TWD: Lots of Ways Banana Cake

I love bananas, but I'm really picky about eating them. They have to be just right, or they're no good, in my opinion. But even a banana that's past its prime for eating can be turned into a delicious dessert. And that's why I don't feel guilty when I buy 6 bananas a week and only eat 3 before they're "too ripe." Instead of going to waste, they get tossed in the freezer where they'll wait until I decide to make banana bread.
Even though this recipe wasn't banana bread, it was just as delicious (and maybe even moreso). Dorie lists at least half a dozen different variations on this recipe. You can change the liquid ingredients (coconut milk, buttermilk, regular milk, or my pick...sour cream) or the mix-ins (coconut, dried fruits). My mix-in of choice? Mini chocolate chips. Oh, yes I did. I love banana and chocolate together. I knew that these were destined to be muffins/cupcakes, so the mini chips were perfect. Dorie suggests frosting the cake with marshmallow frosting, whipped cream frosting, or chocolate ganache. I had planned on topping my cupcakes with ganache, but as you can see, they ended up being nekkid. David and I both decided that they were perfect as-is (He ate 5. FIVE!) and I was afraid the ganache would overwhelm the banana. And the chocolate chips were just chocolatey enough.
David took some of the muffins to work with him, and I took the rest with me. And I think everyone loved them. These were really moist, which is something I definitely appreciate in a cupcake/muffin/quickbread. If you want to use up some ripe bananas, you can find the recipe over at Kimberly's blog,Only Creative Opportunities. Happy baking!

TWD: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment was Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie, chosen by Spike (of Spike Bakes). And it was perfect timing. This week, we'll experience the first of many hot, humid Kentucky summer days. Ice cream pie was a perfect reward after working in the gardne tonight with David's grandmother.
But I'm not so sure that everyone was quite as excited about this ice cream pie. In fact, I'm sure there was lots of gnashing of teeth among the other TWD participants over this pick. This recipe includes two polarizing ingredients...coconut and banana. Before I joined TWD, I had no idea that people had such strong aversions to those two foods. I love bananas, and I don't mind coconut, so I wasn't too concerned about this week's flavor combo. And I hope that lots of people baked along, because this is one tasty pie!

I think it ranks right up there as one of our most simple (and quick!) recipes. The crust was the most time-consuming part, but it only took about 10 minutes to put together (but there was very little real effort involved: crushing cookies into crumbs, melting butter, and stirring coconut until toasted). From there, you slice bananas, whir some bananas, ice cream, and rum in the food processor, and stick it all in the freezer. Easy peasy!
David, Mama, and I really enjoyed this one. After the first bite, I wasn't sure about it, but then I was hooked. Yum! But the very best part? The crust. I could just eat the crust plain. I have a feeling I'll be using it for other pies in the near future. It's so crunchy and flavorful...not too sweet, and not too coconuty. Just perfect crispy perfection.

If you're looking for the perfect summertime dessert, please visit Spike Bakes for the recipe.

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

Hi everyone! The Sweet Life is back after a little hiatus. We've been in the new house for a little over a week now, and it's beginning to feel like home. For several days, I was very uneasy whenever I was in the house, because it just didn't feel like "home." But now that it's a little lived-in, I'm feeling better. It's still not quite "home" yet, but we're closer. At least I don't feel like jumping up and driving back to the old house or my parent's house anymore!
Anyway, I'm LOVING my new kitchen. I have so much more space now than I did at the old house, and I've got crazy amounts of countertops. If you're interested in seeing the new kitchen, take a look at this post.
I decided to make my "comeback" with the Tuesdays with Dorie assignment for the week: Cocoa-Nana Bread, chosen by Steph at Obsessed with Baking. It was a great assignment for my first TWD in my new kitchen: simple ingredients that I could find easily, as I'm still finding my way around the new house. I even had a couple of past-their-prime bananas begging to be used. I felt a little bad for Steph as I looked at the P & Q for this week's pick...it seems lots of people are uneasy about the combo of bananas and chocolate. And that's something I just don't get (kind of like how I don't understand how so many people have an aversion to raisins in baked goods), because they seem to be perfect companions to me. In fact, one of my favorite snacks is a banana drizzled with Hershey's syrup (or covered in Nutella). Anyway, this recipe is a keeper. It's a quick bread, so it's not rocket science. Dorie's description was right on: the first bite is chocolate-chocolate, then you get the banana taste. It was a perfect dessert after dinner tonight...still warm from the oven! Yum!
Thanks, Steph, for choosing this delicious bread! I love the chocolate and banana combo! If you want to try the recipe, visit Obsessed with Baking.

Cranberry Banana Bread and a Confession

I'm back with more of my holiday baking recipes! And I have a confession to make. I have made this Cranberry Banana Bread several times for food gifts, yet I have never tasted it. There's something wrong with that, isn't there? This quick bread always gets good reviews, so I've never been concerned about giving it away (well, except for the first time I made it).
I was so close to having a bite this year, but it just didn't happen. As I was counting my mini-loaves of all kinds of bread, I realized that I would have just enough, so I didn't get to snack on any of this one. I know I would love it, though. I am a sucker for all things cranberry, and that's a recent development. For the longest time I was scared of cranberries, for some reasons. To get over my fear, I started putting dried cranberries on my salad (which I now cannot live without) and I've gradually worked up to using whole cranberries in recipes. I don't know why I was ever scared of the tartness of cranberries. I was the kid who ate unripe gooseberries off of my grandmother's gooseberry bush, for crying out loud!

Anyway, I just know this recipe is good. How can a quick bread with cranberries and bananas be anything but? Maybe when we get moved in to the new house, I'll try a batch of this bread just for me. It'll be a nice christening for my new oven!

Cranberry Banana Bread

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup mashed bananas

1/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsley chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Cream together butter and sugar until completely blended. Add banana, milk, and eggs, mixing well. Add dry ingredients, mixing well, until just moist. Stir in the nuts and cranberries. Spread batter evenly in loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

TWD: Classic Banana Bundt Cake

Thank you, Food Librarian, for choosing this cake! I, too, love a good Bundt cake. I got my bundt pan at a church yard sale about 4 years ago, and I don't know how I lived without it. If you don't have one at your house, you need a bundt pan. They come in a wide variety of patterns, but I have the basic bundt. I'm happy with it! You can also find bundt pans at a variety of price points. I've seen them for less than $10.00, but all the way up to about $32.00. Spend whatever you like, but definitely pick up a bundt pan the next time you're at Wal-Mart! They're my absolute favorite type of cake to make, so when I saw this one on the TWD schedule for August, I knew there would be no way I'd miss it!

The recipe for this delicious, beautiful Bundt couldn't be easier. You just need flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, bananas, and either sour cream or plain yogurt. I'd say that anyone who cooks or bakes even semi-regularly has these items on hand. I had fat-free plain yogurt, so that's what I used, and it turned out great. I also added in some mini-chocolate chips. It just seemed like the right thing to do!My favorite part of baking anything is having leftover batter to eat. I don't fear raw eggs in my batter...I eat batter anytime I bake, and I bake a lot. I've never had any ill effects, so I'll keep on keepin' on. Anyway, this batter was delicious. I knew that the baked cake would be beyond delicious, so I made plans to get it out of the house. Once it had cooled, I made a simple glaze with milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla, drizzled it on, cut a slice for Mama, and sent it to CUB with David. There was no way I was going to let that Banana Bundt Beauty sit in my kitchen and tempt me! If you've got the ingredients on hand, and you probably do, why don't you go and visit The Food Librarian and get the recipe?

TWD: Fresh Mango Bread

Even though I haven't officially been a member of Tuesdays With Dorie for all that long, I've been baking lots of things out of the cookbook (Baking: From My Home to Yours). I have decided that this is pretty much my very favorite recipe so far. I have a soft spot for quick breads, though. I love quick breads of any kind...I'd rather have a quick bread over just about anything. But this quick bread falls into the category of one that I would have never made if I hadn't been a member of TWD. I mean, I live in small town Kentucky! Who makes mango bread?! I like mangoes, but I had never thought of using them in a quick bread, but I have Kelly, from Baking with the Boys to thank for encouraging me to make this one!

Here's what you need:

flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, some eggs, brown sugar, lime zest, a mango (duh) some oil, sugar, and golden raisins. Let me say that I am so happy to have a recipe that doesn't require room temperature butter! I can never, ever remember to put my butter out to get to room temperature, so that sets me back a little while! Yay for oil!
This comes together really easily, in just two bowls! I love my KitchenAid mixer, but I was glad to have a recipe that didn't require it. The batter sure is stiff, though. Dorie's right, it's more like a dough than a batter. After baking (and waiting a whole day to try it, because Dorie says it's better that way!), here's what we have:I just wish that I had used another mango. It had a great flavor, especially when you got a big bite of the mango, but I don't think I got quite the 2 cups that the recipe called for. But the flavor of this bread was fabulous. I gave two generous slices to David's grandmother, Mama (pronounced Mamaw...she's my guinea pig), and I think I pretty much ate the rest. I think David had two slices, but mostly it was me.

Last Saturday, I used this recipe to make some banana bread, because I thought the flavors would work really well together. I mashed the banana, so it kind of disappeared into the batter, so next time, I think I'll try to leave some chunks. Overall, this was a great recipe, one I'll definitely use time and again, probably with lots of variations on the fruit. If you'd like the recipe, head on over to Kelly's site. I'd recommend that you go right now.

Double Tuesdays with Dorie!

Coconut Butter Thins

Well, I'm finally a member of Tuesdays with Dorie! For those of you who aren't sure what that means, we're an online group of bakers who are working our way through Dorie Greenspan's awesome cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours. This week's assignment was Coconut Butter Thins, a shortbread-type cookie full of lime zest, coconut, and macadamia nuts. Jayne, The Barefoot Kitchen Witch made this week's pick.

I made my dough day before yesterday and kept it in the fridge overnight. I really liked Dorie's suggestion of putting the dough in a big 'ol Ziploc bag and rolling it out. It worked like a charm! I made my cookies in two batches. The first batch was made last night at about 9:30...not prime time for cookie baking in my house! I made them from the dough straight out of the fridge. I felt pretty ridiculous measuring the cookies with a ruler (and I was made fun of by my husband), so I quickly let that go by the wayside and just went after them with a pizza cutter. I made about 15 from that batch, and I was concerned! I never got that lacy look that Dorie said we'd see, but they did get awfully brown! David and I had a couple after they cooled a little, and David said he really liked them. I was honestly underwhelmed, but wasn't too concerned because I put the remaining dough in the fridge for today. I got up this morning, preheated my oven, and got busy cutting more shortbread squares (sans ruler!). Eighteen minutes later...PERFECTION!

How about that! Little browning (like Dorie said!), minimal spreading. And they weren't crunchy like last night's cookies, so I liked these much better. They're no "World Peace Cookie," but pretty good all the same. These cookies came out of the oven at about 9:30 this morning, before I had breakfast. (Now is the perfect time for me to introduce you to someone...her name is Hogatha. She is my alter ego and loves to eat. Especially baked goods. Especially in obscene quantities. She makes regular appearances, but I try to beat her down by feeding her instead with fruits and vegetables and making her run 3 or 4 miles. She doesn't like it.) This is the breakfast that Hogatha wanted this morning:

She really wanted five Coconut Butter Thins and a big cup of coffee. Instead, she got a bowl of Honey Kix and a cup of coffee.

Black and White Banana Loaf

Here's where the "double" Tuesday with Dorie comes in! I had the day off today, had some pretty ripe bananas, and some rum. So I decided to make Dorie's Black and White Banana Loaf. YUM! The picture in the book looks incredible! For this recipe, I decided to do what Dorie suggests, and do the whole mise en place thing. It just means getting all your ingredients measured out and in one place before you begin. This is something I just don't do. Instead, I wander around my kitchen getting out ingredients and cursing the fact that I can't find the 1/2 cup measure. Then I wonder "how many cups of sugar did I put in?" and then cursing again the fact that I am one egg short. So today, I set everything up before I started. I quickly realized that this was A) taking a long time and B) making more dishes for me to hand wash. But as I moved easily (and without cursing even once!) through the recipe with everything right there at my fingertips, I realized I have been converted. Extra time and dishes to wash aside...mise en place is the place to be! Let's have a look-see:

I haven't cut into my beautiful Black and White Banana Loaf yet (because I'm waiting for David to get home), but I do have a picture of it 30 minutes into its 1 hour 30 minute baking time (right before tenting it with foil):

Pretty, huh? Once we dig in, I'll post a picture to show the (hopefully!) beautiful marbling inside!