Yummy in your tummy banana nut bread!

Last week a few of mine tweeted about the heavenly smell of banana bread baking in their kitchen (ahem, Kate!). I decided that I would make some banana bread as soon as I got home from work since I already had some ripe bananas that I needed to use. I ended up making five loaves of banana nut bread within a couple of days.

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (4 sticks) butter or margarine

2 cups granulated sugar

2 cups mashed ripe bananas

4 eggs

1 cup (I don't actually measure) chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans

Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the butter and sugar until smooth. Stir in the bananas, eggs and walnuts until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry mixture and stir until just blended. Divide the batter between the two load pans.

Bake for 60-70 minutes in the preheated oven. Let the loaves cool in the pans for at least 5 minutes, then turn them out on to a cooling rack and let cool completely. Wrap in aluminium foil to keep in the moisture. Ideally, you'll want to refrigerate the loaves for a few hours before serving.(Pardon my uneven slicing. Apparently my cutting skills leave a little something to be desired.)

Let me share a little secret with you about my method for mashing the bananas. I used to enlist the help of my son because I didn't want banana all over my fingers. Since he's 9 now, he's not as willing to come help me with my banana situation. What I've discovered is that I can toss my bananas in the food processor and pulse it for a bit and ta da, I've got mashed bananas and minimal mess on me.

Additionally, you could use whatever nuts you prefer in this recipe. I usually have walnuts on hand so I tend to use them. You could use pecans or some other nut if you don't have walnuts, though. I also usually toss in a splash of vanilla extract but you don't have to add it if you don't want to. I happen to like vanilla in most baked goods.

Have you ever had a loofah?

In our house this is called "The Loofah". Yes, I know that it's technically a trifle. The term loofah came about when I first made this my husband couldn't remember what it was called so he dubbed it "the loofah". And after ten years, it's stuck. All of the people at my work have taken to calling it the loofah as well. I've switched up the flavors in it a few times, always with positive results.

Here's how I put it together:

Ingredients:

1 family size box of instant chocolate pudding

1 box of brownie mix (plus the ingredients to make it according to box directions)

2 tubs of Cool Whip (thawed)

2 pints of strawberries

To make:

Mix up the brownies according to the package directions. I usually use the Betty Crocker bag brownies-I just use two of them to have enough brownies. While the brownies are cooling, prepare the chocolate pudding. Make the pudding according to the package directions and put it in the fridge and wait for it to set up. Take this time to slice up the strawberries. I just cut the tops of them and either slice/quarter them. Take the pudding out and add one tub of Cool Whip to the pudding. Fold the Cool Whip in to the pudding until it's all combined.

Get your pedestal bowl out. Take pieces of brownie and put them in the bottom of the bowl. Spoon some of the chocolate pudding mixture and put it on top of the brownies. Now put some of the strawberries on top of the pudding. I usually end up with two layers, with strawberries being on top. Take the second tub of Cool Whip and put it on the top of the strawberries. And that's it! I usually make it the night before I need it that way the pudding has time to sink in to the brownies and soften the strawberries some. I keep one or two strawberries whole to put on top for a garnish.

The last step would be to eat and enjoy!

Whatcha' been up to?

This is part of what I've been up to this morning.

This is the second part of what I've been up to this morning.

This was the end result. And it's all gone now!

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes

Friends-this is a miniature cherry cheesecake. If you're in to cherries or cheesecake or maybe both then you will love these little guys. I was craving something sweet the other day so I decided to make some of these to satisfy my sweet tooth. I normally make these in a smaller size (these are the size of regular cupcakes, I typically use my mini-cupcake pan though) but was out of mini cupcake liners.

Ingredients for the filling:

2 8 ounce blocks of cream cheese

3 eggs

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 capfull of lemon juice (you can use imitation or the real stuff)

Ingredients for the crust:

Half of a bag/box of vanilla wafers

A couple tablespoons of butter/margarine

Topiing:

1 Can of cherry pie filling (or whatever fruit filling you like)

Directions: (this is so easy that the kids could do it, I promise!)

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Line your cupcake pan with cupcake liners-or you could grease them if you don't have any liners. Put the vanilla wafers and the butter in the food processor. Turn it on medium for 30 seconds-1 minute or long enough to get a crumb like consistency. Take a spoonful of the crumbs and place in the bottom of the liners in your pan. Use your fingers to push everything down firmly. Set aside.

At this point I take whatever crumbs are left and put them in a resealable plastic container in the fridge for next time. Take this opportunity to wash the bowl of your food processor, you're going to need it for the next step.

Take all of the filling ingredients and put them in the bowl of the food processor. Turn it on for about 2 minutes-or until you have a creamy, thick, smooth consistency. Take a spoon and put a couple of spoonfulls on to the crusts in your pan. Put the pans in the oven for about 12 minutes depending on your oven. When they cheesecakes are done they will be a little poofy on top but not jiggly. If they're still jiggly leave them for another minute or two. Take them out and set them on a cooling rack for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes just take them out of the pans and leave them on the rack.

When they're completely cooled put them in a storage container. Take a spoonful of your pie filling and top the cheesecakes. Now for the hardest part-put them in the fridge for a couple of hours. After a couple of hours in the fridge-they should look like this:

They are so yummy! It's very hard to only eat one or two or six at one time!!

Yummy Snickerdoodle Blondies

I found this recipe online a couple of weeks ago but I hadn't had the time to try it until last night. Oh my, did these blondies turn out yummy.

Here's the recipe (I adapted it a little bit to suit our tastes):

Ingredients:

2 2/3 cups All-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder (although I only used about 1 1/2 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup butter at room temperature

2 eggs room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the topping:

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

a pinch of nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and/of line a 9x13 inch pan. Combine the flour, baking poweder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and set aside.

2. In large bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar for 3-5 minutes. Add in the eggs ones at a time, then the vanilla and beat until smooth.

3. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Combine the granulated sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.

4. Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool before cutting.

I can't express how much these "blondies" taste like a snickerdoodle cookie. When I make these again when I make the topping I'm going to cut the sugar and cinnamon in half. I found that it was a little overpowering for me. I don't know how it will affect the overall taste of the blondies so I'm going to have to tweak it a little bit.

Now run, don't walk to your kitchen and get these blondies in the oven! You'll thank me, I promise.

A tale of the cake with multiple personalities...

This is a cake. However, it's not just any ordinary cake. This cake has a special story to tell. There are multiple sides to this story. Let me share them with you:

This is the other side of the story.

How did this come to pass? Well, it's like this. My younger brother will be getting married in October. His fiance asked if I'd be willing to make their wedding cake. I, of course, said that I'd love to make the cake. I'm honored that they would even consider having me make their cake because I'm certainly not a professional baker. But, on the other hand I'm terrified. It's not like this is a birthday cake that no one will remember in the future. A wedding cake is a very big deal.

I told my sister-in-law-to-be that I'd make a couple of practice cakes, that way she could get a feel for what it will actually look like before hand. Originally she had told me that she wanted a round cake decorated in lavender. Then last week she told me that she had changed her mind and that she wanted it to be white on white. I decided that for the first practice cake I'd decorate the cake both ways so that she could decide which style/color she liked best.

That's the end of the story, folks. In an effort to make life a little easier I combined the two ideas to have a side by side comparison. Now, you know how we came to have the cake with multiple personalities.

Another day, another cake.

This weekend we celebrated our daughters 11th birthday. Her only request for her cake was that it be a chocolate cake with vanilla icing. We've had a lot of chocolate cake lately and I think that every one's getting tired of it. After I baked the cake and iced it (I totally cheated and used a store bought icing and a box cake mix) I felt that it looked a little plain and boring. Then I had the brilliant (not!) idea to try my "new to me" design with a couple of different icing colors. Jayna is a very girly-girl and loves all things pink and purple so I figured that I'd use those two colors to decorate the cake. Unfortunately, since I was using a whipped store bought icing it was very thin and didn't want to hold it's shape very well when I was trying to make the loops and squiggles on the side(s) of the cake. When Jayna saw it for the first time she said that it was beautiful and that she loved it, so my mission was accomplished. I personally wasn't happy with it because of the issues with the icing but it still looked presentable.

My latest issue that I'm having with my cakes is that even after I level the tops I still can't get them to stay flat once I start putting icing on them. Any suggestions, tips, etc to prevent having the top and sides be unevenly iced?