Lemon Coconut Pixies

Last year I received a Hershey’s Recipe Box as a birthday gift from a friend.  “I hope you don’t already have this,” she said, wringing her hands and furrowing her brow.   She worries too much.  I was delighted to receive a gift; even better when it is food related.  At first I thought that it was just a tin box with old fashioned Hershey’s pictures on it.

On closer inspection, I was delighted to see that it was filled with recipe cards, complete with photos of the finished products.

Lots of yummy ideas in here!

So, fast forward to one and three quarters years into  the future (present time).  I finally made a recipe from the Hershey’s Box!  And guess what?  No chocolate involved!  Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate!  But I was curious what kind of cookies old Hershey came up with that did not include their signature chocolate.  Since I had coconut and fresh lemon in my kitchen and since we love both of these flavors, I decided on the Lemon Coconut Pixies.

They turned out great!

I brought a few to my friend, Mark, at work the day after I made them.  He went nuts!  “These are so professional!  It’s like something I would get at a fancy bakery!  They melt in your mouth!”  Mark is easy to please.  I will tell you that they are better the following day and the day after that, as the flavors become more distinct.  And paired with a hot cup of tea, delicious!

These would be great for a wedding or a baby or bridal shower.  Really nice for an afternoon tea party.  Or good when you are sitting at your computer, hammering out your latest blog entry, as I am doing right now.  I hope the powdered sugar doesn’t muck up my keyboard too much……

LEMON COCONUT PIXIES

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp freshly grated lemon peel

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup MOUNDS Sweetened Coconut flakes*

Powdered sugar

Beat butter, granulated sugar, eggs and lemon peel in a large bowl until well blended.  Stir together flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to lemon mixture, beating until blended.  Stir in coconut.  Cover; refrigerate dough about 1 hour or until firm enough to handle.  Shape into 1 inch balls; roll in powdered sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake in a preheated 300 degree oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are set.  Cool completely.  Store in a tightly covered container in a cool, dry place.

*  I did not use MOUNDS coconut.  I used what I had on hand.  I put that in this entry because that is what made it a Hershey’s recipe.  I’m sure my coconut came from a bulk bin at Winco!  But it still did the job and tasted yummy.

Here, take a closer look.

What’s for dinner?

“What’s for dinner?”  I hear this question from my spouse quite frequently.  I also hear it from my co-workers.  Not that the co-workers come to my house for dinner, but they are always interested in what goes on in my home kitchen.  I often bring leftovers for lunch, and someone always comments on how good something smells.

Last night I wanted to keep it light, as we have been eating some higher fat things lately and clothes are beginning to fit a bit snug.  I always enjoy at big salad meal and some warm bread.  I baked up a nice Brown Beer Bread and a made a hearty salad, filled with protein and veggies.  The salad dressing was super tasty and super easy.

Salad full o’ goodness, dressed with Fig Lavender Dressing and Brown Beer Bread

 

FIG LAVENDER DRESSING

1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp fig glaze (see Chocolate Fig Custard Cake post for recipe)

1 tbsp lavender vinegar (purchased at a lavender farm, but you could make your own.  Steep dried lavender in white vinegar for a few weeks.)

Whisk together in small bowl and dress salad.  That’s it.

SALAD

1 package Trader Joe’s Vegetarian “Chicken”

1 head Romain heart, roughly chopped

1 large slice red onion, finely chopped

1/2 red bell pepper. cut in bit size pieces

1/4 cup sliced black olives

1 medium carrot, shredded

1 small tomato, chopped and seeded

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1 small roasted beet, cut in small cubes

1/2 large avocado, cubed

Heat a non-stick saute pan over medium high heat.  Spray pan with non stick canola or olive oil.  Toss in “chicken” strips.  Season to taste.  I used garlic powder, onion powder, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper.  Cook until slightly browned, just a couple of minutes.  Set pan aside to cool while you put the salad together.

In a large bowl, mix Romain, red onion, red bell pepper, olives, carrot and tomato, Parmesan cheese, and cooled ”chicken” pieces.  Drizzle on dressing and toss.  Divide among salad bowls and top with avocado and beet cubes.  This recipe served 2 adults as a main meal.  It can serve 4 – 6 as a side salad.

You can use whatever dressing you like on the salad; but if you made the recipe for the Chocolate Fig Custard cake and have leftover fig glaze, you should really try this.  So good!

BROWN BEER BREAD

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp salt

12 ounces Black Butte Porter (or other dark beer, Not Guinness!**) Room temperature

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray 9 x 5′ loaf pan with non stick spray.  Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Add beer all at once, mixing as little as possible.  Batter will be lumpy.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Pour melted butter evenly over the top and bake for 45 – 50 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.  Turn out on rack to cool.

**  You can use Guinness in bottles but not the kind that comes in the can.  The canned variety gets it’s carbonation from nitro, which doesn’t work well with this bread recipe.

 

Root Beer Cake

Root Beer Barrels and A&W Root Beer Jelly Bellies complete this Root Beer Cake

My friend Emily had a birthday on October 15th.  It was a pleasure and an honor to make a special cake celebrating her turning a quarter of a century this year.  The fact that I am over  a half a century old and old enough to be her mother doesn’t interfere with us being good friends.  Emily is my grasshopper.  I am her sensei in the food world.  We enjoy getting together often and talking for hours about food and recipe development.

We have an on going joke about how excited people get when they are offered root beer in our home.  I think it is pretty funny, running down the list of beverages in the fridge.  Beer, wine (not in fridge, of course!), water, juice, root beer.  ROOT BEER!  Every time, without fail, someone gets excited about root beer.  One night, Emily and Chuck were over for dinner and I start offering drink options.  Emily pipes up “ROOT BEER”!  From that night on, she’s on a root beer jag.  It seemed only fitting that I should invent a root beer cake for her birthday.

Root Beer Cake

1 cup butter, softened

½ cup canola oil

2 ½ cups granulated sugar

5 eggs, room temperature

3 cups cake flour, sifted

2 tsp baking soda, sifted with flour

2 tsp root beer syrup

¾ cup root beer, room temperature

Grease 2   9” round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper 

Using an electric mixer, cream butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy. 

Add eggs, one at a time and beat well.  Mix in flour mixture, one cup at a time and beat well.  Add syrup and root beer and mix well. 

Pour batter, evenly divided, into prepared cake pans.  Bake in a preheated 325° oven for about 50 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack.  Remove cake from pans when cool, wrap and refrigerate until ready to frost.  Cooling the cakes make it easier to slice into four layers.

I used the buttercream recipe in the “A Fall Themed Birthday Cake” post omitting the melted chocolate and adding about 1/4 cup or more of Torani Classic Root Beer Syrup.  To make a more pronounced root beer flavor, I chucked a bunch of root beer barrel hard candies into the food processor and made root beer sugar, that I sprinkled over the top of each cake layer after I had frosted it with buttercream.  To be honest, it didn’t taste as root beery as I had hoped, but everyone really seemed to like it.  I think next time I will use the frosting recipe from the Elephant Cupcake post and add the root beer syrup to that.  If I like it better, I’ll let you know.

 

Chocolate Fig Custard Cake

Don't throw away those scraps of cake; create a new one!

My Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe rises really high.  When I made the cake for the Fall Themed Birthday Cake post, I had the piece left over from leveling it.  I hate to waste food, so I wrapped it up and saved it for another purpose.  At my current job as well as my previous one, we make a lot of bread pudding from left over breads, croissants and loaf cakes.  Since I can practically make bread pudding in my sleep, I decided to make this moist, not-too-sweet Chocolate Fig Custard cake.

Chocolate Fig Custard Cake

Chocolate cake, cut into 3/4″ chunks, enough to fit into a 9″ round cake pan

5 large fresh figs, each cut into 12 pieces

Spray 9 ” round cake pan with 2″ high sides with non stick spray

Place cake chunks in pan to cover bottom, layer fig chunks on top of cake chunks, then top with remaining cake chunks.  Prepare custard.

Cardamom Custard

1 cup whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup half n half

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp ground cardamom

8 large eggs, room temperature

Place the dairy, sugar, vanilla and cardamom in saucepan.  Heat until warm to the touch.

Beat eggs in medium mixing bowl.  While whisking, add warm milk mixture to the eggs.  Pour through strainer to remove any egg shell pieces and thick egg white.

Gently ladle the custard over the cake pieces in pan.  Do this slowly and allow the cake to soak up the custard.  Press the cake down gently into the custard.  Fill the pan as full as it will hold without spilling over the sides.  Place cake pan on heavy baking sheet and place in the middle of a 350 degree oven.  Bake until done.  Cake is done when a knife stuck in the center comes out clean, about an hour and 10 minutes.  Be sure to check cake after one hour, or before if your oven tends to run very hot.

While the cake is baking, make the fig glaze:

5 large fresh figs, cut in small chunks

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Place chopped figs, water and granulated sugar in small saucepan.  Heat until figs are soft and the water and sugar are syrupy.  Place in food processor and puree.  Add powdered sugar and process until smooth.

While the cake is still hot, brush the fig glaze all over the top.  You will have left over glaze.  It’s really nice on some fig scones!

Cool cake on wire rack until cool enough to refrigerate.  Refrigerate until completely cold.  Run a butter knife along the side of pan, careful not to cut into cake.  Place a dinner plate covered in plastic wrap on top of cake.  Turn over and lift pan.  Cake should slide out.  Place serving plate on bottom of cake and invert.

 

 

Fried Green Tomato Tacos aka Vegetarian Fish Tacos

I am determined to use all of those green tomatoes in our garden!  Last night’s dinner consisted of fried green tomato tacos, spicy Mexican style basmati rice and black beans.  The tacos are a vegetarian version of a fish taco.  I added  dulse flakes to my fried green tomato coating and whipped up a habanero tartar sauce.  Yummy!  The dulse flakes add the fishy taste without the fish.  Dulse is an edible, coarse textured red seaweed with a pungent, briny flavor.  It can be purchased it in dried, flaked form.  You can find the recipe and directions on how to make the fried green tomatoes on my post entitled Fried Green Tomato Gratin.  Instead of using sliced rounds of tomato, I cut the slices into strips.

Strips of green tomato just waiting to be battered and fried

After frying, place on paper towel to soak up any excess oil.  They smell so good.

Looking good, smelling good

I made the habanero tartar sauce by combining Veganaise, finely chopped dill pickle, finely chopped fresh habanero pepper and a small amount of pickle juice, about 2 teaspoons.  Stir until blended.

Habanero, dill pickle and Veganaise

Fry up some corn tortillas, add a bit of grated cheese ( I used habanero jack and cheddar).  Place three pieces of the tomato “fish” in there.   Top with the tartar sauce.   Add some chunks of avocado and some shredded cabbage.  That’s it!  Serve with beans and rice for a complete meal.

So good!

I’m hungry again after writing this post.  Wow!  You must try this.  Really.

P.S.  You can make a vegan version by dipping the tomatoes in soy milk instead of the beaten egg.

A fall themed birthday cake

A nice all purpose fall themed cake

My friend and co-worker, Katie D., ordered another cake for a birthday celebration last Saturday.  The family loves chocolate, so Katie ordered a 10″  square chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.  I wanted the cake to have an October theme so fall leaves and a couple of candy pumpkins seemed appropriate.

Katie called this morning and reported that everyone loved the cake, especially her cousin Trygve (pronounced trig va – it’s Norwegian).

The chocolate cake recipe can be found on my post, Vampire Gran’s Perfect Chocolate Cake.  Here is the buttercream recipe I used:

• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 3/4 cup water
• 6 large egg whites at room temperature 30 minutes
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 sticks (1 1/2 pounds) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon pieces and softened
• 12 ounces fine-quality 60%-cacao bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled to lukewarm

 

• Equipment: a candy thermometer; a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment

Preparation

Bring 1 3/4 cups sugar and water to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then wash down any sugar crystals from side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil, without stirring, until it registers 220 to 225°F, 15 to 20 minutes.

At this point, while continuing to boil syrup, beat whites with vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt in mixer at medium speed until they just hold soft peaks. Add remaining 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating, and beat until whites just hold stiff peaks.

When syrup reaches soft-ball stage (238 to 242°F), immediately pour syrup in a slow stream down side of bowl into whites (avoid beaters) while beating at high speed. Beat until completely cool, 25 to 30 minutes. With mixer at medium speed, add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition (see cooks’ note, below) and until buttercream is smooth. (Mixture may look curdled before all butter is added but will come together at end.) Pour chocolate into mixing bowl and whip until buttercream is smooth. If buttercreams are too soft to spread, chill, stirring occasionally. When chilled enough, whip before spreading.

 

I used pastry tip # 112 to make the leaves.

Yet another recipe using green tomatoes…..

My friend, Emily and I have been talking about green tomatoes lately.  Perhaps it’s because we have so many in our respective gardens.  We’ve been tossing around a few ideas and this latest one has been on my mind for a few days now,   Green tomatoes give this soup a bit of a citrusy, acidic quality.  It makes a really good left over, too!

The green tomato is not just for frying!

  

Cream of Green Tomato Fall Harvest Soup 

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, including leaves, finely chopped

1/3 cup Wondra or all purpose flour

2 pounds green tomatoes, chopped

1 fresh habanero, minced

1 fresh jalapeno, minced

2 tbsp oregano

2 tbsp basil

kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 quart “no chicken” chicken broth (for vegan and vegetarian soups)

2 cloves garlic, crushed through garlic press

½ cup heavy cream (omit this if you are making a vegan soup or substitute soy creamer or soy milk)

4 medium red potatoes

2 carrots, peeled and diced

½ cup peas, fresh or frozen

 

Heat oil and butter in large pot over medium high heat.  Saute onions and celery until soft and the onion just starts turning golden.  Whisk in Wondra or flour and cook about 30 seconds.  Add chopped green tomatoes, peppers and spices.  Cook until tomatoes soften.  Add stock and bring to a boil.  Lower heat to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes.

While soup in simmering, place whole red potatoes in a separate pan and cover with water.  Bring to a boil and then lower to medium.  Cook until potatoes pierce easily with a sharp knife, about 10 – 12 minutes.  About 7 minutes before the potatoes are done, add diced carrots to the potato pot.

Using an emersion blender, puree green tomato soup in pot, leaving it a little chunky.  Add the crushed garlic.  Add heavy cream, if desired.  You can use a blender or food processor if you don’t have an emersion blender.

When potatoes and carrots are done, drain in colander.  Add carrots to the soup pot.  When potatoes are cool enough to handle, dice in bite size pieces and add to the soup pot.  Add fresh or frozen peas.  If using frozen peas, rinse well before adding to the pot.  Heat through and serve.

I like to garnish my soups.  You can keep it simple and just add a bit of grated cheese, any type you prefer.  Or you can make a pico de gallo.  I used fresh garden ripe tomatoes, yellow tear drop tomatoes, red onion, and jalapeno finely chopped the day I made the soup pictured in this post.  I really like the contrast of the crunchy fresh veggies with the creamy, hot, spicy soup.  Serve this soup with some fast, homemade beer batter bread for a perfect fall meal.

Fresh Fig Tart and an ode to Marie

Insanely delicious Fresh Fig Tart with Crystallized Ginger

I have a confession.  I get crushes on cook book authors.  My daughter used to call them “my new friends”.  She was right.  I think of these wonderful people as my friends.  They give me advice and impart knowledge about food and it’s preparation at any hour of the day or night.  They are always there for me.  They encourage me to try new things and inspire me to create my own concoctions.  And they actually live the life I aspire to live.  And, to tell the truth, my life is turning into the life that others envy. 

Marie Simmons is my new BFF.  Oh, she doesn’t know it,  but she wrote a cookbook that I can’t stop thumbing through.  Fig Heaven is fantastic!  We moved into our house in March of this year and I’ve posted about all of the fabulous fruit trees we have.  The front yard boasts a bountiful fig tree.

Ripe for the picking

I actually met my current “crush” Marie Simmons.  It was years ago, when I was beginning to get Naked Baker off the ground.  Another cook book author crush, Patricia Greenberg, was doing a soy demonstration in the home of a chef in the hills of Berkley, California.  She invited me to attend (well, sort of, we did have to pay for the event, but if was sooooooo worth it).  There were about 15 people in attendance and we all sat in this tiny dining room facing the open kitchen.  Patricia did her demonstration of soy genius making a complete meal including appetizer and dessert.  Afterwards, we all sat down to a wonderful meal, complete with wine.  The woman seated to my left and I started a conversation as people do when they are sharing a meal.  We introduced ourselves and talked a bit about what we do, what our interests are, why we were attending this event and so on.  Her name stuck in my head: Marie Simmons.

I did not know who Marie Simmons was.  I know she told me she had written cook books and articles for food magazines.  I wanted to be her friend, but at the time I was too shy and did not feel confident in myself to persue any type of communication with this woman.   She was really nice and actually interested in my little business.  She said all of the usual nice things, very encouraging and wished me success in my endeavours.

The very next day I saw that name, Marie Simmons, in a Bon Appetit magazine.  I started to see her name in a lot of those magazines.  Wow!  I sat next to a food celebrity and talked to her and she was a normal person.  I think it is good that I did not know how important this Marie Simmons actually was.  She was just a nice pleasant woman who I had the opportunity to share a meal with.

Katie, my wonderful spouse, claims to be anti-fig.  In fact, I’ve met a number of not-so-much fig fans.  Marie, your recipe for Fresh Fig tart made a believer out of Katie!  She loved this.  I loved this so much I made her take it to work so I would not be tempted to nibble on it all day today.  The crust is amazing, like a butter cookie.  I look forward to trying some of the savory recipes before all of the figs are gone.  So, here’s to you, Marie, and your wonderful fig cookbook.  And, hopefully you won’t mind, but I am posting this recipe for my readers to enjoy.

Fresh Fig Tart

With Crystallized Ginger

From Fig Heaven by Marie Simmons 

1 ½ cups plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour

6 tbsp granulated sugar

¼ tsp salt

10 tbsp (1 stick plus 2 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 egg yolk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 pounds (approximately) firm, ripe figs, any variety, stems trimmed

2 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger

Confectioners’ sugar 

1.  Preheat oven to 400°.  Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 9 inch loose-bottomed tart pan.

 2.  Combine ½ cups flour, 2 tablespoons of the sugar in the bowl of  a food processor.  With the processor motor running, gradually add the butter through the feed tube.  Process until crumbly.

3.  Stir the egg yolk and the vanilla together in a small bowl.  With the motor running, gradually add the egg mixture through the feed tube.  Pulse the mixture until it begins to pull together.  (If the dough seems dry, sprinkle it with ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time (I used about ½ tablespoon when I made it).   The dough should be crumbly, but not dry.

4.  Turn the dough out directly into the prepared tart pan.  Gently press it on the bottom and up the sides of the pan in a relatively even layer; the dough will have a rough surface.  ( The dough can be made ahead and refrigerated, covered, until ready to bake.) 

5.  Reserve 8 to 10 of the figs for the topping.  Cut the remaining figs into ½ inch pieces.  Stir the remaining 4 tablespoons sugar, the remaining 2 tablespoons flour, and the crystallized ginger in a large bowl until blended.  Add the cut up figs and toss gently to coat them with the sugar mixture.  Spoon the filling evenly into the prepared crust; top with any sugar left in the bottom of the bowl.

6.  Bake the tart for 20 minutes.  Then reduce the oven temperature to 350° and bake until the edges of the crust are golden brown and the figs are hot and bubbly, 25 to 30 minutes.  (It took about 40 more minutes in my oven, but do check often after 25 minutes).  Remove from the oven

7.  Trim about ½ inch from the tops and bottoms of the reserved figs.  Cut each fig crosswise into three or four ¼ inch thick rounds.  Carefully place the sliced figs close together on the surface of the tart, pressing them down gently into the hot fig mixture.  Let the tart cool on a wire rack.

8.  Before serving, remove the rim from the pan.  Slide the tart, still on the base of the pan, onto a serving plate.  Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.  Cut into wedges, and serve with a spoonful of whipped cream or a scoop of softened vanilla ice cream if desired.  (We served  it plain because we have been pigging out on home made ice cream all week and it’s time for a break from the butter fat!!!)

 

 

Fig & Hazelnut Scones

A sweet glaze tops these Fig & Hazelnut Scones

I’m still recovering from my surgery, but you just can’t keep me out of the kitchen.  Katie picked these figs the other day and I just had to make something with them or they would just go bad.  It’s been a while since I invented a new scone so figs seemed just the right thing.  I still had toasted hazelnuts from making the ice cream earlier in the week so these two items would pair nicely.  And I just happen to have some hazelnut liqueur in the house, so the glaze will have a nice hazelnutty flavour.

I used my standard basic scone recipe that can be found in my“Everybody Must Get Sconed” post.  The substitutions are as follows:

Substitute  (1) hazelnut liqueur for the vanilla  (2) cardamom for the nutmeg, trim stems and bottoms of 5 large firm, ripe figs, any variety, and cut into bite size pieces.  Add 1/3 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts.

Mix and bake as directed.  While scones are baking, sift 2 cups of powdered sugar into a bowl, add 1 tbsp hazelnut liqueur and 2 tbsp heavy cream or half n half.  Mix until smooth.  It should be a nice glazing consistency.  Glaze scones while they are still hot, minutes after you pull them from the oven.  Allow the scones to cool a bit and the glaze to set.  Enjoy them warm or at room temperature.

Chocolate Banana Toasted Hazelnut Ice Cream

I had surgery on Tuesday.  I am not telling you this to illicit any sympathy from my readers.  No, it’s just the prelude to this next recipe.  Anyway, in preparation for said surgery, I made sure to lay into my pantry the necessary ingredients for my comfort food.  Cheddar cheese, bread, butter, dill pickles, tomato soup, crackers, etc.  I really looked forward to my meal of grilled cheese and dill pickle sandwich with tomato soup and crackers.  For me, this is the ultimate recovery food I crave.

I also made a special treat that may well become my new comfort food.  Home made chocolate banana ice cream with toasted hazelnuts.  So rich and decadent.   We had to eat a little the night before the surgery, just to make sure it had healing abilities, ya know?

When I was being prepped for the surgery, I found myself babbling to the nurse about this ice cream.  I know I saw her salivating in my mind. 

You know when you come out of the anesthetic and start talking nonsense?  Not me, I started telling the recovery nurse all about the ice cream that I was going to eat.  I described it to her in great detail.  How I made it.  All about my Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment.  Oh, she got her ice cream lesson for the day.

Later that evening, Katie scooped up that frozen delight and topped it with perfectly sliced banana and toasted hazelnuts.  We enjoyed that recovery treat, cuddled up on the couch, watching a silly movie and I started to feel much better.  It was either the ice cream or all those pain meds……….

Best recovery food ever!

 

CHOCOLATE BANANA TOASTED HAZELNUT ICE CREAM

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (75% cocoa solids)

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup whipping cream

2 ripe bananas

1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts

Put the milk and vanilla in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and add chopped chocolate.  Let sit for 10 minutes to allow chocolate to melt and then stir until mixed.

Beat egg yolks with sugar until light and fluffy.  Pour chocolate mixture over the eggs and pour combined mixture back into the pan.  Stir over gentle heat until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.  Allow to cool.

Once cooled, pour into food processor or blender along with cut up banana.  Blend until smooth.  Refrigerate until cold.

Lightly whip cream and stir into chilled chocolate banana mixture.  Place in ice cream maker and churn until thick and frosty.  Add chopped toasted hazelnuts the final few minutes of churning.  Put in container and freeze for at least two hours.  Allow to sit out for about 10 minutes before serving.