Date and banana chocolate brownies
It’s safe to say that brownies are extremely popular here. Whether it’s a good day, bad day, reasons to celebrate or commiserate then I turn to brownies. I have a go-to recipe that I love for two reasons – it’s happy to be fiddled with and have all manner of things slung into it and always delivers a stonkingly good brownie.
A little while ago I read about a brownie recipe that used banana over at Ren’s and was intrigued. I use bananas a lot to keep cakes moist – they really are excellent at it – but had never thought about adding them to brownies.
Never one to leave well alone, I thought I’d see what my ever faithful brownie recipe thought about the addition of bananas. And dates, as the two make rather excellent bedfellows in my opinion.
It likes it. A lot. I ended up with a superbly moist, squidgy centred brownie, studded with dates and that, combined with the chocolate hit, made for a very happy Fishfingers household indeed.
What I will say is that you need to wait until it’s completely cold before cutting into it. I’m terrible for this and start wielding my knife far too soon. The lure of a warm brownie is strong but if you cut too soon then you end up with rather raggedy squares. Which isn’t a major problem but can be rather messy.
By the way, if you are on the look out for a new brownie tin then pop along to Asda. I was in there recently and Lurpack have a promotion of two packs of Lurpack and a brownie tin for £3. A bargain anyway but even better if you need butter!
Date and banana chocolate brownies
Makes 16 squares
180g butter
200g dark chocolate
1 large ripe banana, mashed
3 eggs, beaten
75g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
220g light brown sugar
150g pitted dates, chopped
Preheat the oven to 180c fan and line a brownie tin with greaseproof paper. If you haven’t got a brownie tin then a tin with high-ish sides will be fine, you’ll just end up with different shaped and possibly flatter brownies depending.
Melt the butter and chocolate together, either in the microwave (checking and stirring every 30 seconds) or in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
Let it cool for a couple of minutes, then stir in the banana and eggs. Add the flour, baking powder, cocoa and sugar and mix to combine, Fold through the dates.
Spoon into your prepared tin and level the top. Bake for around 30 minutes, until firm but still with a wobbly middle. I start checking after 25 minutes as the line between a good brownie and a disappointingly bad one is very thin indeed.
Leave to cool completely and then cut into 16 squares. Or 8 humongous chunks. It’s up to you, you don’t need me to tell you how to cut your brownies.
Technorati code: ZS7RJ533G8QU Tedious but has to be redone I’m afraid!
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