Chocolate Crescent Rolls

I love these chocolate filled rolls. They are perfect for a rainy afternoon like today. Or for any afternoon or occasion for that matter.

I found the recipe at LittleBirdieSecrets and couldn't wait to try it out. Their original recipe can be found here.
I did a few minor adjustments so that I could use whatever ingredients I had at home at the moment and trust me, they were perfect. LittleBirdieSecrets intended these little wonders for thanksgiving. But, as 1. we have no thanksgiving in Sri Lanka 2. These are great for any time of the year,  I made these for my sister's birthday.

Ingredients I used (please refer the post by LittleBirdieSecrets to see what the original recipe calls for)

As you will see I halved the quantities for my use.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
a sachet (2 tbsp) instant yeast
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup sugar
A little water
a pinch of salt

a bit of softened margarine
a few chunks of chocolate ( I used caterer's chocolate, but I guess any kind is fine)

How to

Mix all the ingredients except the margarine & chocolate in a large bowl. It will be sticky. But don't mind it. Let it to rest for 45 minutes. Taking a tip from the LittleBirdies,  you can put the bowl in a large kitchen garbage bag, tie the opening & leave it. Or else you can cover the bowl with a wet tea towel & leave it to rest. (I use the tea towel technique when making bread)

After 45 minutes, punch down & leave to rest for another 45 minutes.

When the time is up, break the dough in to a several pieces. I make bite sized rolls. If you want to make bite sized ones, on a floured surface roll out the dough pieces into circles of the size of a dinner plate.

Spread softened margarine on to rolled out dough.

Cut into wedges. Like this

Put a piece of chocolate on the wide end of each wedge and starting from the wide end, roll inwards. Tuck the pointed end underneath & shape the roll like a crescent. Something like this

And yeah, I forgot to shape my ones into crescents. So they're not exactly crescent rolls. anyway, moving on,
place the rolls on a baking sheet & bake in a preheated oven at 400 F for about 10 minutes or till they're golden. My crescent rolls were small, so they only needed to be baked for about 7 minutes.

When they bake, they smell so yummy & yeasty. I love the freshly baked smell of buns & breads. yum yum.

That's about it. My folks loved it. But MiddleChild for whose birthday I made these & exon wished I had put something savoury or spicy in them instead of chocolate. Oh, well.

The pictures courtesy of (as always) MiddleChild. Thank you very much.

Let me know if you make this. :) Happy baking!

Banana Chocolate chip cake

This is something very easy to whip up with a few easy to find ingredients at home. Although when one thinks about it, bananas & chocolates don't go together, this one turned out to be rather nice.

Ingredients

250 g plain flour
150 g white sugar (No need to be Castor sugar, granulated is just fine)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1tsp ground cinnamon (Or not, according to taste)
120 g caterer's chocolate, broken or cut into little chips/chunks. (The quantity of chocolate can be varied according to how chocolaty you want the cake to be)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (115 g) butter melted & cooled. (I actually used margarine) (And a little more for the baking tin)
3 ripe large bananas (approx 450 g) mashed well. ( The 1st time I made this I didn't mash them properly & the little chunks of banana in the cake weren't too bad either)

1 tsp vanilla extract
about 1tbs cocoa powder

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
Grease the baking tin with butter & dust with cocoa powder
Mix all the dry ingredients except the cocoa powder together (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon & chocolate)
Mix all the liquid/wet ingredients together ( eggs, butter, bananas, vanilla)
Pour the liquid ingrient mixture into the dry ingredients & mix.
Pour into the baking tin & bake for 55 to 60 minutes.

Serve with chocolate melted with a bit of butter. (It gives a nutty taste)

Thats' all. :)

And, the pictures, courtesy of MiddleChild. (Who happily gulped down half of the cake)
http://rantsofamiddlechild.blogspot.com/