The final recipe I made with my leftover banana supply was from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh: "Chocolate, Banana and Pecan Cookies." Sweet and BraveTart were the two new cookbooks I was most looking forward to this season and I feel terrible that I haven't been able to bake from them more. In fact, I actually purchased the British version of Sweet because it was released almost a full month earlier than the American version and I didn't want to wait. (As a bonus, the British edition has a prettier cover and at the time I bought it from Amazon's UK site, it was actually cheaper -- even with the shipping charges -- than pre-ordering the American version.) But then I got busy and the book sat around the house unused for weeks.
Finally on Columbus Day I decided I had to make a recipe from the book. I had the day off from work and my husband was out of town on a business trip, so I spent the whole day baking. I actually made all three of my leftover banana recipes on that single day, including the yeasted banana sandwich bread and banana bread snickerdoodles. But the reason that I had to make at least one Ottolenghi recipe is that I had tickets to attend a talk by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh at Sixth & I during the evening of Columbus Day. I felt the need to try at least one recipe from Sweet before going to the talk.
This is a straightforward recipe (unlike many of the recipes in cookbook, no exotic ingredients!) and in fact, Helen Goh recommended it to beginning bakers during the talk. However it does require a fair amount of chilling time, so you need to plan ahead. To make the dough, you beat room temperature butter with sugar until light and fluffy; add a lightly beaten egg; mix in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon); and stir in mashed banana and chocolate chips. I made a double batch of cookies which should have included 100 grams of banana, but I was down to a single small banana weighing 90 grams so I was a bit short.
I chilled the dough for a few hours before portioning it out with a #50 scoop and rolling each ball of dough in chopped pecans. I chilled the cookies for another hour before rolling them in powdered sugar, pressing them flat with the bottom of a glass, and baking them. The recipe headnote says that the secret is to underbake the cookies, so I took them out of the oven after 10 minutes even though they were not yet set. I got 48 cookies from my double batch, exactly the specified yield.
I tried a cookie while it was still warm and it was astonishingly good. It was so tender (although the cookies held together without a problem) that it was almost not like a cookie at all -- more like pecans, chocolate, bananas, and a sweet sugar coating all held together by magic. On the one hand, this cookie tastes just as you might expect; you can clearly taste each component. But on the other hand, until I ate one of these cookies, I never realized that chocolate, bananas, and pecans could taste so good together. After the cookies were cool they were not quite as impressive, but they were still amazing. This was my favorite of the three banana baked goods I made that day.
I was not expecting these cookies to be anything particularly special but they were outstanding. The proportions of banana, chocolate, and pecans were perfectly balanced and the powdered sugar coating delivered a delightful burst of sweetness upfront. One of my colleagues, whom I would describe as a baked goods enthusiast, sent me an email exclaiming that "I have never had cookies as good as the chocolate, banana, pecan cookies!" I had very high expectations for Ottolenghi's first dessert cookbook and this recipe absolutely delivered.
Recipe: "Chocolate, banana and pecan cookies" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
Finally on Columbus Day I decided I had to make a recipe from the book. I had the day off from work and my husband was out of town on a business trip, so I spent the whole day baking. I actually made all three of my leftover banana recipes on that single day, including the yeasted banana sandwich bread and banana bread snickerdoodles. But the reason that I had to make at least one Ottolenghi recipe is that I had tickets to attend a talk by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh at Sixth & I during the evening of Columbus Day. I felt the need to try at least one recipe from Sweet before going to the talk.
This is a straightforward recipe (unlike many of the recipes in cookbook, no exotic ingredients!) and in fact, Helen Goh recommended it to beginning bakers during the talk. However it does require a fair amount of chilling time, so you need to plan ahead. To make the dough, you beat room temperature butter with sugar until light and fluffy; add a lightly beaten egg; mix in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon); and stir in mashed banana and chocolate chips. I made a double batch of cookies which should have included 100 grams of banana, but I was down to a single small banana weighing 90 grams so I was a bit short.
I chilled the dough for a few hours before portioning it out with a #50 scoop and rolling each ball of dough in chopped pecans. I chilled the cookies for another hour before rolling them in powdered sugar, pressing them flat with the bottom of a glass, and baking them. The recipe headnote says that the secret is to underbake the cookies, so I took them out of the oven after 10 minutes even though they were not yet set. I got 48 cookies from my double batch, exactly the specified yield.
I was not expecting these cookies to be anything particularly special but they were outstanding. The proportions of banana, chocolate, and pecans were perfectly balanced and the powdered sugar coating delivered a delightful burst of sweetness upfront. One of my colleagues, whom I would describe as a baked goods enthusiast, sent me an email exclaiming that "I have never had cookies as good as the chocolate, banana, pecan cookies!" I had very high expectations for Ottolenghi's first dessert cookbook and this recipe absolutely delivered.
Recipe: "Chocolate, banana and pecan cookies" from Sweet by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, recipe available here.
Previous Posts:
- "What Do You Get If You Cross Banana Bread with a Snickerdoodle?: Banana Bread Snickerdoodles," October 18, 2017.
- "Bananas in Bread Don't Always Yield Banana Bread: Yeasted Banana Sandwich Bread," October 16, 2017.
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