Pumpkin & Choc Chip Banana Bread

So I made these delicious little loaves back for Canadian Thanksgiving which was October 8th! It's taken me a while to get around to blogging about them because these pictures are not great! How I miss my collection of beautiful cake stands that are all packed away back in England in my parents attic! Instead I had to make do with a chopping board and our fall table runner from Wal Mart! Sad times! 

I was planning to be totally traditional and make a pumpkin pie but it's not my husbands favourite, when I gave him the choice of pie or me revamping one of his absolute faves - choc chip banana bread, it was no contest for him! 

Plus there doesn't seem to be enough banana bread variations on my blog just yet ;)

I also decided to bake mini versions because everything is more fun in mini form! The flavours worked really well together, it was super moist from the pureed pumpkin and the mashed banana, with just the right amount of spice coming through and when it was warmed up you had melting pools of chocolate too - delish! 

For all my American followers out there who are currently planning their Thanksgiving menu's, why not give this a try!

Pumpkin & Choc Chip Banana Bread:

Makes 4 mini loaves or 1 regular sized loaf

From Yummly

1 1/2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed)

3/4 cup softened unsalted butter

3 beaten large eggs

1 cup pumpkin (cooked or canned)

2 mashed bananas (ripe)

3 cups plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda/baking soda

1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup semi-sweet/dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine brown sugar, butter and eggs.  Mix until mixture is light and fluffy, approximately 1 to 2 minutes.  Add pumpkin and bananas, mix well, for another 2 minutes.  

Add remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips, mix until just moistened for another minute.  Stir in chocolate chips with a spoon.

Pour into four greased mini loaf pans, or one regular sized loaf pan.

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.  

Cool for 5 minutes and then remove from pans and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Serve warm with lashings of butter! It's the best way!

Speaking of pumpkin, I also made these cute little peanut butter filled pretzel pumpkins for a Halloween party we went too.  They won the prize for the best dessert of the night! but I forgot to take proper photos of them as I was in rush to get them finished and paint my nails with maple leaves for being a Canadian Hockey Fan! so you'll have to make do with this instagram pic! 

If you want to make some, you can follow Erica's recipe.  Instead of using chocolate chips to make my jack-o-lantern faces I just used an edible food marker.

A Thanksgiving Pie Bar

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that I'm English...yet here I was celebrating Thanksgiving this past weekend (and in my patriotic tee and all).  Confused? Maybe not.  If you're an avid follower of my blog or know me well, you will know that pretty much every day I wake up thinking I should have been born in the good ol' U.S of A! so celebrating American holidays just goes along with my love of all things American! plus the fact my sister and I will both be spending Christmas day with our in laws so we wanted to have a Jones family get together this weekend and since we like celebrating with copious amounts of food - Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect occasion!

It was my sister who suggested the idea of a Thanksgiving feast but I was quick to suggest a Pie dessert bar...because we all know how much I love my sweet things! It was an idea that at first my sister was not too thrilled about because she has been trying to diet and she knew the pie bar would not help her waist line, so my other sister and I took it upon ourselves to go ahead and organise it anyway but keep things under the radar!! because after all what's Thanksgiving without pies!

Here is the table in all it's glory!

A shout out to my dad for making that awesome cake stand out of a log! and he also spray painted those buckets orange to tie in with the colour scheme! and not only that but on Saturday as we were shopping around he slipped me a sly £20 to help me get anything else I needed for the table.  I was delighted when I came across this ceramic cake stand with polka dot ribbon trim in TK Maxx, I have been after one like this for ages! and with my dad's money in my pocket I knew I could actually buy it! So imagine how funny it was when as I approached the till, my mom came and told me that whilst I was browsing around my dad had said he just hoped I wouldn't spend that money on something stupid like a cake stand! so I bought it anyway and rather slyly got it home in my mom's handbag so he was none the wiser! Thanks Dad!

Everyone contributed a pie for the table.  My mom made an amazing Key Lime Pie...it is her favourite kind of pie and turns out it was the favourite of the whole day, it was so quick to be devoured! She was also responsible for the orange gerberas on the table (my fave flowers!).

My sister, Mel, contributed these cute little pumpkin pies.  I'll shock you now when I tell you it was my first time trying pumpkin pie! I've always been a little scared of it, but accompanied with some vanilla bean infused double cream on top it was delish and you certainly can't have Thanksgiving without some pumpkin pie!

My sister, Tamara, went with a banana and chocolate cream pie that she had seen in her Food Network magazine.  It was so decadent and rich and I loved the chocolate she swirled through the cream...you can tell she does this as her day job can't you!

To keep my dieting sister happy, well sort of, I tried to keep my contributions bite size! So I went with these super cute apple pie pops!

...and these mini s'mores pies because nothing says America to me more than a s'more!

S'mores Pies:

Makes 20

From Dawn's Recipes

250g cinnamon Graham Cracker crumbs

68g caster sugar

113g unsalted butter, melted

150g dark chocolate (60%)

75g milk chocolate

240ml double cream

125g mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. 

Grease 24 mini pie pans. 

Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Stir until combined.

Press crumb mixture into bottoms and sides of tart pans. You’ll use just 1 1/2 tablespoons per pie.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, then let cool until pans are cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile place chocolate pieces in large bowl.

Heat cream in microwave for 1 to 2 minutes or over low heat until just below boiling. Pour over chocolate pieces and let it sit for several minutes.

Stir cream/chocolate mixture until smooth. It will look pale and chunky at first, but keep stirring. It will smooth out and get very dark.

Spoon mixture into tart pans, using approximate 1 1/2 tablespoons per tart.

Before chocolate sets, top each tart with about 6 mini marshmallows.

Use a culinary torch set to low to very carefully brown the tops of the marshmallows. Be prepared to blow out any small flames as the marshmallows can ignite very easily. (I didn't have a blow torch and tried toasting them under the grill but it didn't really work so I went for the un-toasted option!)

Refrigerate tarts at least 4 hours or overnight and serve.

ALL the desserts went down so well, and I certainly think the dessert bar tradition in our family is here to stay judging by the popularity of this one! 

Here's wishing all my Stateside followers a super yummy Thanksgiving this Thursday! 

Happy Thanksgiving! Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

Hope all you Americans out there enjoyed Thanksgiving yesterday.  We had a nice thanksgiving meal here in Turks and Caicos - you can read about it on my other blog 

I had seen these amazing pumpkin pie cupcakes a few weeks ago and decided they would be my cupcake of choice to bake come Thanksgiving.  So I ordered the piping nozzle I needed to make that pie crust and bought some fun Thanksgiving cupcake liners online in the States, unfortunately my nozzle didn't arrive in time! I also couldn't get the deep orange hue in my frosting that I needed and so unfortunately this is how the pumpkin pie cupcakes turned out: 

Yes I know they look more like sun's! I should have just pretended that's what I was aiming for in the first place! but they were deliciously tasty thanks to this recipe from Martha.

If you want to see what I have been thankful for this week you can check it out here, but yesterday I was thankful for good neighbours...who were able to lend an egg in the midst of my cupcake baking when I dropped my last one on the floor! 

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes:

Makes 18

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
• • 
    
• • Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice; set aside.
• • • 
      
• • • In a large bowl, whisk together, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, and eggs. Add dry ingredients, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in pumpkin puree.
• • • 
      
• • • Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about halfway. Bake until tops spring back when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.
• • 
    
    Vanilla Frosting:
    Taken from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
    
    
    250g icing sugar, sifted
    80g unsalted butter, at room temperature
    25ml whole milk
    a couple of drops of vanilla extract
    
    
    Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding mixer with a paddle attachment on medium slow speed until the mixture comes together.
    
    
    Turn the mixer down to slow speed.  Mix the milk and vanilla together in a bowl and add to the mixer a spoonful at a time.  Once everything has been incorporated turn the mixer up to high speed.
    
    
    Continue beating for at least 5 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.