Having some brown banana’s to me comes with two implications. One baking something or the other winging them at passers by. To do this you slightly open the banana and toss not quite at a unknowing person but near them. So it splatters near them. Considering I know longer live in a high rise I decided to go with the baking option. Slightly modifying my banana bread recipe and mixing in some Black Oak Nutcracker Porter my dark chocolate banana muffins turned out quite well. The beer was a nice addition to change the taste a little bit. Once I get baking I tend to do a few things at once.

As the mess is already happening and will not be much bigger with two types of muffins rather than one. My next muffin was a bit more of an experiment. I’ve never made carrot anything so spent grain carrot muffins was a bit of an adventure. Which I then complicated by deciding they needed caramel in them. The Caramel was made with the remainder of the nutcracker porter from the banana muffins. Making a dark rich caramel that fully complimented the carrot muffins with the fluffy soft body and long stands of carrot throughout.

Normally I’m opposed to adding anything to my beer. Be it lemon or anything really. I prefer to let things be what they and let flavour’s meld by having a taste of this and a taste of that. This afternoon I thought I would experiment a little bit and see what I could come up with. I decided that Black Oak Nut Brown Ale and under appreciated champion of the Canadian craft brew scene would be my muse. Splitting a bottle into two glasses. One I added a double shot of espresso. (Beans courtesy of Coffee Tree at Jane and Bloor). I then steamed hot chocolate and added it to the second one.

The espresso one while good. Over powered the beer and the ratio needs to be worked with. Perhaps a double shot to a whole bottle. Just to give it a coffee edge.

The hot chocolate, of which came about to be about a 50/50 split between it and the beer was phenomenal. I would order it in a bar. Its innovative and and delicious as heck.

I let the choclate settle on top of the beer so it was a bit chocolatey and foamy at the top and more of the nut brown flavour on the bottom.

http://blackoakbeer.com/

Double americano and vegan chocolate cupcake from the Toronto Coffee Company at Bloor and Lansdowne.