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Colin Mills

Colin Mills
Senior Recipe Developer
HelloFresh

Walnut-Crusted Ghirardelli® Chocolate Banana Bread Cake Pops

Recipe courtesy of Colin Mills
Sponsor: Ghirardelli®

Servings: 16

Ingredients

Banana Bread:

  • 8 oz all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 lb very ripe bananas, peeled
  • 3 ½ oz butter, softened
  • 3 ¼ oz eggs
  • 5 ¼ oz brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Coating:

  • 5 ¼ oz walnuts, finely chopped
  • 8 ¾ oz Ghirardelli® Dark Coating Wafers

Directions

Banana Bread:

  1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350°F. Spray an 8 ½ by 4 ½ – inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
  2. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl.
  3. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas with potato masher until fairly smooth. Whisk the butter, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla into the bananas.
  4. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
  5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean, 55 to 75 minutes. Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and continue to cool on the wire rack.
  6. Once the loaf has cooled, thinly shave off all sides of the outer crust and discard or reserve for another use.
  7. Portion out 16 (1 ¼ oz) amounts of inner bread. Using your hands, roll portioned amounts into balls, roughly 1 to 1 ½ in in diameter and place on a plate or baking sheet.
  8. Skewer the banana bread balls with 6-in cake pop sticks.

Coating:

  1. Place the chopped walnuts in a shallow dish.
  2. Prepare a parchment-lined baking sheet.
  3. Place the Coating Wafers in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 10- to 15-second intervals, then stir. Repeat until all the chocolate is completely melted.
  4. Dip or spoon the chocolate over the banana bread balls, gently shake off any extra chocolate, then roll the cake pops in the walnuts to coat. Once coated, place the pops on the prepared pan with cake pop sticks in a vertical position.
  5. Refrigerate the cake pops.

Chef Notes

If the cake pops begin to get a little too crumbly, you can freeze them with sticks inside then coat them in chocolate and walnuts.  Walnuts can be quickly chopped by putting them in a small ziplock bag, then pounding them with a rolling pin.

Project Management: Summit F&B
Photography: Carlos Garcia // Food Styling: Peg Blackley

About The Author

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