Banana (Chocolate) Walnut Bread

I think everyone should bake a loaf of this bread right now, just so your house smells as good as mine! 🙂 Great texture and flavor – I have to say, I’m really sorry I’ve never tried all these yummy recipes before!  So far, they have all been amazingly good.  I did add some chocolate chips to my version, because, why not?!?

The Recipe (makes 1 loaf):

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Cinnamon Cream Cheese for serving (recipe follows)

The Process:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2.  Grease the bottom and sides of a 4×8 loaf pan with butter.

3.  Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

4.  Place the butter and sugar in your mixing bowl and beat with mixer until light and fluffy.

5.  Break the eggs into the bowl and beat until completely blended with butter mixture.

6.  Add the flour mixture and beat until smooth.

7.  Peel the bananas and break into small chunks.  Add the bananas, sour cream, walnuts, and chocolate chips.  Blend at low speed until combined.

8.  Pour the batter into the buttered loaf pan and smooth out the top with a rubber spatula.

9.  Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes (I found this was spot on).

10.  Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes (yeah right).  Turn the pan upside down to allow the loaf to fall out.  Place loaf right side up and let cool another 15 minutes (sure…) before slicing.

This bread was great on its own, but even better with some Cinnamon Cream Cheese.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese

I package softened cream cheese

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more to taste)

2-3 teaspoons brown sugar

Mmmm….soft pretzels….

Who on this planet doesn’t love a good soft pretzel?  Especially a home-made one, fresh out of the oven?!? Now I’m hungry…but I’ll press on.  I made these Rosemary Sea Salt Pretzels a few months ago, and they were A-mazing.  So I thought I’d share the recipe.  Did I mention they also include the recipe for an awesome rosemary cheese sauce?  Oh yeah, no joke.

And then today, I came across these and I just had to pass it along – Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels.  Sweet meets pretzel = my heaven!   Guess I know what I’m baking this weekend…

Rosemary Roasted Chicken

This was my first official whole roasted chicken ever!  I’ve cooked a turkey once, maybe twice in my life, but that’s about it.  And truthfully, I’m sold.  Home-cooked chicken breasts are always so dry and tasteless it seems.  This chicken was perfectly juicy and moist (and we had enough left over to make an awesome Thai coconut soup the next day!)  I took some liberties with this recipe though.  For one, no one in my house will eat a tomato – roasted or not.  So, I omitted those and chose to stuff the chicken with lemon wedges instead.  And I changed my cooking time/temperature based on good friend’s suggestion – so glad I did.

The Recipe:

1 (5.5-6 lb whole roasting chicken), giblets removed

1 tablespoon salt (sounds like a lot, but it really needs to soak into all the meat)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped – plus whole sprigs for the cavity

1 lemon, cut into wedges

4 tablespoons butter, room temperature

The Process:

*Pre-heat oven to 425 F

1.  Remove chicken from packaging and remove giblets.  Rinse under cold water and pat dry.

2.  Stuff cavity with lemon wedges and several rosemary sprigs.

3.  Blend butter, chopped rosemary, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Rub compound butter onto (and under) chicken skin.

4.  Tie legs together (don’t make my silly mistake first and not but the breast side up before doing this!) with kitchen string and tuck wings under.

5.  Place chicken in roasting pan.

6.  Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes at 425 F.   Breast should reach an internal temperature of 165 F.

 

Any one else have some good tips for a newbie chicken roaster like myself?

Tiramisu Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from here

Like I said, I made these for my husband’s birthday last month and they were a huge hit.  I personally wasn’t a fan of the cake (too dense I felt), so here’s my adaptation using the cake from the Beehive Lemon Cupcakes.

Great for breakfast too – I mean, they do have coffee… 😉

The Recipe (makes 24 cupcakes):

2-1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter at room temperature

1-1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

Zest of a lemon

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (I added closer to 1 cup)

Coffee syrup (recipe follows)

Mascarpone/Ricotta Frosting (recipe follows)

The Process:

1.  Preheat oven to 375 F (I’ve found with my picky oven that I do better with 350 F)

2.  Put paper cupcake liners into muffin cups.

3.  Place flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and nutmeg in a bowl and mix together.

4.  Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of your mixer and beat on medium-high speed, until the mixture is light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Scrape sides as necessary.

5.  Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, until thoroughly incorporated.  Add in vanilla and lemon zest.

6.  Add half the flour mixture and mix until blended.  Add half the milk.  Mix in the remaining flour mixture and then the remaining milk.

7.  Add the chocolate chips and mix at the lowest speed (I honestly prefer to mix things like this in by hand so I don’t over-mix my batter)

8.  Using a small ladle or scoop, spoon the batter evenly into the paper lined muffin cups.

9.  Bake for about 15 minutes until the tops are golden brown (I found with these cakes, that 13 minutes was perfect, so I say experiment with your oven)

10.  Remove cupcakes from tin and place on cooling rack.  Allow to cool completely.

11.  Using a fork, poke several holes in the tops of the cooled cakes.  Spoon over about 1-2 tablespoons of the Coffee Syrup on the top of each cupcake.  Pipe on Mascarpone Frosting and garnish with either cocoa powder and/or extra mini-chocolate chips.

Coffee Syrup

1 cup strongly brewed coffee

1-2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Add powdered sugar to coffee, mix to dissolve.  Cool to room temperature.

Mascarpone-Ricotta Frosting

1 cup heavy cream
Mascarpone cheese, 8 oz. container
1/4 cup Ricotta cheese, strained slightly
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 tablespoons milk

Whip heavy cream until stiff peaks form.  In a separate bowl, whip the cheeses, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk until thoroughly incorporated.  Gently fold in whipped heavy cream.  Pipe frosting onto cupcakes with star tip.  Dust with cocoa powder and extra mini chocolate chips.

Rainy Day Cinnamon Raisin (Walnut) Bread

It’s an awesome cloudy, semi-rainy day here in Phoenix.  We don’t get many, so I figured I’d take up mother nature and make some yummy Cinnamon Raisin Bread.  I’ll be honest – my ten year old self would have never attempted this recipe.  Holy prep-time Batman!  The dough has to rise a total of 3 times, but totally worth it – my 3 year old (and husband) couldn’t get enough 🙂

The Recipe

2 cups milk

1 package active dry yeast

5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 butter at room temperature

1 tablespoon oil

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped walnuts (I added these to the recipe, well worth it!)

The (lengthy) Process:

1.  Pour the milk into the saucepan and place on the stove.  Heat milk over medium heat until it steams and bubbles form around the edge.  Let cool for 10 minutes.

2.  Place the yeast, 5 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl and mix.  Add 2 tablespoons of the butter and the cooled milk. Stir until a stiff dough forms.  Add in additional flour if needed.

3.  Flour a clean work surface.  Remove the dough and place on floured surface, sprinkle a little additional flour on top.

4.  Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, and then form into a ball.  The book goes into a length description about kneading, again, I’m going to assume we’re all adults here, if we’re not, here’s a great tutorial 😉

5.  Pour the oil into a large mixing bowl and spread around with a paper towel.  Place dough in the bowl and turn once to coat in oil.  Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and place in a warm spot.  Allow dough to rise for about 1 hour, or until it doubles in size)

6.  Remove the dough from the bowl and punch down.  Shape back into a ball and allow to rise (yet again) for 30 minutes.

7.  Rub some butter into the bottom and sides of 2 loaf pans (about 4″x 8″).

8.  Place 4 tablespoons of the butter,  the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, and the 2 teaspoons of cinnamon into a small mixing bowl and combine.  Takes a little effort, but it eventually comes together.

9.  When the dough has risen for the second time, sprinkle a clean surface with flour and move the dough to the surface.  Using your hands, flatten dough into a rectangle as thin as you can get it.

10.  Spread the butter mixture onto the dough, and then sprinkle with the raisins and walnuts (if using).

11.  Starting along one edge, roll the dough as tightly as you can (should make a very pretty spiral in the center).  Cut the dough in half to make 2 loafs and place seam-side down in the buttered pans.  Cover with the kitchen towel and (you guessed it) let the loaves rise for (another) 30 minutes.  In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350 F.

12.  Spread the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter onto each loaf.  Place on the center rack in the oven and bake for about 35 minutes.  They give a great tip and say to bake until the bread sounds hollow when you lightly tap on it.

13.  Remove bread (don’t forget the mitts!!) and tip each loaf over to allow it to slide out of the pan.  Cool on a wire rack.

They suggested serving thick slices with cream cheese – but I though, why not take that a step further?  Enter…cinnamon cream cheese…oh yeah.  Seriously, you have to try it.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese

I package softened cream cheese

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more to taste)

2-3 teaspoons brown sugar

Best rainy day ever!

Let’s just start with my favorite – for science, right?

I can vividly remember making these Cinnamon Honey Scones in my grandmother’s kitchen when I was a kid.  The best part of the recipe to a 30-something year old – oops I mean 10 year old?  You get to squish the butter into the flour by hand.

The Recipe:

1 -3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1- 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (I usually do close to 1/2)

6 tablespoons butter (the recipe calls for the butter to be room temp. but I’ve found that cold butter makes for a fluffier, crispier end result)

1 tablespoon honey (I do closer to 2 for a little more added sweetness)

1/2 cup milk (or more as needed)

1 egg

The Process:

1.  Heat the oven to 400 F.

2.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment or a silpat.

3.  Stir the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

4.  Add the cold butter to the flour mixture and work with your hands (he he!)  until the butter somewhat crumbles.

5.  Add the honey, milk and egg. Stir until well incorporated.

6.  Using a spoon, drop the dough by spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet.  Leave a little room between the scones.

7.  Place in oven for 12-15 minutes or until slightly golden on top.

8.  Remove from oven (the book is good at reminding you to use your oven mitts, but we’re  all adults here, right?) and let stand a couple minutes before serving.

Serve warm with butter and lots of extra honey for smothering.  Tea party it up people!