Here we go again...

Have to say this is a great recipe! Banana Crumb Muffins. Even easier, Banana Crumb Muffins made into a cake pan. Baked for a little bit longer. I did fine with the time adjustment and fine with the ingredients this time. However, if you use a Bundt pan, it's better if you put the streusel crumb topping on TOP! Which in a Bundt pan is the BOTTOM!

bottom's up?

 So it became a Banana Pecan Streusel Upside Down Upside Down Cake! and on the plate you couldn't tell a thing :)

The recipe for Banana Streusel Muffins is here!

Don't tell Kathleen of Cuisine Kathleen that I listened to her advice and used a Bundt pan. She'll tell me I told you so! But she never reminded me that bottom's up? Or not?

I was a little too wordy this week for a Wordless Wednesday, but I like playing anyway!

More Wordless Wednesday can be found here!
and here!

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A very happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!

Some Thanksgiving humor...

What are unhappy cranberries called?
Blueberries!

Tweet

Banana Muffins this time!

and you thought another banana bread? I think I finally found perfection with banana bread. We absolutely love that last recipe I tried, but I'm always open to try another! So with this week's brown speckled banana's I made Banana Nut Streusel Muffins. Rosemary posted the recipe over at gardenbuddies.

One word. KEEPER! These are fantastic, even with lousy baking skills such as mine, these came out so moist, so light and so good! I used brown sugar for the white, and maybe next time would use a little less sugar. and I added pecans. These are a really nice change from the banana loaves my family has come to expect! Thank you, Rosemary, these were delicious!

Banana Crumb Muffins

Source: posted Rosemary at gardenbuddies, original recipe from Allrecipes – Lisa Kreft

adapted There's Always Thyme to Cook

Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar ( I used brown sugar, not packed)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan, or line with muffin papers. I used silicone muffin cups!

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Mix in the pecans, if using. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Joining Mary's Mosaic Monday. For more mosaic's stop by the Little Red House!

Tweet

Banana Bread. Again. and again. and again!

We could eat it every day. We love banana bread. It's just one of those things in my family what we can all agree on. Doesn't happen often. So I am always looking for good banana bread recipes. Just to change things up sometimes. Light. Cakey. Dense. Moist. Dry. We like it dense, but moist, and not like a cake. A heavy, thick bread, with nuts and lots of banana taste. But not dry. I know people have their favorites and we do, too! The one from Pillsbury I found years ago, was terrific, the one from a cooking forum, also great. The last one I actually made way more than a few times, from the Brass Sisters Heirloom Baking book, was EXCELLENT! but I always look to see if there is something else. Something that makes us say WOW this is so good! The one with chocolate chips didn't. Nor did the one with coconut. I've added rum. Vegetable oil. Sour cream. Butter. Melted butter.

This time I tried a recipe from Simply Recipes. Basic, easy and the picture looked just like what we'd want a slice of banana bread to look like. So I made a loaf this morning! I changed the original a little bit. I used brown sugar and added walnuts. And I was careful not to over-bake it. Or under-bake it for that matter! And on this gorgeous Autumn day in New York, we were not disappointed. At all. And my house smelled so good!

This was moist and dense. Just like the way we love banana bread. Our new favorite! Pretty much perfect!

Banana Bread
Source: original recipe can be found at the blog, Simply Recipes
adapted There's Always Thyme to Cook
Printable Recipe

4 ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup melted butter

3/4 brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup toasted walnut pieces (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

With a wooden spoon, mix the butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Mix in the walnuts, if using. Add the flour and mix well. Pour into a buttered loaf pan and bake for about an hour. Remove from oven when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan. Slice and serve.

Tweet

It's raining, it's pouring...

and I have no plans and I am staying put!  We've got torrential rains here and while I've always liked the rain, this is no day to be out and about unless you're a duck. So what to do? Baking comes to mind. And I always have that never ending pile of brown bananas, here they'll only eat the yellowish-green ones. So I freeze them so they don't go to waste. I may have 131 frozen banana's in there! Just kidding, but I do have plenty in the freezer. That will change this by this afternoon.

I've decided to spend the morning with the Heirloom Sisters! If you haven't met them before, they have done two really great cookbooks, Heirloom Cooking and Heirloom Baking! I've posted about them before and their recipe for banana bread is one of our favorites. So here we go again! We'll flashback to this terrific recipe and join Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet for another Flashback Friday!

Banana Bread
Source: Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters
Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cups mashed bananas (about 3 medium bananas)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Set the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pan with a strip of parchment and coat the pan and the liner with cooking spray. (I used butter!)

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Cream butter and both sugars in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add egg and bananas and combine. Add sifted dry ingredients. Fold in nuts.

Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until loaf comes out clean. Cool on rack. Store covered with paper towel and wax paper at room temperature.

Tweet

Banana Bread or something new?

Banana Bread or something new? I went with new!  I had a bunch of overripe banana's and my usual go to thing to do would be banana nut bread. But I do have a load of cookbooks and a lazy afternoon, so I set out to find something different to make with them before they turned to complete mush. A banana daiquiri would be nice, but I had about six banana's, those could make a huge pitcher, not sure I would last through dinner with that many cocktails. One daiquiri, two daiquiri, three daiquiri, FLOOR!  So I went with Banana Bran Muffins. From The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread. They sounded really good. Although so does a daiquiri now and again!

First off the bat, my baking never usually is completely successful, I have few complete successes in this department. This time, in spite of myself, I had a winner. No smoke alarm, no overflow, no mess. Just good, moist, dense muffins. OK, so I skipped a step, I didn't toast the walnuts. I didn't have wheat bran, I had oat bran cereal. When I measured out most of a one pound box of bran to get 2 1/4 cups, I got a little nervous. But I was already 5 banana's and two sticks of butter into this thing. and I dumped it all into the stand mixer.

Seemed like I had a lot of batter. I used standard muffin pans like the recipe said. Maybe my standards are lower? But I ended up with way more than 12 muffins. Fine by us, these are fantastic. And I'll freeze some and see how that works! 

 I used my colorful silicone muffin cups. Love these things!

I should have filled the cups a little more. They didn't run all over the place. They came out great.

The silicone muffin cups work like a charm. No greasing the pan or anything, and the muffins just slid out perfectly! These tasted amazing and we loved the burst of the mushy banana in the middle. This recipe is a keeper!

That gooey glob in the middle is melted banana! and it's good. Really good!

Banana Bran and Toasted Walnut Muffins
Source: The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread, by Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree.
Adapted by There's Always Thyme to Cook
Printable Recipe

Makes more than 12 large muffins

2 1/8 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups wheat bran (I used oat bran!)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 5)
2 sticks (1 cup) + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 1/3 cups walnut pieces, toasted (or not!)
1 or 2 ripe bananas, sliced into 12 chunks

Preheat to 350° F.

In the large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, bran, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of the stand mixer, beat the mashed banana and the softened butter until mixed. It may look lumpy, but that’s fine. Add the eggs and brown sugar and mix until thoroughly combined.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the banana mixture, just until combined. Do not overmix. Then fold in the toasted walnut pieces. *I put it all in the stand mixer and mixed it on the lowest setting until it was combined. Take care not to overwork the batter.

Scoop the batter into the muffin cups. Push one banana chunk into the batter and cover the banana. The batter will be mounded over the top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the muffin comes out clean. The muffin tops should be medium brown.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Serve within 8 hours for best texture, and wrap the remainder in plastic to keep fresh.

Tweet

Mosaic Monday - Cookies!

Joining in with Mary from the Little Red House for another Mosaic Monday. Check out the Little Red House for lots more fun mosaics from some very talented people!

There's always a load of leftover bananas here and how many banana breads can you post about? So I googled and ended up with Banana Bread cookies that I found at Buns in my Oven, hers looked so good, I couldn't resist. They actually turned out great and I didn't burn a pot holder, a cookie or myself this time. This one's a keeper!






I pretty much followed the recipe, except I added walnuts and left out the cloves. Surprised myself that I could actually bake! Mr. Griller helped. He had the first taste!
























Banana Bread Cookies
Source: adapted from Buns in my Oven (adapted from allrecipes.com)
Printable Recipe

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In the bowl of your mixer cream together the butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon to the creamed mixture and mix well. Mix in the bananas, oats, walnuts and chocolate chips until well incorporated. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.



and last but not least...
Why are bananas never lonely?
Because they hang around in bunches.

Go ahead and groan!

Tweet

Topsy-Turvy Coffee Cake

So by now you already know I can't bake too well. but I keep trying. Makes the house smell good, if nothing else! Had a lot of banana's left over again, no one here eats them ripe, and how many banana breads can I make? For some reason that comes out well for me, even when I over bake it, or whatever surprise I throw in, like rum or coconut or chips, still good. Go figure. So I googled. Found a Banana Streusel Coffee Cake from epicurious. Looked easy enough. All's well!

I followed everything. Except sifting. I skipped that. Tell the baking police. I didn't notice a difference and I was happy enough not to forget an important ingredient! I had everything on hand to make this cake. With three briskets in the oven for the holidays coming up, I wasn't leaving the house. Flour. Check. Baking Soda. Check. Brown Sugar. Check. Expired Baking Powder. Check. EXPIRED????? ah, too late everything was in the mixer! It was only off by what, three months?

The recipe called for a square metal baking pan. So of course I used a bundt pan I had for years and never used! Dope I am, I didn't realize it would be baked upside down. It was an obvious thing, but I never pay attention to these things. So all the nice streusel would end up on the bottom of the cake. It did until I turned it over, upside-down. So it looked a little weird being wider on top, but it's not about the looks and it tasted great! Even with expired baking powder. A little sweet, I think less sugar in the cake and the streusel.

I used powdered buttermilk, worked fine. but what do I know? LOL! Baking not much. The family loved it though! and practice makes perfect! It will also make us fatter!

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel
source: Bon Appétit. January 2003
recipe by Jennifer Martin, Portland, OR
Printable Recipe

1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips (about 8 ounces)
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 1/3 cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 large)
3 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan. Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon in small bowl until well blended; set streusel aside. Sift all purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients and blend well.

Spread half of batter (about 2 cups) in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.

This is TOPSY...













and this must be TURVY...








See the bottom is the top? or the top is the bottom?

Tweet

Mosaic Monday! Going Bananas!

It's Monday! and I'm going bananas. Bananas for Mosaics! and bananas for banana bread! Check out Mary's Little Red House blog for more Mosaic Monday! Only she's on a break this week so she's doing a Tutorial Friday instead :) Check out her blog if you want to learn how to make a cool mosaic from your pictures.




My two favorite banana bread recipes.

The old favorite...
Banana Nut Bread
originally posted at the CF by Caliloo
Printable Recipe

3 ripe bananas, well mashed
2 eggs well beaten
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (or more!)

This is pure simple banana bread, heavy, moist and dark.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan. Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt and soda. Add the walnuts and stir to blend. Put the batter in the pan and bake for an hour. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.

I added a couple splashes of Myer’s Rum (Dark rum) or Coconut rum!

and the new favorite...
Banana Bread
Source: Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters
Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cups mashed bananas (about 3 medium bananas)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Set the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pan with a strip of parchment and coat the pan and the liner with cooking spray. (I used butter!)

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Cream butter and both sugars in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add egg and bananas and combine. Add sifted dry ingredients. Fold in nuts.

Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until loaf comes out clean. Cool on rack. Store covered with paper towel and wax paper at room temperature.

Tweet

More Banana Bread!

In the never ending quest to use up extremely ripe bananas, I found another recipe for banana bread. So this one is now my absolute favorite. but there are millions more recipes out there, and tons more over ripe bananas in my future I'm sure. So I keep looking, and keep trying. If I buy less bananas, there's never enough. If I buy more, they rot. We've loved banana bread, a hundred different ways! With rum, no rum, with nuts, no nuts, oil, no oil. This one is different. No oil, but melted butter. and brown sugar! So good.





The recipe comes from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters. I read cookbooks like novels and spent all morning looking through books to try something new with those bananas that were ripening by the minute. Somehow I always fall back to banana bread. I'm glad I pulled this one from the shelf. The recipe says to have it with butter and orange marmalade, but toasted with some ice cream would work better for me! A lot better!















Banana Bread
Source: Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters
Printable Recipe

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/3 cups mashed bananas (about 3 medium bananas)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts

Set the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pan with a strip of parchment and coat the pan and the liner with cooking spray. (I used butter!)

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

Cream butter and both sugars in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add egg and bananas and combine. Add sifted dry ingredients. Fold in nuts.

Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until loaf comes out clean. Cool on rack. Store covered with paper towel and wax paper at room temperature.

Tweet

Wontons for Dessert!

It's Friday! Time for a flashback with Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet blog. I'm flashing back to a really delicious dessert. I love dessert, be even better if it came at the beginning of the meal. but no big deal, there is always room for a little something. I first tried this recipe for dessert ravioli's and the kids loved them. Made them once way back when and that was that, on to the next experiment! Fried Banana Ravioli with Vanilla Custard Sauce from epicurious is a really fantastic dessert and makes a great impression. Definitely gets the "oohs" and "ahhs!" I betcha can't eat just one, or even two! This is really good stuff.

Then I tried this one, called wontons instead of ravioli, but very similar to the epicurious recipe. This one is from the Cooking Forum. Also very easy! Use any sauce you like with it!


Banana Won Tons
adapted by There's Always Thyme to Cook
Source: Cooking Forum, AnnT
Printable Recipe

24 wonton wrappers
2 bananas
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon water
chopped walnuts or pecans, optional
oil for frying
powdered sugar

Optional: caramel sauce and ice cream

Place 12 won ton wrappers on a board. Slice each banana diagonally into 6 pieces.

Place one slice on banana on each wonton wrapper and sprinkle with brown sugar. Top with some chopped nuts, if using.

Mix together flour and water to form a paste. Brush a small amount of paste around the edges of wonton wrappers.

Top with remaining wrappers and press edges to seal. Deep fry in hot oil until golden and drain on paper towels.

Sprinkle wontons with icing sugar or serve warm with a caramel sauce or ice cream.
  

Joining

 Food on Friday at Carole's Chatter 

 

Tweet