I Blog What I Bake

Welcome to Hummingbird Cake! I had never heard of this before my husband’s co-worker put in a request for it. Yes, I take requests. Oh, and he lent us the first 3 seasons of Dexter so I could not begrudge the man some cake. I made two modifications to the recipe. 1. I did not add any nuts. Most Hummingbird Cake recipes call for pecans or walnuts. My husband is deathly allergic to both. No nuts. 2. I reduced the amount of sugar by half a cup. With all the pineapple, banana and cream cheese frosting I thought it would be better as I don’t like overly sweet desserts.  If I had to compare this cake to another dessert it would be Carrot Cake. Very similar texture and flavor. YUM!

Hummingbird Cake Recipe
(adapted from the www.joyofbaking.com and Matt K.)

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
1 – 8 ounce can crushed pineapple, do not drain
3 ripe mashed bananas

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8oz block of cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
Approximately 3 cups confectioners sugar (add until frosting is at desired spreading consistency)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter, flour and line two 9 inch cake pans with parchment paper.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In another large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil, vanilla, pineapple and mashed bananas. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir until combined. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack. After about 10 minutes invert the cakes onto a wire rack, remove the pans and parchment paper, and then cool completely before frosting.

Printable Recipe: Hummingbird Cake

I realize there have been many “Baking Shorts” lately and not too many full posts. Things have been a bit hectic. But I will get back to doing full instructional posts with lots of pictures soon.  For now, the shorts will be it.  It’s okay though, there is not much to say about these cookies other than that they are awesome chocolatey, espresso-y (yeah, I am making up adjectives now) goodness. Enjoy!

Cappuccino Cookies

6 ounces of good quality semisweet chocolate chopped
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of dark chocolate cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of instant espresso plus on tablespoon hot water
1/2 cup confectioners sugar for rolling

In a double boiler melt together the chocolate and the butter, whisking frequently. Combine the espresso and hot water together until the espresso is dissolved and add to the chocolate and butter. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl combine the cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and flour.

In a large bowl beat together the eggs and the butter. Add the vanilla. After the chocolate mixture has slightly cooled, beat into the butter and egg mixture.  Slowly stir in dry ingredients.

Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until the batter is stiff.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scoop out tablespoon sized balls and roll in confectioners sugar. Place on baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper and bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Printable Recipe: Cappuccino Cookies

Recently a friend of mine (you know who you are) got me thinking about Macaroons. Having never made them before I decided to give it a whirl. They came out AMAZING and are ridiculously easy to make. So you here you have it. A simple recipe for Macaroons that came straight from Joy of Baking.

Coconut Macaroon Recipe
From www.joyofbaking.com

4 Large eggs whites, at room temperature
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup cake flour
3 cups sweetened coconut

In a stainless steel bowl, placed over a saucepan of simmering water (do not let the bowl touch the water!), whisk together the egg whites, sugar and salt. When this mixture is warm to the touch and nice and creamy, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, flour and coconut. Cover and refrigerate for about  hours.

Line to cookie sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Place small mounds (heaping tablespoons) of the batter on the lined cookie sheets, spacing several inches apart. Baked for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool on baking sheet for about 10 minutes and then place on wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dozen Macaroons.

Printable Coconut Macaroon Recipe

I realize I make a lot of things with bananas. There always seems to be two lonely bananas in my house that just never get eaten. They sit there in the fruit bowl all by themselves turning brown.  What’s better than baking them into something?

After my banana bundt cake debacle a couple of weeks ago, I was itching to make something with browned butter. I came across the original recipe for this bread durning some mindless web searching. I added the crumble, the glaze and did some other minor tweaks, but it had me at Bourbon. I needed no other reason to make this.

After a 9pm run to the liquor store for a bottle of Maker Mark, one ruined pot of brown butter and much clanking around in the kitchen, this is now the only banana bread I will ever make.

The bread turned out moist and flavorful and the Bourbon Glaze was great. Had a great hit of the Bourbon flavor.

So next time you have a some overripe bananas lying around, don’t throw them out…bake them into this!!

Bourbon Browned Butter Banana Bread with Oatmeal Crumble and Bourbon Glaze
Adapted from www.pioneerwoman.com

Bread
6 tablespoons of browned butter
2 large eggs
2-3 ripe bananas mashed with 1 tablespoon agave nectar or honey
2 tablespoons of bourbon
1/2 cup plain sour cream
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cups brown sugar
1 teapsoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1/4 teaspoons ginger
1 pinch of salt

Crumble
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup of cold unsalted butter, cubed

Bourbon Glaze
5 tablespoons of confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of bourbon
1 teaspoon agave nectar or honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and butter and flour the pan.

To brown the butter, place butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. The butter is done after it bubbles, foams, turns a carmel color with little brown bits and smells kinda of nutty. Be careful not to burn it. Let the butter cool. (The cooling is important! If you add the hot butter to the eggs, you will scramble them. Yuck.)

Mash bananas with 1 tablespoon of agave nectar or honey.

Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. With a wooden spoon, mix in the mashed bananas, bourbon, sour cream and cooled butter.

In a separate large bowl whisk together the flour (sifted) baking soda, sugar, spices and salt.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir gently until combined. Do not over-mix unless you want dry dense bread. You don’t want that. Trust me.

Pour mixture into the prepared loaf pan.

For the crumble combine oatmeal, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. Cut in  1/4 cup of cold unsalted butter using a paster blender, a fork or your hands (using your hands is the most fun) Add crumble on top of the bread batter and bake for 60 minutes.

Allow to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes. Turn out of pan and let cool completely on a baking rack.  Once cooled, drizzle Bourbon Glaze over the top.

Slice and serve!

Printable Recipe:Bourbon Browned Butter Bread with Oatmeal Crumble and Bourbon Glaze

Who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies?  They are about as traditional as you can get in the kitchen. Well, except for Apple Pie. I have been making the same chocolate chip cookie recipe for YEARS.  I have stuck to the old school Nestle Tollhouse back-of-the -bag recipe. Never fails.

But every now and then it’s good to change things up and when I saw this recipe on My Baking Addiction I had to make the leap. There were two reasons this cookie intrigued me. One, this is not your average cookie. It’s 4 ouces!!  If you are from NYC and have been to Levain Bakery you know what a 4 ounce cookie feels like. It can feed you for a day. Diet be damned. Two, the recipe calls for cold butter which I have never seen in a cookie recipe.

Just a note, I made one batch of these smaller, about 2 ounce and they didn’t turn out quite as great. They were too dense. So to stick the gigantic cookies!

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies

Courtsey of My Baking Addiction

2 sticks cold and cubed unsalted butter
1 cup granulated suagar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 /1/2 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
1 cup of walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mix in vanilla and beat until well incorporated.Add flour, salt, baking soda and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Transfer the dough to a clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients.
Weigh out the dough into 4 ounce portions and gently roll into a ball.

Place each on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and bake in the oven with 15-20 minutes, until very lightly browned.
Let cool on a rack. Or eat them nice and hot!

Printable Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

When I started this blog I said that I would post my failures as well as my successes. Well, here ya go. My Brown Butter Banana Cake debacle. I had some bananas that I need to either use or throw away. I didn’t want to make yet another banana bread so I decided to do something different. I had seen a few recipes using brown butter lately so I Googled Brown Butter Banana Cake to see if there were any for a cake. I found what looked like a really good one and got started.

There are two things that went wrong here.

One, I used a 30 year-old bundt pan. Why? The recipe called for a bundt pan and I don’t have one. My mom was nice enough to rummage around in the basement and find a pan from 1979. I floured and buttered this thing within an inch of his life and it still did not want to come out! I am now convinced that bundt pans are the reason non-stick was invented.  Second, I messed up the recipe and forgot 1/3 cup of flour. Disaster. Instead of being fluffy the cake was dense and overly moist. Good taste, HORRIBLE texture.

There you have it. My Brown Butter Banana Cake debacle. I will try this again once I have my own pan. For now, I have posted the recipe below so you can try it. If you do, send me pictures and I will post what this poor little cake was supposed to look like.

Brown Butter Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips
Source: www.finecooking.com

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup finely mashed ripe bananas (2 medium banans)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10-cup bundt pan. Tap out excess flour.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, cook it slowly, letting it bubble, until it smells nutty or like butterscotch and turns a deep golden hue, 5-10 minutes. Remove the pan from thereat and pour browned butter through a fine sieve into a medium bowl and discard the bits is the sieve. Let the butter cool until it is very warm rather than boiling hot, 5-10 minutes.

Using a whisk, stir the sugar and the eggs into the butter. Whisk until the mixture is smooth, about 1 minutes. Whisk in mashed bananas, vanilla and salt. Sift flour and baking soda directly into the batter. Pour the chocolate chops over the flour. Using a rubber spatula, stir just until the batter is uniformly combined. Don’t over-mix.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with the spatial. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Set the pan on a rack and cool for 15 minutes.. Invert cake onto rack and remove the pan. Let cool until just warm and then serve immediately or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for up to five days.

Brown Butter Banana Cake Recipe

Earlier this week I was commissioned  to bake 3 dozen tie-dyed cupcakes for a middle school event. I wasn’t sure if I would blog this, but they turned out so cute and so many of you asked about them I decided to put them up. Having never made a tie-dyed pastry of any sort, figuring out how to do this was a challenge and really fun!

I just got the last of the green food coloring off my skin today.

How to assemble the cupcakes:

• Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners
• Make your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe. (I use Magnolia Bakery’s)
• Separate the batter into 3 bowls
• Add red dye to one bowl, green to one bowl and yellow to the last bowl
• Add one spoonful of each color to each cupcake liner
• Swirl design in using a toothpick or wooden kitchen skewer
• Bake according you your chosen cupcake recipe
• Allow to cool in cupcake pan for 10 minutes, turn out and let cool completely on wire rack

Frosting:

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4-6 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon of whole milk
• Food coloring (whichever color you prefer)
• Beat the butter on the medium speed of an electric mixer until smooth
• Add the sugar alternating with the milk and vanilla
• Add the food coloring of your choice
• Beat until it reaches a spreading consistency

Happy little cupcake army.

There are tons of recipes that I want to put up on the blog, but I only have so much time. So, I have decided to do some baking “shorts”.  I’m not really sure what else to call them. “Micro-posts” sounds weird. Anyway, these won’t have a million pictures or stories to go along with them . Just good food.

I adapted this recipe from the Strawberry Bread recipe on My Baking Addiction. The Limoncello glaze was delicious! But if you don’t have, or have never heard of, Limoncello, you can substitute fresh lemon juice or lemonade.

Strawberry Lemonade Bread with Limoncello Glaze
Adapted from My Baking Addiction “Fresh Strawberry Bread”

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon fresh grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, roughly blended

Glaze
4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon of Limoncello (or lemon juice or lemonade)

DIRECTIONS

Bread:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper.
I a medium bowl sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
On the medium speed of an electric mixer beat the sugar and butter together.
Beat in the vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice.
With a wooden spoon or spatial, stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until just blending. Add the buttermilk and still only until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.
Fold in the strawberries and bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-60 minutes.  Allow bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Carefully turn it out of the pan and allow to cool completely on a baking rack.

Glaze:

Stir together 4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar with 1 tablespoon of Limoncello. Once bread has cooled completely, pour over the top and spread. If the glaze is to runny add a little more confectioners sugar.