dark magic… and chocolate

Okay, HP fans! Here is another Harry Potter themed treat that Potterheads and Potterhaters alike will love to eat.

Before I get going, I wanted to draw some attention to this awesome vegan Harry Potter blog: Dumbledore’s Vegan Army. Fun stuff!

So, first, I wanted to work with that Trader Joe’s peanut flour again, in a more conventional setting. Since posting those gluten-free cookies, I have been getting a lot of blog traffic from people who are looking for things to use it in. I’m guessing that for most of those people, vegan, gluten-free cookies aren’t exactly what they’re looking for.

Second… I wanted to make Horcrux Cakes, another brilliant title suggested by Alec, my littlest brother. For those of you who don’t know what a horcrux is, it’s a regular object that has a fragment of a witch or wizard’s soul in it, in effect giving them immortality, so long as the object exists. The more horcruxes you have, the better chance you have of existing for all eternity. But being that Voldemort is the last person we’d want living forever, I had to ask myself, what or who would I want to live forever?

Chocolate. Duh.

Hence, my banana/peanut butter/chocolate Horcrux Cakes. Fluffy, moist little cakes encasing a creamy chocolate, black magic soul. Tom Riddle approved.

Horcrux Cakes

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup peanut flour (can use all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas baking soda
1/8 teas. salt
1/2 cup + 3 tbsp. mashed banana
3 tbsp. peanut butter
1/4 cup oil
2/3 cup milk of choice
1/4 cup chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease ad flour a standard muffin tin.

In a small bowl, combine the flour(s), sugar, baking powder and soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the banana, peanut butter and oil. Whisk the wet ingredients until well mixed then add the milk and whisk to combine.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining 3 tbsp of banana and the chopped chocolate and combine. Set aside.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana/pb mixture in two batches, until just combined. Scoop a heaping tablespoon of the batter into the bottom of each cup and put a small scoop of the banana/chocolate mixture in the center of each cup.

Top each cup with the remaining batter, being mindful to seal in the center. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden (toothpick test won’t work, obviously). Let cakes cool on rack for 15 minutes before loosening and removing from the tins.

Top cooled cakes with peanut butter icing or melted chocolate (or both!). To make PB icing, combine 1 tbsp. peanut butter, 1 teas. milk and 1/2 cup powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Scoop into the corner of a sandwich bag, twist and snip of a tinny bit of the corner to pipe onto cakes. Do the same with melted chocolate, if you want.

Makes 12 Horcrux Cakes