Has anybody heard of the "cronut"? If you live in NYC and you have not, you must either live as a hermit in a cave, or have serious communication impairements. So, for those who do not live in NYC, the cronut is a hybrid between a croissant and a donut. It was created a couple of years ago by chef Dominique Ansel, and every morning, there are huge lines forming outside of his Soho bakery to buy the infamous creation. Since then, it has become total craziness around hybrid pastries: the duffin (doughnut+muffin), the crookie (croissant+cookie), the townie (brownie+tart), being only a few examples.
To keep up with the hybrid frenzy, I came up with my own hybrid pastry, the "brownana", by combining two of my most favorite cakes: the brownie and the banana yogurt cake. I find that chocolate cakes here tend to be a little bland, as they usually lack the powerful flavor of real dark chocolate. By combining it with a classic yogurt cake, and adding bananas, this becomes an interesting, moist and tasteful cake, which works as well for dessert as for breakfast. As I often do, I have reduced the quantity of sugar from the original recipe, and also replaced some of the flour by almond powder.
Ingredients:
1/2 pack (6 oz or 170 g) semi-sweet dark chocolate morsels (I recommend Ghirardelli)
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsweetened butter, cut in slices
3 large eggs
One plain yogurt (preferably Greek, ideally home made)
Using the yogurt container (rince first):
2 yogurt containers flour
1 yogurt container almond powder (replace by flour if not available)
1/2 yogurt container granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
3 ripe bananas, cut in slices
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 370 F.
In a large saucepan, melt the chocolate morsels with a tablespoon of water, on very low heat, and stir regularly. Once the chocolate is fully melted, add the butter and melt on low heat, continuing to stir. Once the butter is fully melted, remove from the stove and let cool for a few minutes. Add the eggs one by one and mix well with a whisk, then add the yogurt and mix. Incorporate the flour, almond powder, baking powder and salt, and whisk well until the batter is perfectly smooth. Add the sugar and mix again, then add the sliced bananas. Pour into a cake pan and bake in the oven for about 50 minutes (until the blade of a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean). Remove from the oven, let it cool a little, then remove from the pan.
