Creamy Raw Chocolate Ice cream

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CREAMY RAW CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

My one week of raw food is over. I did not lose as much weight as I wanted (I was quite disappointed yesterday about that but after eating a hot meal today I am fine), but I do feel a difference in my body shape. I feel flatter and leaner. Plus I imagine with all the greens I put in my body the past week, I only did it good. So what if I did not lose as much as I did last time, (which is weird because this time I exercised as well), I did my body a favor either way.

It was a difficult one week. But I managed it. And this sugar free, vegan, more or less guilt free banana ice cream helped me quite a bit.

Seriously, this was a treat that I had been craving for. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was deprived of all things unhealthy, but I found this ice cream to taste exactly how a chocolate ice cream tastes- creamy and chocolatey. And it comes together in a jiffy. All you need is a frozen banana and raw cacao powder. I did use a splash of almond milk just to get the blender going, but you might not require it at all. No churning in the ice cream maker. No cooking raw yolks. No cream. No nothing. Just a frozen banana, cacao powder and a blender and in two minutes you have a nice creamy chocolate ice cream without the added guilt that comes with ice cream.

A friend sent me the link to this recipe when she saw that I was on raw. It will be unfair on my part to not share this recipe with as many people as I can. So here it is- Creamy Raw Chocolate Ice cream.

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BANANA BREAD

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It feels so good to be baking again! Recently I got hold of the book, Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters. I had seen an episode with them on the Food Network show Throwdown with Bobby Flay and they were so adorable that I knew I had to get their book.

Recipes that are handed down through generations have their own charm. Every family has their own masterpiece recipe. This blog is an attempt of getting prized recipes from my family and the ones that I find good under one roof and make an heirloom recipe collection of my own, just like the Brass sisters.

So, I set off to try their Banana Bread recipe, with pretty good results. The reason I chose a banana centric recipe was that I had these overly ripe bananas sitting on my kitchen counter for some time. And unlike others, who would gross out by just the sight of black skinned bananas, I just exclaim, overjoyed by the opportunity to bake something banana-eyy!:)

The melted butter gives the bread a texture quite close to that of cake. And, for an extra punch, I toast the nuts.

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BANANA BUNDT CAKE

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Banana Cake Banana Cake

Update: The pictures on this post were updated on August 8, 2016. The original post went live in July 2010 and was my first post when I started blogging. When I first made the cake I made it in bundt pan but I left my bundt cake pan back in India and haven’t bought a new one yet, so baked the batter in a bread pan this time. Shaped as a bundt cake or in a loaf shape this cake is absolutely delicious and moist. The recipe has been updated with a printable version. By the way, my love for cookbooks and the hoarding illness still lives in me!

Original Post:

For the past few months I have been on a cookbook collecting spree! For days, I researched on what books should be must-haves for any baker, made a list, logged into my Amazon account, checked the reviews of those books, added them to my cart, realized the list had become too long, decided to save the books for later, narrowed the list down, and then finally giving a sheepish grin to my DH (luckily, he is the kind who thinks spending on books is an investment :)), I ordered the books. One of the books I ordered, was “Baking- from my home to yours” by Dorie Greenspan. The book is a lovely treasure and so is Dorie. Her instructions are beautiful. I read the book like a kid reading a story book, flipping through the pages, marvelling at all the pictures (sheesh I’m such a baking nerd!), wishing I could be transported into a world filled with all the goodies in the book.

Banana Cake

Banana Cake

Now once you have a cookbook, it’s only fair to make something from it. My first attempt from the book was the Lemon Poppy Seed muffins. This was also my first attempt at baking in my new oven!  It was also the first time I was calling my girlfriends at home – actually the first time I was calling anybody to MY home (recently married you see, new house , new life! Exciting!) While I got rave reviews for the muffins, I was not too happy with the results – the oven temperature listed was a little too high for my oven and I personally felt that the muffins could have been more moist.

Not giving up on the book yet, though, since I had read a lot of great reviews for it, and well this is Dorie Greenspan I’m talking about- she taught Julia Child how to bake (well kind of!). So I decided to try another recipe.  For long I always wanted to bake a Bundt cake and now being the proud owner of a bundt pan, that’s where I thought I should head next. So, I checked the index and there it was the Classic Banana Bundt Cake recipe! Bananas- cool DH loves them- finally he will see that all that spending was worth it =)!  And it truly was! Moist with a nice flavour of banana, everybody loved the cake!

From the original post posted in 2010

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