TWD: No Chewy, Chunky Blondies - instead: Lots of Ways Banana (Cup) Cakes

Frustration sums up my experience with the Chewy, Chunky Blondies that Nicole of Cookies on Friday picked for this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie..... I tried Nicole, I really did: I baked the blondies twice, unfortunately both times I ended up with undercooked blondies when they did test done!! Frustrated by wasting two batches of great ingredients (my add-ins were pecan, chocolate and coconut) and the tropical heat in my kitchen I finally gave up. Please check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Chewy, Chunky Blondies here, the recipe is posted at Nicole's blog!

Last week Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities picked the Lots of Ways Banana Cake. It's called that way because you can basically put whatever you feel like into this cake and it will still turn out amazing.

I actually baked these on time but totally forgot to blog about them because I was too busy planning my upcoming trip to Paris with my mom. I only had 2 bananas, so I made half the recipes and turned the cake into cupcakes. I used coconut milk instead of sour cream and my add-ins were shredded coconut and mini-chocolate chips. The cupcakes went into the oven for 20 minutes on 350 degrees Fahrenheit, half the recipe yielded 18 cupcakes. I simply dusted the tops of the cupcakes with confectioners sugar and added a little bit of cocoa for contrast.

Two cupcakes were devoured by my parents, two I ate myself, six I gave away to my parents neighbours and four of them found their way to Amsterdam where my dad and brother finished them of. Everyone really liked them and noticed how crumbly, yet moist these were. Both the banana and the coconut flavour were quite subtle. I will be baking these again, in fact: there are six ripe bananas waiting for me in the kitchen right now!!! Go here to check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Banana Cake, the recipe can be found at Kimberly's blog.

P.S. Check out my $70 CSN gift card giveaway: deadline is Thursday July 29th, midnight CET!

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

"Cake. Mmmmm. I want one more piece. Just. One. More. Fucking. Piece."
This is a quote from Sleep Talkin' Man, a blog about an English man that talks in his sleep and says really odd stuff. I recently stumbled on this blog and it's hilarious, it sure makes me smile :) Anyways, this quote expresses exactly what I though of this weeks challenge for Tuesdays with Dorie.

Steph of Obsessed with Baking picked the Cocoa-Nana Bread for us to bake this week. I love Steph's blog and wasn't very surprised to find out that she picked this recipe simply because I have seen loads of different Banana Bread recipes pop up on her blog, like this one, one with blueberries (that's light too!), one by Cook's Illustrated, one from the Silver Palate Cookbook and most recently the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. In fact I think Steph should change the name of here blog to Obsessed with Baking Banana Bread!!!

This Cocoa-Nana Bread is amazing, my sucky pictures don't do it any justice!!! I only had a tiny bit: about 1/4 of a slice, simply because my colleagues loved this so much that they devoured it in absolutely no time! In fact when my mom told that she wanted to bake something last Saturday I persuaded her to bake this bread, so I could have another slice! Some people in the P&Q-section where concerned about the banana's. In my opinion the taste of the bananas was more of an afterthought: but I liked how moist they made the bread. This is another keeper: I will be making it again soon, if not tomorrow! So thanks Steph, for picking this scrumptious Cocoa-Nana Bread!!

The recipe can be found at Steph's blog, go here to find out what the other TWD-ers thought of this recipe. Here are the TWD-recipes for February, it's gonna be a great month:

• February 2, 2010: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes, pages 188 and 189.
• February 9, 2010: Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia, page 91.
• February 16, 2010: My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, page 68.
• February 23, 2010: Honey-Wheat Cookies, page 81.

MS Cupcake Club (Bonus Recipe): Banana Pecan Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Frosting

Made these delicious cupcakes in August, recipe is from Martha Stewart. More info will follow later!

Mango Banana Daiquiris for Barefoot Blogger

Update on my Giveaway, the Classic Banana Bundt Cake for TWD and Scott

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

I decided to add one more favorite of mine to the giveaway... My favorite beer: Rose beer, this is a belgian white beer with raspberries that is actually coloured pink: a real girlygirl beer!

I managed to save 3 of the 6 miniature bundt cakes: I sliced of the burned bottom and coated them with the lemon glaze: delicious!! The bundt cake was still nice and moist, I will be making this one again!

At the vet's office we weighed Scott: he actually weighed about 250 grams more than at our last visit in May. However the vet agreed with us that he felt skinny and his fur was not good. Fortunately she couldn't find anything wrong during the physical examination: the heart sounded good, belly felt okay and his teeth looked great for his age. (Scott will turn 8 this December).

The vet took some blood and sent it of to be tested, I can phone them Thursday for the results. So now I just have to be patient and wait for Thursday to arrive....

TWD: Banana Bundt Cake - Fail!!

Yes, my first TWD-recipe that failed.... But I can't blame the recipe : I fell asleep on the couch while my mini bundt cakes were in the oven and woke up to a smelly kitchen..... :(
This weeks recipe was picked by Mary of The Food Librarian, I can't wait to see what she came up with for her version!!

I'm going to try and see if I can fit in making a new batch tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll be in the mood. I have to take Scott, my Border Collie to the vet. Since June he has lost some weight, he's really skinny now, he's losing lots of hair his fur is thin and and dull. I just wnat to have the vet check him just to be safe....

Go check out if my fellow TWD-bakers tried harder at not burning their cakes here!

P.S. Don't forget to enter my Giveaway or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.

TWD: Banana Cream Pie

Amy of Sing for Your Supper picked Banana Cream Pie for this weeks TWD-recipe. I was excited, because this was a pie that I had actually made before and although it was a different recipe now I would have something to compare it to!

Last October I made my first Banana Cream Pie, that time it was for CEiMB and Heather from Randomosity and the Girl picked it.

For the pie I took the easy way out and bougth some puff pastry shells. The custard came together very easily: it did start to curdle just a bit, but that was soon solved by with some quick whisking action. After cooling down the custard was a bit too thick, so I thinned it by whisking in some cream as suggested in the P&Q.

This pie tasted okay, but I thought this custard tasted a bit too sugary/cinnamonny/eggy..... I'm not quite sure what it was that made me hesitant..... My dad loved it though!!. I actually preferred the one that I made last October, if you want to give that one a try, go here for the recipe!

Curious what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Banana Cream Pie?? Check out the blogroll here!

Ow and one last thing: enter my giveaway (I know: another giveaway!!!), deadline is April 10th midnight Dutch time!!!

CEiMB #3: Banana Cream Pie

O Happy Day, my copie of Food You Crave by Ellie Krieger arrived in the mail yesterday: just in time for this weeks assignment that I wasn't making. So you all know how I spend yesterday evening: flipping through the book and droowling all over the beautiful pictures of tasty and healthy recipes!

This weeks recipe was choosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl, she picked Banana Cream Pie. At first I didn't want to make todays recipe. Normally when I make pies I go to my parents house and share it with them, but since they are out of town for two weeks that was not an option. But when I saw the fantastic results over at Heather and Holly I knew I had to make this pie.

So straight out of work I went to the supermarket to get me some bananas, whole weat mariabiscuits and gelatine, the rest of the ingredients I had in stock. We don't have graham crackers here, so after some Internet research (you gotta love Google!!) I found out I could use these whole weat mariabiscuits and used 12 of them for the pie crust.

Unfortunately the supermarket didn't have powdered gelatine, in fact I don't think I have ever seen powdered gelatine in my life: I only now the gelatine in sheetform. So I wasn't quite sure how much gelatine to use, I ended up using three sheets.

I'm not going to write down the entire recipe here, It can be found on page 276 of Food You Crave. The recipe was surprisingly easy: first you make the pie crust out of the biscuits, some butter and very little water, push it down in a pie plate, bake it for about 10 minutes and let it cool down.

Then you dissolve the gelatine in some water, you make a curstard out of egg yolks, non-fat milk, sugar, flour and vanilla essence. Mix in the gelatine water and let the custard cool down. Divide the sliced bananas over the pie crust.

Poor the custard over the crust and bananas and put in the fridge to set for 3 hours. Whip up some low-fat cream with a little sugar and pipe on top of the pie. Enjoy!

Honey Banana Muffins

Getting ready to go grocery shopping tomorrow, I was cleaning out my fridge this evening and found a pair very ripe bananas hidden in the back. Never wanting to waste anything, I browsed Allrecipes for a nice recipe and found one. I did adapt it though, here's what I did:

Honey Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup sweetened applesauce
5 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup golden raisins
lining up the usual suspect, kittycat is alreayd bored to death at this point....

In a large bowl, combine the wheat flour

with the baking soda, cinnamon and salt.








Combine the eggs, banana, applesauce and honey.









Stir the wet ingredients into dry ingredients
until just moistened.








Fold in the raisins.









Coat muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray of use fillers
Fill two-thirds full with batter.











Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine (Yep, it's Friday night, time to relax and enjoy the weekend)










Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.











'Hmmmmm', does the kittycat think, suddenly wide awake ' those muffins sure look tasty!'


The muffins are nice and moist, I absolutely love the combination of banana with raisins and a subtle cinnamon flavour!! Next time I'll probably coat the muffins fillers with cooking spray, because they did tend to stick to the fillers.