Steemit Iron Chef 2017 #09 : Bezé cookies with banana/chocolate filling

Hello amazing people, hope you are doing great! This week for the Steemit Iron Chef I decided to combine a favorite recipe of mine with some bananas. This time I did not want to go with a simple baked banana and ice-cream/jam recipe (that was the only thing I had ever made with banana that was not completely raw). Until now. I combined chocolate/banana filling with the Meringues (Bezē) shell.

Meringues is the name you might recognize, but in Latvia we call these ''Bezē cepumi'' They are one of my favorite dessert snacks and I used to buy them in boxes when I was still living in Latvia. They are also really tricky to make as the egg whites might get clingy and not work into a thick consistency. By the favor of greater force, today my cookies had perfectly whipped egg whites!

I also went a little less on the sugar even though the cookies are known for the over-usage of the ingredient (some older recipes suggest using 80 g on one egg white)

This is a time consuming recipe as the cookies are in the oven for approx. 1 hour and a half and all together the recipe can take up to 2 and a half hours, especially if you decide to make a filling in the wrong time.

From the batter I made I had enough for one pan of cookies.

Ingredients

For filling

1 Banana
70 g chocolate
a little bit of lemon juice
20 ml sweet cream

For cookie shells

30 g chocolate
4 egg whites
140 g sugar
half teaspoon table vinegar
a pinch of salt and vanilla extract or bean
4 teaspoons of corn starch

Your eggs should be in room temperature when you start!

Preheat your oven to 100 degrees Celsius

First separate your egg whites from yellows and put the whites in glass bowl

Add a pinch of salt and start mixing (best with a mixer and on medium speed)

Mix until soft peaks start forming.

Add the sugar slowly, still using the mixer. The peaks will have to be strong for the mixture to be ready.

Add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract or a little bit of vanilla dots.

Add the table vinegar, continue mixing the mixture

Gradually add the starch and mix until the egg whites have formed strong peaks that do not move

Grate the 30 g of chocolate and add in the mixture, mix again!

When you move the bowl, the mixture should not move with it, just like in the picture below, where I am holding the bowl up vertically.

I used a plastic bag with zip-lock to make forms on the pan, but if you have those special pretty things, use them(do not remember the name! I used to have some as I love making cakes, but I left them in my previous residence, so zip-lock bag it is!

Fill the plastic bag and cut off a small corner.

Make round forms on the baking sheet with the help of the bag

Note to self. I made the filling before I started making the cookies, so my work time got extended, but it brought in an opportunity as well, I made some chocolate and banana filled cookies to bake instead of just fill in the end!

Only the six ones down in the photos are made with the filling, the rest will have a chilled filling, plus you can see that the chocolate/banana ones are not as pretty!

Put your cookies in the oven, as I said, 100 degrees Celsius and for around and hour and half, the cookies need to be dried, not baked.

Six ugly ones on the right side are filled with chocolate/banana mixture

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Now for the banana part! Finally! The one ingredient that is actually required!

Puree your bananas well, you can even use a blender.

Add the sweet cream and around 10 g lemon juice.

Put on a pan and bring the mixture to a boil.

While the mixture is heating up, break up the 70 g of chocolate and put it in a bowl.

When the banana mixture starts to boil, cover the chocolate with it

The chocolate will melt and the mixture will turn brown.

Cool the mixture ant it will become thick.

After the cookies are ready, open the oven and let them cool.

When the cookies have cooled, start taking them off the sheet and pairing them up

In the middle, spread your banana/chocolate mixture and when you are finished, it is time to eat!

I have to admit that I left the cookies in the oven for a little too much, so they got a brownish color, but did not burn yet, yay, lucky! :D I was actually rushing to make this post as it is getting late and all. In the end, the filling makes the cookies amazing, I did not expect it to go so well together. I am considering on cutting down on the sugar more the next time as I think it was plenty and I am over my sweet tooth from childhood :D

I will definitely make the cookies again, and try to watch the oven when I do. I love the taste, that is sweet, but natural in the middle, the banana is refreshing and chocolaty, and the balance between ingredients is great!

Have the best day, week and life,
Linda