Ferrero Rocher Banana Bread

Here’s a speedy suggestion for you, in case you are overloaded by Christmas chocolates. I know we are. They lurk in every corner, even hanging brazenly from the tree and flashing their gaudy foil wrappers in a excruciatingly tempting manner. Tree chocolates are the worst. I KNOW they are disgusting, I KNOW I will not enjoy the ‘chocolate flavour’, I KNOW they will coat my mouth with…with? What could it be? Vegetable oil probably. Yet I want to chug them. And the chocolate coins Santa insisted on stuffing in the stocking-toes.

I don’t want them all, I really don’t. Especially the Fererro Rochers. I ate plenty whilst still in the doesn’t-count-it’s-Christmas-zone. But Rochers in January? No, can’t do it. And I can’t let the kids do it either. They have eaten tons of chocolate. My daughter is about a third of my height, so her eating her choccy Santa is roughly like me eating a choccy Santa the size of my thigh. This cannot be a good plan. Now we’re not playing ‘Christmas rules’, we should really get a grip and eat some veg.

You can’t palm the chocs off on other people’s children either, because they too are swamped. Any play dates  you have planned in the next weeks will be simply opportunities for parents to try to pass on their household chocolate burden to you. You will do it too;

‘Oh hello, I thought the kids might enjoy these Ferrero Rochers’

‘Oh no, don’t waste them on the kids. YOU keep them’

‘No, no really, now I’ve brought them I’d feel rude taking them away’

But there is a way around this. A cunning, cunning way around this. Cook them into a cake and people cannot, will not, will not want to say no. Okay, so cake is only a small step away from chocolate, but it’s psychologically very different somehow. And much, much less easy to refuse. And, if you pour custard on it, it’s pudding and totally acceptable.

So, you could simply melt the bloomin’ lot and make some sort of Fridge Cake with it or you could try this Tree Chocolate & Ferrero Rocher Banana Bread. Nobody is going to turn down Banana Bread are they?? A modest slice for the kids and palm the rest off on unsuspecting visitors. Or freeze it of course, for February when you’ll be craving a quick Rocher.

So here’s the recipe, with apologies – I promise my next offering will be entirely sensible and healthy, as soon as I’ve got rid of all the damn chocolates…

You need:

180g Plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

125g butter

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

3 or 4 ripe bananas

12 or so Fererro Rochers and/or several crushed tree chocolates*

* Things to note: you can probably add any lurking chocolates to the mix, hollow tree chocolates are immensely satisfying to crush

Method:

1. Preheat to 180. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin
2. Put the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl and give it a stir
3. Melt the butter in a biggish bowl in the microwave
4. Add the bananas and sugar to the butter and give it a mash
5. Throw in the Rochers/miscellaneous chocolates and break them up a bit with the masher
6. Crack the eggs in and stir thoroughly
7. Chuck the flour on top and stir it through quickly and robustly
8. Splodge it into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes. Check it after 35, but it’s likely to need 45 or 50 minutes. Turn out, cool and hand around to share the calorie burden

Willing helper.