A chocolatey day and no bread

There's no bread Mommy 'Daar's niks brood nie, Mamma'.
That was my son as he came charging up the stairs.  Oops, we live far from town and it happens sometimes.  No bread or milk.  We keep some long life milk and some bread in the fridge, but every so often we end up with a depleted stash.

'I'll just bake you something then'.  It probably says something about a household if there is always four kinds of flour, yeast, sprinkles of any description, buttermilk, many varieties of rice and even more of grains in the pantry, but no bread.

There were two very ripe bananas in the fruit bowl, perfect for some muffins.  We like bananas, but not the very ripe variety, not even in a muffin, so I decided to mask the taste slightly with some cacao.  The chocolate bit is not decadent, just a bit of extra taste.  Still healthy enough for lunch.

As soon as they were in the oven, the electrician and his daughter showed up.  And then my father.  Everybody took a few, straight out of the oven, piping hot.  It left only four, which we took to E's swimming coach in the afternoon.

Then we had friends over for supper and I made some chocolate mousse for dessert, with some macarons on the side.  Decadent, dark and even a bit naughty.  We ate it while staring at the lightning that illuminated a huge storm over the mountain.   

Banana and chocolate muffins

230g self-raising flour

55g cacao
½ tsp baking soda
2 ripe bananas
1 egg, beaten
125ml buttermilk
100g brown sugar
50g white sugar
85ml sunflower oil
30ml hot water


Sift the flour, cacao and baking soda together in a large mixing bowl.
Mix all the other ingredients and then add to the dry ingredients.  Stir only until incorporated.  Line a muffin pan with muffin liners and spoon mixture into the liners.  Bake at 190°C for 15 minutes.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate mousse

170g dark chocolate 
2 tsp coffee liquer
2 tablespoons strong coffee
2 tablespoons double thick cream
4 eggs, seperated


Melt the chocolate in a bowl over some hot water.  Take care not to let the water boil rapidly, only very, very gently.  Stir frequently and take off the heat if just over half of the chocolate has melted.  Continue to stir until smooth and then return to the heat.  Turn the heat off and add the cream, liqueur and coffee and stir again until smooth.  Take off the heat and add the egg yolks, one at a time and stir until incorporated.  Whisk the egg whites until stiff (soft peak) and fold into the chocolate mixture.  Pour into glasses and chill in the fridge until set, a few hours.