bananas
57gms/2oz butter, melted
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2/3 cup white rice flour BUY HERE
3 tbsp tapioca flour BUY HERE
3 tbsp potato starch BUY HERE
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder (gluten free) BUY HERE
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup cane sugar BUY HERE
A small block of 70% dark chocolate BUY HERE
Method
- Grease a set of mini-loaf tins. BUY HERE
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
- Place the first 4 ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.
- Sift the next 7 ingredients together and mix with a whisk.
- Add the sugar and mix.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and blend well to incorporate some air.
- Place half the mixture evenly into the tins.
- Break up the chocolate and place some pieces on top of the batter in each tin.
- Fill the tins with the remaining batter.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
It sounds like you have a perfect life. Family, you know how to make amazing delicious goods, you have a passion and you’re creative. I want to be you 🙂
Marta, you are a sweetheart. You make some pretty delicious dishes yourself and you take amazing photos too.
This looks so wonderful …I’m going to have to try it! I was wondering about using coconut sugar instead of the cane sugar… Do you know if it would make any difference and are they nutritionally compatible? Your recipes are amazing… Thanks for going the extra mile and showing us how we can bake tasty treats that are nutritionally sound!
You’re welcome, Beth. I love working out how to make sweet treats into something that doesn’t hurt your health. Yes, do use coconut sugar instead. It will work well.
We frequently freeze our baked goods. There are only two of us, and our appetites aren’t what they used to be. So if we can’t give something away immediately (fortunately we often can) it goes into the freezer so we aren’t tempted by it, and can enjoy it later. Great looking buns! Love the glow of light you have on them. And you’re so busy! Overall a good thing, but do schedule a break from time to time (or at least I find if I do that I can be much more productive overall). Good stuff – thanks.
Most baked good made with a flour base freeze well and thank goodness for microwaves.
I actually photographed with a late afternoon sun so the effect was different from my usual mid-afternoon Saturday shoots.
I have decided that I practise active relaxation as I really don’t know how to do the blobbing out thing.
I love the look of these mini-loaves and I have the same tin and use it to make mini cakes from time to time too. I love how you put chocolate surprises in these cakes. You sound super-busy but very organised with your time xx
They are slightly too big for one helping though. I have been cutting them in half so as not to overdo it.
I do try to be organised. When you are busy, it’s really important.
I love that my job deals with blogs all day. I get to find amazing recipes like this one! Love the layout of your blog!
Thank you, Diane. You are so lucky to deal with blogs all day.
Such darling loaves, I love the chocolate surprise!
Thanks, Laura.
Oh these little mini loaves are just gorgeous and I love the addition of a chocolate surprise. I’m off to search the internet for a similar tin ….
Thanks, Angela. I have now put a link on my post to a baking tin which would do the job.
I always like your little desserts…a bite or two of something sweet makes me happy.
My morning tea treats always make me smile too. It’s a nice punctuation mark in the day.
These look terrific! You’d never know you had to make all sorts of substitutions…because they look perfect in every way. I have a feeling you’ll even be making soft and tender cinnamon rolls these days.
PS…I bet the next e-novel to print transfer will go much quicker!
LOL, I’m not sure my cinnamon buns would ever be soft and tender. There is something about wheat for making soft baking.
I have not attempted to use Createspace yet, but I am not surprised that a 30 minute job can turn to two days! That happens to me, more and more. With my limited GF baking experience, most of what I have done involved bananas, and it turned out super moist and lasted for a week.
It’s so frustrating, isn’t it – to start a job thinking you will have it knocked out in a few hours and for it to take days instead.
Gluten-free baking is like starting again – so much to learn without the benefit of gluten to behave in a certain way.
I want these cute little mini loaf tins too! I need to look them up. I hear you about your dilemma re: blogging and writing. To me it’s the same: job is easy, so is family, but planning blogging related (or writing related) activities is always a challenge. It all takes a lot of time investment.
There are so many different baking dishes now and they sure make the food look good.
Lack is time is the bane of our lives these days.