Banana Cake...maybe

So this post is old.  How old?  Well...we were still living in the apartment.  November and December last year was such a whirlwind of helping out with fundraisers and baking for the holidays, that this post fell by the wayside...forgotten and un-posted.

So today is your lucky day.  Since I am out of town right now and needing to post something, I will dust off this post and give it to you.  Its a good cake that's very tasty during the holidays with or without bananas.  Enjoy!

Banana Cake made for Sean's parents

So...the house guests have left the building.  The house is slowly being put back together and now I have to ramp up and bake for a charity kick-off at work.  I thought it would be easy...the banana cake I had made last week was a total success (thank you Ina...if you haven't gotten the recipe book, "Barefoot Contessa, How Easy Is That", you should)...so I will just make that.  I had perfect bananas; Sean's parents had left them for the cake to be made.  So my thinking;  I will make the cake for work on Thursday night, brilliant...or so I thought.

I walked home for lunch on Tuesday and my perfect bananas were gone...I was pretty sure we had been robbed.  After checking the rest of the apartment, nothing else was missing...so, there must have been a zoo escape and a primate came into my home and took the coveted fruit.  As I was about ready to call the zoo to let them know that they owed me more ripe bananas...I had gone to throw away a tear soaked tissue (yes...I had a shed a few tears for my missing bananas) to find that my bananas had been THROWN AWAY!!!!  HOW COULD THIS BE!?!?!?!?  Who would do such a thing!?!?!?!?!?!?  

I looked to the dogs...they weren't talking.  The cats...well, they were napping.  I then made the phone call..."Sean...Did you throw away my bananas?" ,  "Yep, they were bad" , "No, they were brown" , "Well, they were too ripe to eat" , "They weren't too ripe for banana cake?!?!?" ,  "Oh! *silence*  I'll buy you some more." , "*sigh*  That's OK." *click* (this was on a cell phone, so there was no click,  that was dramatized to show that we both hung up, in case you weren't aware and had thought that I just left him on the phone while I made myself soup...which I may or may not have).

So, that evening Cheryl (my sister) and I made our way to TJs in search of ripe bananas only to find that they were all green. *joy*  She imparted the wisdom of throwing the bananas in a brown paper bag in order to ripen them faster.  Well, that didn't work...by Thursday they were eating bananas not baking bananas. *sigh*

So I made a chef-xecutive decision to make pumpkin cake using Ina's recipe.  Here is the result via my iphone (since in all my agony of not having my bananas I forgot to put my SD card back in my camera *sigh*).

Pumpkin Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting 

(adapted from Ina Garten's Banana Cake recipe)

For printable recipe, please click here 

1 c pumpkin puree 

¾ c granulated sugar

½ c light brown sugar, lightly packed

½ c vegetable oil

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

½ c sour cream

Grated zest of 1 orange

2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp pumpkin pie spice

½ c coarsely chopped pecans (optional)

Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 350⁰. Grease and flour a 9x2 in. round cake pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the pumpkin, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on low speed until combined. With the mixer still on low, add the oil, eggs, sour cream, and orange zest. Mix until smooth.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice and salt. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until combined. Stir in the chopped pecans, if using. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, turn out onto a cooling rack, and cool completely.

Spread the frosting thickly on the top of the cake.

Ina's Cream Cheese Frosting:

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

6 Tbsp (¾ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2½ c sifted confectioners' sugar (½ pound)

Mix the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on low speed until just combined. Don't whip! Add the sugar and mix until smooth. Yield: frosting for one 9 in. cake.

For Ina Garten's "Old-Fashioned Banana Cake" recipe just click on the link, here

This cake is as perfect for dessert as it is for breakfast.  It will end up being a holiday favorite and your go to, for work pot-lucks and for unexpected guests that stop by...it is that easy to make.

Enjoy the foods of your labor. :-) 

Happy Birthday ... have a biscuit

Its inevitable, people are going to have birthdays and you are going to have to buy birthday presents.  What I like to do for birthdays is getting a totally awesome container that I love and giving something baked inside of it, like these biscuits below.  

I fell in love with a wire basket at Target recently and had bought one for myself to store eggs that were given to me by my boss.  She had a birthday just recently and I thought she might be able to use a basket like this to store her eggs as well.  Instead of giving it to her empty, I lined it with a couple of tea towels that I had picked up and filled it with these tasty biscuits I baked the morning I was giving it to her.  Add some cool burlap ribbon and this becomes a really pretty present.  

Sour Cream Sweet Biscuits

Sour Cream Sweet Biscuits
For printable recipe, please click here

2 C Self Rising Flour
½ C Butter, melted
1 C Sour Cream
¼ C Sugar + ⅛ C Sugar (keep separate)
½ Tsp Vanilla Extract 

Preheat oven to 425°.  Measure out the flour into a bowl and whisk the  ¼  C sugar into the flour.  In another bowl combine sour cream, the ⅛ C sugar, and vanilla extract; whisk together.  Pour the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture, mix together with a fork or pastry cutter.  Pour the melted butter over the mixture and continue to mix until the dough comes together. Using your hands form biscuits, about ¼ C of dough each.  Place on a baking sheet.  Bake until biscuits start to brown, between 15-17 min.  

Makes about 8 biscuits.   

Sour Cream Sweet Biscuits

Sour Cream Sweet Biscuits

The best biscuit basket ever...

What's great about this biscuit is the fact it can work for breakfast with jam or with fresh fruit for dessert, think strawberry short cake.

Enjoy the foods of your labor. :-)

Death by chocolate cake...TAKE TWO

Devil's Food Layer Cake

Take two on Devil's Food Cake...why "take two" you ask?  Well, this is a blog entry that I have been working on for about 2 weeks.  I had the story part done, but needed to type up the recipe.  The blog entry was funny; it made reference...an homage if you will...to my favorite comedian; it was filled with word imagery that would get you to bake this cake in a heartbeat; it was a masterpiece that would win me many blog awards in the near future.  Still confused why you are not reading this glorious blog entry and instead of reading a description about it???  WELL, in the process on working on the recipe from Williams Sonoma's "Comfort Foods" Cookbook  I deleted it; in one STUPID keystroke the whole thing was gone and no cache memory, back button or any such trick could save it *sigh*.   So instead of trying to recreate genius, I am writing this to let you know that it was wonderful, it is gone and I have to move on with my life *sob*.


So now to let you know about this cake and why you should make it.  This cake is beyond good...IT'S GREAT!!!  It is not a very difficult cake and it bakes up perfectly, I have made it as a layer cake (as you saw above) and as a sheet cake (not pictured).  Both baked up perfectly.  The cake feels dense, but the crumb is velvety creating beautiful slices to impress all that see it.  The first bite is so decadent that you will have to control yourself from forgoing a fork and cramming the cake in your mouth with your hands.  The frosting is smooth, creamy and ever so sweet that you may get cavities looking at it and it works in perfect unison to dress the cake for a night on the town (heck the frosting is sooo good that even my mom wants the recipe and she never asks me for recipes...I told her, "you can get it on my blog"  :-P  ).  If you love cake, if you love chocolate...your search is over, this is the cake for you.


Devil's Food Layer Cake

From William Sonoma's Comfort Foods Cookbook

For printable recipe, please click here

For the cake: 

1 C  Boiling Water 

¾ C  Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder 

1¾ C  AP Flour 

1½ tsp.  Baking Soda 

½ tsp.  Fine Sea Salt 

2 C  Granulated Sugar 

½ C + 2 Tbsp  Unsalted Butter, at room temperature*

3  Eggs 

1 tsp.  Vanilla Extract  

1⅓ C  Buttermilk

 

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Lightly butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment paper. Dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess.

In a small heatproof bowl, whisk together the boiling water and cocoa powder until smooth. Let cool completely.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using a handheld mixer, beat together the granulated sugar and butter on medium-high speed until the mixture is light in color and texture, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then beat in the vanilla and the cooled cocoa mixture.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until smooth, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and smooth the tops.

Bake the cakes until they begin to pull away from the sides of the pans, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer the pans to wire racks and let cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of each pan to release the cake. Invert the pans onto the racks, lift off the pans and peel the parchment paper off the cakes. Turn the cakes right side up and let cool completely.

For the chocolate frosting: 

3 ¾ C  Powdered Sugar 

1 C Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder  

8 Tbs. (1 stick)  Unsalted Butter, at room temperature*

1 tsp.  Vanilla Extract  

1 C  Heavy Cream, or as needed  

In a bowl, sift together the confectioners’ sugar and cocoa powder. Using the mixer, beat in the butter on low speed until it is crumbly. Beat in the vanilla, then gradually beat in enough of the cream to make a spreadable frosting.

Place 1 cake layer, bottom side up, on a cake plate. Using an icing spatula, spread the top of the layer with a generous 1/2 cup of the frosting. Place the second layer, top side down, on top of the first layer. Frost the top and then the sides with the remaining frosting. Slice the cake into thick wedges and serve. Serves 10.

*I use Trader Joe's salted butter.

Devil's Food Layer Cake -

Devil's Food Layer Cake

  
So in the word's of Eddie Izzard, "Cake or Death?" ...  I choose cake.
Enjoy the foods of your labor.  :-)

Devil's Food Layer Cake

 

Cherry Crumble Pie Bars...just another Sunday afternoon

Cherry Crumble Pie Bars

So a couple of Sundays ago, I decided to have a go at making Cherry Crumble Pie Bars (from "Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications: Sunday dinners") for our Sunday dinner dessert at my sister's home.  I had agreed to this the Friday before; I agreed to it without having all the ingredients on hand, namely UNSWEETENED PITTED TART RED CHERRIES.  Big mistake!

Now I know what you are thinking..."how hard is it to find unsweetened pitted tart cherries?"  I thought the same question myself after going to the third grocery store and finding everything but those darn cherries. Blackberries, raspberries, mangoes, peaches, pineapple (they have frozen pineapple??? why?), mixed berries, cranberries...you name it, I could find it, but those elusive cherries were no where to be seen.  I felt crushed, defeated...I singlehandedly ruined Sunday dinner (maybe a little dramatic, but I was tired...I was allowed to be dramatic).  At that point I received the phone call that would save me from doing the unthinkable...Sean called to ask "Do you need anything from Wal-Mart?"  So I sent him on a mission to find this elusive frozen fruit.

An hour later I received another phone call, "Will Sweetened Dark Pitted Cherries work?"... *sigh*  Even Wal-Mart had failed to have UNSWEETENED PITTED TART RED CHERRIES.  I said that would be fine, but I wanted 3 bags...he told me I would have to settle for 2...why I asked...because they were the last 2 they had in the store.  *sigh*

Cherry Crumble Pie Bars

from  "Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications: Sunday dinners"

For printable recipe, please click here

2 C  AP Flour
1¼ C  Finely Ground Almonds (I used a coffee grinders on them)
¾ C  Packed Brown Sugar
1 C  Butter, cut up (I used a grater on it instead of cutting it up)
¾ C  Granulated Sugar
1 Tbsp  Cornstarch
½ tsp  Lemon Zest
4 C  Frozen Unsweetened Pitted Tart Red Cherries, thawed and drained
½ tsp Almond Extract 

Preheat oven to 350°.  Line a 13x9x2" cake pan with foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan; set aside.

For crust:  In a large bowl stir together flour, almonds, and brown sugar.  Using a pastry blender; cut in the grated butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Remove 1½ C of mixture (this will be used for the topping), set aside for later.  Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the prepped cake pan.  Bake for 15 min.  

For the filling:  In a large bowl combine granulated sugar, cornstarch, and lemon zest.  Add cherries and almond extract; stir together gently.  Spoon filling over partially baked cookie crust,  spreading evenly (mixture will be wet).  Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over cherries. 

Bake about 40 min. more or until filling is bubbly and topping is lightly browned.  Cool in pan on wire rack.  Using edges of foil, lift uncut bars out of cake pan.  Cut into bars.  Makes 32 bars (which is more like 12 bars the way I cut them).  Refrigerate leftovers.

Cherry Crumble Pie Bars

Cherry Crumble Pie Bars

The result was a nice pie bar that tastes excellent with ice cream, even if I didn't use UNSWEETENED PITTED TART RED CHERRIES!

Enjoy the foods of your labor.  :-)