Chocolate Chocolate Chip Mini Loaves #BreadBakers

These Chocolate Chocolate Chip Mini Loaves are baked with cocoa and chocolate chips. Applesauce adds moisture and nutrition - not that you’ll notice it’s there flavor-wise! It's all about the chocolate!

Like many of my friends who love cooking and baking, I have a lot of pans that I rarely use but still keep, you know, just in case. The little vintage loaf pans I used for this recipe are a good example. I inherited them, if memory serves, from my paternal grandmother who used them to make fruitcake to give away at Christmastime. 

I actually own six of these little pans but since there are just two of us at home, it seemed like a good idea just to make four mini loaves. If you don't have mini loaf pans, you can bake this batter as muffins.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Mini Loaves

This recipe is for a small batch of just four mini loaves but it’s easily doubled if you need eight. Or even trebled. This batter is very forgiving like that. My mini loaf pans have a capacity of one cup or 240ml by volume.

Ingredients

1 cup or 125g flour

1/4 cup or 20g cocoa

1/4 cup or 50g white sugar

1/4 cup, packed, or 50g brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup or 75g applesauce (I used homemade but store-bought works fine.)

1 egg

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons canola oil, plus extra for the pans

1/4 cup or 50g semi-sweet chocolate chips plus a little extra for topping, if desired.

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your four mini loaf pans by brushing or spraying the insides with oil.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, sugars and baking powder. 

Mix in the chocolate chips and use your clean hands to separate any that are stuck together. 

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your applesauce, egg, milk and oil.

Pour your wet mixture into the dry ingredients and fold until they are just combined. 

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared mini loaf pans. Add a few more chocolate chips to the top, if desired.  

Bake in your preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes or until the mini loaves are puffed up and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Run a offset spatula or butter knife around the edges of the pans and gently turn the  loaves out of the pans and cool further on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

It's the second Tuesday of the month so that means it's time for my Bread Baker friends to share their recipes. Our theme is chocolate breads! Many thanks to our host Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Chocolate Chip Breadsticks from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Chocolate Chocolate Chip Mini Loaves from Food Lust People Love 
• Chocolate Crepes from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chocolate Fudge Sauce Star Bread from Sneha's Recipe
• Chocolate Protein Oat Banana Waffles from Cook with Renu
• Chocolate Swirl Buns from Passion Kneaded
• Double Chocolate Chip Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Lemon and Ginger Scented White Chocolate Sourdough from A Messy Kitchen
• Milk and Chocolate Rolls from Magical Ingredients

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw

A hybrid salad that combines spicy vinegar and mayo for the dressing, Cecilie’s favorite coleslaw is our go-to recipe whenever coleslaw is on the menu.

I am not a fan of gloopy mayo heavy coleslaw so I used to make one that was more like cabbage with vinaigrette dressing until it occurred to me that I could add some mayonnaise and have the best of both worlds.  

In my recipe files, I’ve been calling this New Year’s Day Coleslaw for years because it’s the one I always make when you gotta eat cabbage for money and black-eyed peas for luck. But a couple of years ago, when my younger daughter Cecilie asked me for it, I had to send her a Word file which made me I realized that I had never shared it here.

With this third installment of our Alphabet Challenge for 2024 being brought to you by the letter C, it seemed like the perfect time. And, in honor of her love of this salad, it seemed appropriate to rename it Cecilie’s favorite coleslaw. 

Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw

Don’t get too caught up on the size of your onion or cabbage. This is one of those salads, like most salads, where some more or a little less really doesn’t make a difference. 

Ingredients

1 small hot red chili pepper

1/2 small purple onion

3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

1 small cabbage or half a larger one

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

Freshly ground black pepper 

Method

Finely mince the chili pepper and slice the purple onion as thinly as you can. 

Put both in a large salad bowl with the vinegar. 

Stir well and leave to macerate for at least five minutes. This helps mellow the sharpness of the onion while also making sure that the chili pepper flavor and heat will be well distributed throughout the coleslaw. 

Slice the cabbage as thinly as you can, removing the hard stems and any tough ribs as you go.

Add the mayonnaise to the onion bowl and stir well. 

Now we are talking a nice, spicy not too mayo-heavy dressing! 

Add the sliced cabbage to the bowl and stir well/toss to coat it with the dressing. 

Add a few good grinds of black pepper and toss again. 

This coleslaw can be eaten immediately but it also keeps well and tastes even better if left for at least 30 minutes. If you are not eating it within 30 minutes, do cover the coleslaw and refrigerate it because of the mayonnaise. I actually like it better chilled but you do you.

Enjoy!

As I mentioned above, it’s time for our Alphabet Challenge and today’s recipes are brought to you by the letter C. Many thanks to our organizer, my dear friend and fellow blogger, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out the C recipes below: 

• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Chicken Pastina Soup 
• Palatable Pastime: Caldo Gallego Cubano 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Carnivore Meatzza 
• Food Lust People Love: Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw 
• Culinary Cam: Crab-Stuffed Ravioli 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Cheesy Burger Buns 
• Sizzling Tastebuds: Classic Chickpea Hummus 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Cherry Chocolate Chip Waffles with Cherry Syrup 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Cranberry Achar | Cranberry Pickle 
• Blogghetti: Cherry Cream Cheese Cookies 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Dove Dark Chocolate Chunk Cakey Muffins 
• Magical Ingredients: Chocolate Cashew Coconut Caramel Stuffed Paratha

Here are my posts for the alphabet challenge, thus far:
A: Anchovy Deviled Eggs
B: Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly
C: Cecilie's Favorite Coleslaw - this post!

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Blueberry Banana Muffins (Small Batch) #MuffinMonday

Overripe banana and juicy frozen blueberries make these blueberry banana muffins some of the best I’ve ever baked. Small batch of six! Highly recommend! 

I never worried about getting rid of ripe bananas when my mom was around. Her attitude (and my maternal grandfather’s, for the matter) was that when it comes to bananas, the darker, the better. Sadly, after several months of declining health, Mom passed away three weeks ago. I am blessed to tell you that she was here at home with us and her transition was peaceful. 

After she died, I had one last black banana to use up so I made these muffins. She would have really liked them but I console myself that in heaven, there are probably all the muffins she wants. And all the super ripe bananas too. 

Banana Blueberry Muffins - Small Batch

This recipe makes six normal sized muffins. My husband declared them chock full of blueberries and so they are. We think that’s a good thing and I hope you agree. 

Ingredients

1 cup or 125g all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for the pan

1 medium overripe banana (mine weighed 65g without peel)

1/3 cup, packed, or 66g brown sugar

1 large egg

1 cup or 125g frozen blueberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 400°F or 200°C. Prepare your six-cup muffin pan by brushing it will a little canola oil. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, add the banana, oil and egg. Mash the banana with a fork. 

Then use the fork to mix the three together thoroughly. 

Add all but six of the frozen blueberries to the dry ingredient bowl and fold gently so they are covered with the dry ingredients. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl.   

Fold until well combined. Adding the frozen blueberries to the batter while they are still frozen means they don’t mush or fall apart while you fold them in. They do add moisture as they thaw while the muffins bake so don’t be worried that the batter is more like a dough as you spoon it into the muffin cups. 

Spoon the batter equally into the 6 muffin cups. Top each with a single reserved blueberry.

Bake for 5 minutes in your preheated oven then decrease the oven temperature to 350°F or 180°C WITHOUT opening the oven door, and bake for 15-18 minutes more until domed and set. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean or with just a couple crumbs attached.

Let cool for a few minutes.

Enjoy!

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s Muffin Monday time. Check out the muffins my fellow bloggers are sharing below.

• Banana Crumb Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Blueberry Banana Muffins (Small Batch) from Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Cranberry Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Matcha Chocolate Chip Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Orange and Strawberry Whole Wheat Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Sourdough Banana Carrot Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

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Chili-Fritoque

Sort of a precursor to nachos, chili-fritoque is a great appetizer made with broken tortilla chips, chili con carne and pinto beans, topped with cheese and jalapeños.

Pronounced free-TOKΕ-ay, this dish is found on the World War II–era menu of the Original Mexican Restaurant in San Antonio. It was founded in 1899 and sadly closed in 1960. (There another restaurant by the same name now used by permission of the Farnsworths, the restaurant’s owners.) 

The original recipe included just beans but there was also a version called chiltoque with chili con carne instead of the beans. You know I had to take it one step farther and use both. As I was writing up this post, I google searched Chili-Fritoque and I'm not the only one who made this good decision.

Personally, why would anyone order just beans and cheese or just chili and cheese when you could add all three to this tasty corn chip dish? 

Chili-Fritoque

The recipe is adapted from The Texas Cookbook by Arthur and Bobbie Coleman, published in 1949.  For the chili con carne, homemade is always better than canned. I use this recipe here: Classic Chili con Carne. An oldie but goodie. 

Ingredients

2 cups or 360g cooked pinto beans (canned are fine but rinse them!)

2 cups or 540g chili con carne

2 cups (or more) broken tortilla chips (I'm a fan of more.)

2-4 small dried red chili peppers

1 cup or 113g grated cheddar or American cheese

For serving: sliced jalapeños 

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. 

Use a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle to grind your dried chili peppers finely.

Mix the beans, chili con carne and ground chili peppers together in a large bowl. 

If you are baking all the chili-fritoque servings at once, mix in all the broken tortilla chips. 

If not, separate the mixture and the broken chips and only mix the chips into the portions that you are ready to bake and serve. Place the chip/mixture in individual baking dishes.

Divide cheese evenly, sprinkling a fair share over each one. 

Bake in your preheated oven just long enough to melt the cheese and heat the beans and chili through, about 10-15 minutes. You can broil right at the end if you’d like the cheese to brown a little. Top with a few slices of jalapeño. 

Serve with extra chips and a spoon for scooping, if desired. 

Enjoy! 

Tomorrow is National Corn Chip Day so my Sunday Fun Day friends and I are sharing recipes that will help you celebrate this foodie holiday. Check out the links below: 

• Chili-Fritoque from Food Lust People Love
• Frito Corn Salad from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Onolicious Furikake Chex Mix from Culinary Cam
• Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken and Frito Casserole from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Spicy Korean Chicken Fritos from Palatable Pastime
• Vegetarian Mexican Tortilla Soup from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Vegetarian Nachos from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Walking Tacos/Tacos in a Bag from Sneha's Recipe

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly

Tender morsels of pork simmered with ginger, garlic, chili peppers, brown sugar and soy sauce make this spicy braised ginger pork belly the most succulent meal!

This is a recipe I’ve been sitting on a long time because I never seem to have time for good looking “after” photos when it’s done. So please excuse the terrible lighting. I promise that this dish is much tastier than my photos make it look! I chose to share it now because with B for braised and B for belly, it is perfect for today's Alphabet Challenge post. (More on which after the recipe.)

I like to serve this dish with fluffy steamed rice, either long-grained basmati or brown, and stir-fried greens, like baby kalian. A good substitute, if you can’t find baby kalian, is broccolini aka tenderstem broccoli. 

Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly 

It takes a while to braise so that the pork belly is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Also, you don’t want to rush the process by using a high fire when reducing the sauce or it could burn. This dish is so worth the wait. Your patience will be amply rewarded.

Ingredients

800g or 1.75 lbs pork belly

2 red chili peppers

4 cloves garlic

2 inch or 5cm knob ginger

1/2 cup, firmly packed, or 100g dark brown sugar

1/4 cup or 60ml soy sauce

1/4 cup or 60ml Shaoxing wine or substitute dry sherry

1/4 cup or 60ml rice vinegar

To garnish: fresh cilantro leaves

Method

Trim any gristly bits off of the pork belly and discard. Cut the pork belly into small chunks. 

Peel and chop your garlic and ginger. Slice the chili peppers. 

Add the pork, ginger, garlic, peppers and brown sugar to a wide pan that has a tight-fitting lid. Add in the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and rice vinegar. Stir well. 

Now add just enough water to almost cover the pork. This amount depends on the size of your pan.

Bring the liquid to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer. 

Cover with the tight-fitting lid and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally and adding a little water, if necessary. Remove the lid and raise the heat a little, cook till you have reduced the liquid to deliciously thick stickiness. 

At the very end, a spatula or spoon should leave a gap that the sauce doesn’t immediately run in to close again. 

Garnish with some fresh cilantro leaves when ready to serve. 

Enjoy!

As mentioned above, I'm sharing this recipe today as part of the 2024 Alphabet Challenge. Every other Wednesday we will share a recipe starting with the next consecutive letter of the alphabet. Many thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for including me. This is our second post so, of course, we are highlighting the letter B. If you missed A, you can find those links here in my Anchovy Deviled Egg post. 

• Palatable Pastime: Blueberry Biscuits 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Bisque of Lobster 
• Blogghetti: 20 Minute Bean and Beef Tostadas 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Bagel Chips from Leftover Bagels 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Beetroot Mezhukkupuratti 
• Food Lust People Love: Braised Brown Sugar Pork Belly 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Spicy Barbecue Seasoned Rice Chex Mix 
• Culinary Cam: Börek with a California Twist 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Beetroot Tomato Soup 
• Magical Ingredients: Beet Fennel Paratha 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Brooklyn Blackout Cake
• Sizzling Tastebuds: Barley Karamani Adai

Here are my posts for the alphabet challenge, thus far:
A: Anchovy Deviled Eggs
B: Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly - this post!

Pin this Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly!

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