It’s been too long since my last post but things have been a bit busy for me lately as I have temporarily moved to NYC for a couple of months, which is very exciting.

NYC is a food lover’s heaven!

I am based in Brooklyn and the two local shops down the road, delis, as they are known here, have more varieties of European cheese on offer than English supermarkets (which are in Europe, after all). You can also get all sorts of baking and cooking ingredients in the delis though it’s true what they say, New Yorkers don’t cook much. But who can blame them with so many nice eateries around. I intend to try out as many as possible whilst living here and hopefully will be able to recommend the best ones to you too.

Before coming out here, the last brunch I had in London was back at Workshop Clerkenwell (see my earlier review here). My favourite dish there that day was a toasted banana bread with espresso mascarpone and rhubarb compote. It inspired me to make my own version of this at home: toasted banana bread with maple mascarpone and plum compote, which is probably the longest receipe title on my blog yet.

I looked for a fat free banana bread receipe, which I found on Gourmet Getaways, as I like to top it with a generous helping of mascarpone and figured that would be rich enough. As for the fruit compote, you could go with any fruit of your liking but I since plums are in a season right now, that’s what I’d recommend. You could use the plum compote receipe that I gave out for the oat pancakes a while ago.

You can make the banana bread up to 3 days ahead, if you like since it will be freshly toasted just before serving.

For one banana bread, you’ll need:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 ripe bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 whole eggs

For the plum compote, you’ll need:

• 500g plums
• 50g sugar
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (or water)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cinnamon stick

For the mascarpone:

• 250g mascarpone
• 1 tbsp maple syrup, or more if desired
  

Start with the cake:
Grease and/or line a loaf tin and preheat the oven to 160 degrees,

Mix the flour and bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl, then add the sugar.

Mash the bananas in another bowl, with the help of a fork – they don’t need to be fully mashed to a puree, leaving a few chunks is actually quite desirable.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and lightly beat them, then add them to the mashed banana along with the vanilla essence. Combine the three and add the mix to the bowl containing the flour. Mix gently with a wooden spoon until combined.

Pour the mix into the prepared loaf tin and bake at 160 degrees for 40mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool down for 5 minutes before turning the cake out to cool down fully on a wire rack.

Now make the plum compote, for directions please see my earlier post here.

For the maple mascarpone, just mix the two ingredients together until the syrup is blended in and the mascarpone is getting softer.

Just before serving, cut chunky slices off the bread and – for best results – toast them, for about 3-5 minutes, in a non-stick griddle pan on a medium heat. Alternatively, a toaster will also do the trick.

Serve with a spoonful or so of the compote and a generous dollop of the sweetened mascarpone, which will start melting on the warm banana bread. Hmmmmmmmhhhh….