I Blog What I Bake

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

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.

Limelight. Once a dark gritty headonistic nightlife mecca , has reivented itself as Limelight Marketplace. The former, church- turned- nightclub, is now a bright, glittery luxury marketplace relpete with specality soap shops, botique lingere stands, clothing alcoves and, of course, lots of cute little dessert stations. My how times have changed.  Once upon a time, I recall stumbling out the door of Limelight after a very long night of…fun. Today I stumbled out the door practically vibrating from the sugar  extravaganza I just indulged in.

I’d heard about all of the dessert stands that had opened up in their “Sweet Room”, paticularly the Cupcake Stop, and figured reviewing them for the blog would be a brilliant excuse to go on a sugar binge. So, with Matt (I Blog What I Eat) as my accomplice, I attacked the “Sweet Room”.  Below, I have listed my conquests in the order assault.

Disclaimer: All but two pictures were taken with my iPhone. I had my camera, alas cameras are of no use without a battery.

THE CUPCAKE STOP

The Cupcake Stop, which usually is just a truck that drives around Manhattan and parks in different locations everyday, has secured a stationary spot in Limelight. And I am sooo glad they did.  I have had cupcakes from dozens of NYC bakeries, they are trendy little confections after all, and I must say these are among the best.  I ordered a Mexican Chocolate cupake and a  Nutella Crunch.  They both had great consistency and smooth frosting. The Mexican Chocolate was the winner of the two. The Nutella Crunch was good, but didn’t have as much flavor. Honestly, if you try these you will never eat a Magnolia Bakery cupake again. Okay, onto the next…

BUTTERFLY BAKESHOP

Isn’t that a pretty little Red Velvet Cake? I thought so too. That’s why I bought it.  It had really nice flavor and a good cream cheese frosting (maybe a bit too sweet), but the consistency was…well…odd. It was like the cake had been soaked in a simple syrup mixture. Yes, the cake was wet.  I’m not sure what the reasoning was here. Maybe to keep it moist past it’s prime? I was a little suspect. I wouldn’t advise to steer clear of the place, maybe just try a alternate selection. It was pretty. I ate the butterfly.

MARIEBELLE CHOCOLATES

Please forgive my wacky formatting with the images. It’s late and I have had some wine.

Anyway, Mariebelle’s Chocolates. This shop was a little challenging to find, even though you can see it as soon as you walk into the Marketplace (they also have a cart on the first floor). It’s in a space that is sort of between floors. I should add that Limelight Markeplace is a bit of maze and you feel like Alice in Wonderland trying to navigate the place. There are little half staircases that lead to dead ends and various nooks and cranies that can have you very turned around. What made the nightclub version so interesting , can make a shopping trip feel like falling down a rabbit hole. After we found Mariebelle’s, I was excited to try their off-beat artisan chocolates. Of all all the flavors, I selected Saffron and Whiskey. At first I wasn’t so sure about the Saffron chocolate, but it grew on me and I am now determined to use Saffron in one of my recipes. The Whiskey flavor did not dissapoint. It was like taking a chocolate shot of Jack Daniels. I will certainly make a return trip to try flavors like Cardamon, Earl Grey and Passion Fruit. Oh, and a quick note, they serve real food. You can sit down at one of the little tables and order lunch. Cute.

WANNAHAVACOOKIE

Wannahavacookie? More like Wannahavadevildog.  I wouldn’t really classify this as a cookie. Round does not a cookie make.  This is a round Devil Dog. They call it a Whoopie Pie and offer different flavor variations. I choose the Chocolate Mint variety. It’s light, fluffy and had a good mint flavor but it’s just not a cookie. Their website www.wannahavacookie.com does have actual cookies, but Whoopie Pies are their main business.  If you are a fan of Devil Dogs, this is your product.

By this point a was on sugar overload and had to call it a day. There is a Gelato stand I will have to go back and visit and some other food stops, like the cheese shop and bread baker that are a must try. In the next few months the restaurants and wine bars will also be open and that will certainly warrant a return trip. Overall, it was a great trip and I really enjoyed trying all the different offerings. I am still skeptical about the non-food based shops and I am curious to see the sustainability of the marketplace as whole. If you are in the neighborhood (6th Ave & 20th in NYC), I would highly recommend stopping by.  That’s it for now, below are a few pictures I took of the interior.

Thanks for stopping by!!

I wasn’t planning on posting this. I had some overripe bananas that I needed to use so decided to make some banana chocolate chip muffins.  There are no elaborate pictures or anecdotes. I made muffins, they were amazing, thought I would share.

Enjoy!

Jumbo Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (makes 6 jumbo muffins)

1 3/4 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
14 cup white sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs
1/3 cup whole milk
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 over-ripe bananas (mushed)

• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg together in a small bowl, set aside
• In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugars until light and very fluffily. About 3 minutes
• Add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture beating well after each addition
• Stir (do not beat) in the flour mixture in three additions alternating with the milk. Only mix until just incorporated
• Fold in the bananas  and chocolate chips
• Scoop batter into a buttered/floured muffin pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes

Sugar and spice and everything nice. That is what I think of when I think of this cake.  It was so sweet and comforting and just plain good!  This recipe has already been on two food blogs that I know of, but I just couldn’t resist making it. The original recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and Hot Polka Dot featured the cake just over a week ago. I made a couple of super minor adjustments and added the drizzle.  My first attempt at the cake didn’t quite go as planned. I ignored one of my own baking rules. DON’T RUSH. Every time I rush I make mistakes and this was no exception. Let’s just say a tablespoon and a teaspoon of baking powder produce very different results indeed.  So don’t bake rushed, don’t bake distracted and don’t drink and bake. Bad things happen.  Anyway, the second go around worked out perfectly and produced very delicious cakes!

Apple Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, “Mom’s Apple Cake”, www. smittenkitchen.com

6 macintosh apples – peeled, cored and cut thin
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
5 tablespoons of sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
4 eggs

Cream Cheese Drizzle
Courtesy of My Baking Addiction, www.mybakingaddiction.com

4 oz. of cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

The original recipe called for a tube pan. I don’t have one, so I used two 9 inch cake pans instead. Having two cakes is never a bad thing. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper and butter and flour the pan.

Peel, core and chop up six macintosh apples and place in a mixing bowl.  Stir cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg into the apples and set aside.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together oil, vanilla, orange juice and zest.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones.  Next, add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients are incorporated. Note: this dough is thick and sticky!!  (At first I thought I did something wrong.)

Pour half the batter into the pans. Because it’s so sticky you will have to work it to the sides with spatula.  Layer half of the apples on top of the batter. Pour the remaining batter on top and then finish with another layer of apples. Be patient with it.

Bake in a 350 oven for approximately 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.  Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out of the pan, remove the parchment paper and allow to cool completely on baking racks.

Now for the cream cheese drizzle.

In a medium sized bowl, cream together the cream cheese and the butter. Add the confectioners sugar, alternating with the milk and vanilla and beat until it reaches desired consistency. If it’s too think to drizzle, add more milk. If it’s too watery add more sugar.  I used a squeezy bottle to apply  the drizzle. You can also pipe it with a pastry bag.

Slice it up and enjoy with good cup of coffee!

Have you ever been in one of those relationships where, no matter how bad it was, you kept going back because you thought “just one more time and it will work”?  Well, that is how I felt about baking Irish Soda Bread.  We had a tumultuous relationship that, no matter how many times we tried, always ended in heartbreak and failure. Prior to my latest attempt, I had killed four innocent soda breads. They were undercooked, overcooked, had a peculiar taste or funny texture.  With so few ingredients, this should have been easy and I am sure the experienced bakers out there are reading this bewildered by my failure. So…

It was with much trepidation that I went into attempt number FIVE (I am convinced that this dough smells fear). Attempt number four had just been thrown out and I didn’t think I had another one in me. (I don’t recommend trying the same for relationships. You can’t throw those in the trash as easily or feed them to your dog.)  My success can be completely accredited to the recipe I used. Leave it to Ina Garten to have an idiot proof recipe for Irish Soda Bread.  And here it is, my first successful Irish Soda Bread!

Ingredients

• 4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (plus a bit extra for the raisins and board)
• 4 tablespoons white granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 3/4 cups cold buttermilk, shaken
• 1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)
• 1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, baking soda, sugar and salt in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Give it a quick stir on the lowest speed.

Add the cold diced butter and on a low speed stir until the butter is mixed into the flour and resembles peas. You also cut the butter in  using a pastry blender or two butter knives.

In a measuring cup combine the buttermilk and egg and give a quick whisk.

With the mixer on low, slowly pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture. Beat on low until well combined and the dough is clearly formed.

Add just a touch of flour to coat the raisins (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the dough) and stir them into the dough.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and knead it a few times into a round loaf. Place the loaf on the prepared sheet pan and lightly cut an X into the top of the bread with a serrated knife

Bake for 45-55 minutes at 375 degrees or until a cake tester comes out clean. When you tap the loaf, it will have a hollow sound. Let it cool for a few moments, slice and serve!

Thank you all for reading!  Have a Happy St. Patty’s Day!!!

There are just some baked goods that will always say “home”.  Apple pie. Chocolate chip cookies.  For me, banana bread is one of them.You aren’t going to find banana bread on many restaurant dessert menus. It is a home food and since my brother and his lovely wife were coming for a visit this week, I decided to greet them with a fresh baked banana bread.

I wanted to make this bread a little more special than usual. I started with my Mom’s recipe, added cinnamon, nutmeg and gave it a crumb topping that I then drizzled with a vanilla glaze. The bread did not last very long! I think Geraldine ate most of the crumb top.

CRUMBLY TOPPED BANANA BREAD

1 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup of unsalted butter (softened)
2 large eggs (room temperature)
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 overly ripened bananas
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

CRUMBLE TOP
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter

DRIZZLE
4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon of water
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

Let me just say, you must use overly ripe bananas. Perky bright yellow bananas will not do. With a squeeze of fresh lemon juice mash the two bananas together in a bowl. Set aside.

Line a bread pan with parchment paper and butter and flour the pan. I use a nonstick pan and I still do this step. (I have a fear of stuck breads, cakes etc.)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Set aside

Place the butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla into a large bowl and beat on medium-low speed until creamy and well combined. With a wooden spoon, stir (do not beat) the flour mixture into the butter mixture in three batches alternating with the milk. Careful not to over-stir!

Fold the mashed bananas into the batter. Pour into prepared pan.

For the crumble top, combine sugars, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a bowl. Using a pastry cutter, two forks or you hands cut the butter into the mixture until it resembles a course meal. Stir in the oatmeal.

Generously top the battter with this mixture. You don’t have to use all of it if you don’t want. I like a nice thick crumble top so I used the whole mixture.

Bake the bread for 50 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees.  You house will start to smell delicious! Allow bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

Turn the bread out of the pan and let completely cool on wire baking rack. About 40 minutes.

To make the drizzle combine the confectioners sugar with a water and vanilla. Stir together until
drizzling consistency (if too thick add a little more water) and zig-zag the drizzle over the top of the cooled bread.

You can slice and serve the bread, or give it as a gift like I did.  I have learned that people love gifts they can eat and there really is just something special about giving yummy homemade treats.

As always, thanks for reading and check back often!