While I was cleaning my house, a rare occurrence and one that usually means my computer is broken, I came across a pile of old magazines behind the couch in the front room.

Heavens knows why I have kept them but one, open at a recipe page, caught my eye. Chocolate Banana Coconut Bread in the pages of Australian Country Style, a magazine I rarely buy.

I know why I kept this issue, my Aunt Kathleen made a mean Banana Coconut Bread and there it was! Her recipe, ingredient by ingredient, step by step. I still have it in a tattered exercise book of recipes jotted down in my first year of marriage. But this time with the welcome addition of chocolate.

What you need :

• 1 large ripe banana, peeled and mashed
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup dessicated coconut
• 250g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
• 100g spreadable cream cheese, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease and flour a 19cm x 9cm x 6cm loaf pan. Mix together the mashed banana, vanilla, eggs and milk. Stir in the sugar. Sift the flour and baking powder over the wet ingredients. Add the coconut and gently fold through the mixture, using a large metal spoon.
2. Fold in the chocolate, being careful not to over-mix. Spoon into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Serve sliced with cream cheese.

Which reminds me, I have some notes on bananas ready to be compiled into a post.

Australian Country Style – March 2007

Like a good red wine, allow the chocolate to come to room temperature of around 20 -25 Celsius, or 68 -76 Fahrenheit. Chocolate should be eaten slowly, in small amounts, for it brings most pleasure when eaten properly.

Plain Chocolate

Place the chocolate in your mouth for a few moments to savour the primary flavours and aroma. Then, as you bite gently, chew it slowly to release the secondary aromas. Let the chocolate rest against your palate and the sides of your mouth to experience the full range of the flavours. Enjoy the lingering taste as the chocolate slowly melts in your mouth. Finally, swallow.

Filled Chocolate

Allow the chocolate to sit in your mouth for a few moments, again to release the primary flavours and aromas. Then chew it gently – at least five times – to mix the chocolate and the filling. Now allow the mixture to melt slowly so that you experience a new range of flavours created by the mingling of the filling and the chocolate. Allow the taste to linger before swallowing.

After a Meal

Chocolate is an ideal way to finish a meal, but don’t combine chocolate and wine. They don’t mix. The lingering intensity of the chocolate will compete with the flavour and aroma of the wine.

Chocolate is truly a food of the gods.

Eating a few squares of dark chocolate a day may help to reduce the risk of serious heart disease and every smoker should be fighting the narrowing arteries caused by their habit with some catechin-rich foods in the daily diet. Chocolate can even help protect your teeth from decay. Scientific research also shows that chocolate could help to prevent cancer. But like all research, it’s best to look at the team which undertakes it.

Anti-Oxidants

Anti-oxidants are widely used as ingredients in dietary supplements for health purposes such as preventing cancer and heart disease. Tea was always thought to contain the largest amount of these antioxidants but now we are told dark chocolate has four times as much as compared to tea.

Comparison : Dark chocolate – 53.5 mg of catechins per 100 gm
milk chocolate – 15.9 mg per 100 gm
black tea – 13.9 mg per 100 gm

Phenols

Chocolate, like red wine, also contains phenols which reduce the presence of free radicals that damage cells and DNA. Phenols prevent fat like substances in the blood stream from oxidising and clogging the arteries, a major cause of heart attack.

Tooth Protection

It’s suggested that the cacao plant, from which chocolate and cocoa is derived, boosts the immune system, and helps stop dental decay. Tooth cavities start when bacteria produce a sticky molecule called glucan which helps the bacteria anchor themselves to teeth and form plaque. These and other nasty bacteria in plaque convert sugar to acids, which then eat away the surface of the tooth. The next step is cavities.

As you eat chocolate, your teeth get a coating of cocoa butter, and this apparently retards the formation of plaque. Of course the sugar in the chocolate does contribute to cavities, but no more than the sugar in any other food. Scientists believe that the benefits of antibacterial agents in cocoa beans outweigh the high sugar levels.

One particular scientist, Carl Keen, says chocolate can definitely thin the blood and help to prevent clotting. He also advocates the theory of tooth protection. As women, we know too well that research comes in many shapes and forms, and ultimately it’s used for marketing and sales. Carl Keen, and his no doubt excellent research team, are funded by confectionery maker Mars. Just keep that in mind before you blow the budget on chocolate.