Healthy Chocolate: Three worthy ways to use your Easter eggs....

Truly scrumptious: chocolate flapjack

Strictly speaking, I don’t suppose a nutritionist would agree that the three chocolate recipes I’m about to share are actually health foods. However, I’m going to build my argument like the very best hot-shot barrister I know - AKA my son in the toy bit of Asda - as to why I think they are at least a worthy way of using up your Easter chocolate....



Point one: At Easter, there actually is such a thing as too much chocolate – we get mounds of the stuff. Melting it down and using it in different baking efforts makes it more interesting and you are likely to share it around, offer to it to friends and use it up more quickly, rather than let it lie there opened and half eaten.

Point two: Baking with children is, as we all know A WORTHY ENDEAVOUR. You’re engaging with your child, creating something and teaching them the valuable survival skills of cake construction.

Point three: These recipes, without the chocolate, are things we do make regularly and I genuinely consider them be pretty good food. They are:

Flapjack (porridge in a bake)
Crispy cakes (cereal in a bake)
Banana loaf (one of your five a day in a bake).

So, without further ado, here are my three favourite baking recipes given a chocolate twist for Easter:

Chocolate Flapjack
This is delicious! Ok, so it doesn’t actually use chocolate, it’s cocoa powder, but we decorated ours with mini eggs and it is just too yummy not too share with you...

12oz butter

The four-year-old laying eggs

3tablespoons golden syrup
12oz sugar
16oz oats
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C or gas mark 1 and butter the baking tray.
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan and then add the oats and cocoa powder.
Press it flat in the baking tray then bake for around 20 minutes.
Leave them for around 20 minutes before slicing up and only remove them when they’ve completely cooled.



Crispy cakes
It's a classic, I'm sure we've all made a batch of these in our time. But just in case...

Rice Krispies, Chocolate
You could use any chocolate for this, simply melt it down, mix with the cereal in a bowl and then place into paper cake cases before putting in the fridge for a few hours. Voila! You could decorate these with sweets too.

Banana loaf
We make this all the time. Adding chocolate icing is good, but the challenge is waiting before it has completely cooled before putting it on, and then waiting for that to cool and set. Perhaps we’re just getting a bit too worthy now....

4oz butter or margarine
6oz sugar
8oz self raising flour
2 eggs
2 large or 3 medium, very ripe bananas
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4 and butter a loaf tin.
Mash the bananas with a fork. Cream the butter and sugar together and mix in the eggs. Add the banana and mix in the flour. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 40 minutes then lower the temperature to 150 degrees C or gas mark 2 and cook for another 30 minutes.
While it’s cooling, melt about an average Easter Egg of chocolate in a bowl over simmering water and in turn let this cool a bit. When the loaf is cold, spread the chocolate on the top of it and then wait for it to set – if you can – before tucking in. Happy Easter!

And to top it off - chocolate iced banana loaf