I don’t think I need to say any more. Post complete. 🙂 Ok, I can’t just stop there, but it was so good that I lost all words as I looked at the picture and thought about how good this Chocolate Almond Banana Bread tasted before every last crumb was consumed. I had spotty bananas to use up, and I’d already made several batches of banana oat cookies in the last couple of weeks.  I was considering making my chocolate oat banana bread, but then I remembered I had some frangipane in the fridge leftover from almond pastries I’d been making the day before. From that, banana almond heaven was created. My plan was to take this cake with us on our visit to Chatsworth house and gardens in Bakewell the next day. Surely a whole cake loaf can last for a day, so we can enjoy it overlooking the gardens with a nice flask of coffee? Erm, the answer would be no. Not unless the four of us could share the one single slice that was left for our day out. Fortunately it meant we got to enjoy the tearoom, and we also walked a fair distance around the grounds to (hopefully) work off the previous day’s excesses. If you’re ever in the Derbyshire area of the UK, I thoroughly recommended a visit. It’s gorgeous! Lewis particularly enjoyed pretending to be a bat whilst climbing up every rock he could find, and flapping through the spooky tunnels (it was Halloween - he doesn’t always dress like that!!)
I used my go-to chocolate oat banana bread as the basis for this Chocolate Almond Banana Bread recipe. A couple of tweaks to make it more chocolatey, plus the removal of the oats were all that were needed. If you don’t want the extra step of making frangipane, then you can just leave the frangipane out. It’ll still taste amazing - you just won’t get the little white almondy swirls inside the bread. Alternatively, go ahead an make a bigger batch of frangipane. You can freeze whatever you don’t use - and keep it for filling croissants or adding to apple tart later on. The frosting is really simple. I like to go heavy on the almond extract because I love that sweet almond flavour, but you can reduce the amount if you find it a little overpowering. The only slightly tricky bit is making the caramel for the candied nuts. I use golden caster sugar to make the caramel - nothing else. This needs to go in a pan, and be heated on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved the mixture has a couple of bubbles rising to the surface. A really important tip here: DON’T STIR the sugar whilst it’s melting. If you do, you’re likely to end up with a crystalized mess due to the hot melting sugar touching the cooler side of the pan or spoon. Melted sugar will continue to cook even when the heat is turned off, so you have to be careful not to overcook it. I found the best method was is to use a small, heavy bottomed pan. Pour the sugar in and ensure it’s in an even layer, then heat slowly. The sugar will slowly start to melt at the edges first. I find that the towards the end (about 4 or 5 minutes of heating), the caramel on the outside is molten and golden brown with a couple of bubbles starting to appear. There may still be a tiny bit of unmelted sugar in the middle, but I turn off the heat anyway, and leave the pan for about 30 seconds to allow the remaining bit of sugar to melt. At that point you can add your nuts and stir. You need to work very quickly here, as the caramel will go hard very quickly once it’s mixed with the nuts. Have a piece of baking parchment on a tray ready. Mix the nuts into the molten sugar with a wooden spoon, tip it out onto the baking parchement and then flatten the mixture out very quickly using the wooden spoon. Don’t use your hands, as the sugar (although cooling fast) may still be boiling hot. The nutty caramel mixture will cool and harden quickly - about 5 - 10 minutes. Then you can break it up. It’s better to break it with your hands if you can. If you bash it with something hard you may lose the golden shiny colour in favour of a white crumbly coating. Then soak your pan in cold water for a little while before washing. The sugar will dissolve and should be easily cleaned.
The Chocolate Almond Banana Bread Recipe:
Nutritional info obtained from caloriecount.about.com per serving (serves 12) Â
