Banana

Banana Bundt Cake- SRC

April 29, 2013

Another Monday. Another exhaustive start to the week.

Pricer and I kicked some garden butt this weekend. He worked in back attacking weeds and digging out the million rocks and chunks of broken concrete in the ground there. (Major thanks to the contractors, who instead of having the chunks of the driveway they dug into hauled away, just threw all of it into the garden. THANKS d-bags.) I worked in front digging up part of the lawn to plant some flowers and some seeds for 5 varieties of flowers, including moon flowers and canterbury bells. Plus some container work transplanting some little trees into bigger pots and prepping for some summer veggies and herbs.

Man, I wish I had a slice of this bad boy for breakfast today. It would totally jump start my week!

Moist banana cake topped with a dreamy cream cheese frosting. It would totally work for dessert or breakfast. Right?!?!

I just made this cake last week but I’ve already planned on making it again soon. I bought more bananas for them to chill out and get nice and soft so they can be whipped up into this stunning cake.

Banana Bundt Cake_05

This month’s Secret Recipe Club recipe is from K&K Test Kitchen. Mother and daughter duo, Kim and Kelesy, started the blog in 2010 as a creative outlet to be able to document and share cooking adventures with family and friends. Since they they have made some fantastic recipes that had me really interested when i was browsing their blog.

It’s funny tho. As I scrolled through the recipe index I saw their Banana Bundt Cake and immediatly knew that tthe recipe that I would make. Still I browsed aorund and saw some great recipes that I wrote down just to give a try one day. Like this Sun-dried Tomato, Corn, and Bacon Pasta sounds awesome. And I think I’ll have to make this Strawberry Peach Sangria one day for Thirsty Thursday.

Stop by K&K Test Kitchen to check out this Banana Bundt Cake recipe along with many other scrumptious recipes!

Banana Bundt Cake

Makes 8-12 servings

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups cake flour
1 package vanilla instant pudding
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup greek yogurt

Process

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a large Bundt Pan by generously buttering and then lightly dusting the sides with flour.
Whisk the flours, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt together.
Beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugars and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract. Then add the eggs, one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each egg.
Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas. Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients, all the greek yogurt, and then the rest of the flour mixture.
Scrape the batter into the pan, rap the pan on the counter to de-bubble the batter and smooth the top.
Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after about 30 minutes, if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent.
Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding on the rack to cool to room temp.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Process

Beat cream cheese and the powdered sugar until smooth.
Add the milk and vanilla extract, beat again until it is thoroughly mixed and spreadable. Add more cream if you want a thinner icing.
Spread onto the cooled cake.

Adapted from: K & K Test Kitchen

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Check out my previous Secret Recipe Club Posts

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Thirsty Thursday: Blueberry Banana Blast Smoothie

April 11, 2013

A few years back when Price and I moved from our apartment in Brookline to another apartment in Newton we brought my mom some plants to babysit that we had kept in our little yard. I didn’t just want to chuck everything since we no longer had a yard. So we loaded up the car of our huge pots and hauled them down there. Well, now that we are getting our yard here set up I’m planning on taking some of the plants back. Specifically my blueberry plant. Well, that was until I called my mom and brought it up and got the bad news that her landscaper’s helper must have ripped it out of the pot thinking it was dead. SERIOUSLY?!?! Yeah sure, it’s winter so it looks dead with bare sticks but come on it was a little bush!!

No, blueberry plants are not expensive. I can get a new one for like $10 but we had taken care of it for years so that is the biggest bummer. Especially, since they don’t just fruit quickly. So I’ll deal and it will be my excuse to get more, as well as drown my silly sorrows in some blueberries. 🙂

This blueberry banana smoothie is a winner with fresh blueberries, blueberry Greek yogurt, and banana. It’s the perfect start to your day or for a refreshing afternoon snack.

Blueberry Banana Blast Smoothie

Makes 2 smoothies

Ingredients

6 ounces of fresh or frozen blueberries, I prefer fresh
1 banana
1 cup blueberry yogurt, such a Chobani
1 cup milk

Process

Combine all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

S’mores Campfire Banana Boats

August 22, 2012

When I was growing up I used to go to sleep away camp at Camp Hazen in central Connecticut.

I have some of my best memories from the fun times I had during the 30 weeks I spent at camp over 5 years. It was such a blast with swimming, horse back riding (the horse I rode was named Cadallic), playing rounds and rounds of the cup game in the mess hall, eating fresh baked bread, and staying up way too late.

I won’t even get into the time my friend and I got in trouble for dying our hair there… obviously I would get in trouble for that!

Endless amounts of fun, which was often focused around the campfire singing J J Coolay and doing skits.

Other great things to do around a campfire is to roast marshmallows, make s’mores, ‘bake’ orange cakes, and make campfire banana splits. So I combined s’mores and campfire banana splits to make these s’mores campfire banana splits.

Sadly, I was not sitting on a log around a campfire when I made these S’mores Campfire Banana Splits. I made these in the oven but you can easily make them on your grill after dinner as well.

They are so simple but so good. Which is perfect for the kid in all of us.

Be sure to stop by Amanda’s blog to check out her S’mores Cheesecake Bars as we continue our S’mores Week!!

S’mores Campfire Banana Boats

Makes 2

Ingredients

2 bananas
2 fudge covered graham crackers
2 dozen mini marshmallows

Process

Preheat oven or grill to 425 degrees. Prepare 2 pieces of aluminum foil (approx 12″x12″) by spraying with cooking spray.
Slice each banana peel length wise. Carefully open the banana peel and slice the banana diagonially and lenthwise. Spread out the banana with your knife.
Stuff broken peices of 1 graham cracker and a dozen mini marshmallows in each banana.
Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the marshmallows have melted. Carefully unwrap and enjoy!!

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S’mores Week 2012!!

Day 1

S’mores Chex Mix and S’mores Ice Cream Sandwiches

Day 2

S’mores Truffles and Microwave S’more Turtles

Banana Pecan Muffins

August 5, 2009

The last time I made banana muffins I was doubling the recipe and made a big goof because I did not double the sugar…. I tripled it. In the end I ended up with sugary banana pucks- not dense, just no levening. They were really good, they just gave you a cavity in the process.

Well, I got bananas this past weekend for the purpose of banana muffins- I had been craving them recently. So I got out the mixer and all my ingredients tonight to get some serious banana pecan muffins going.

Banana Muffins with Pecans

18 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 overripe bananas
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease the muffin tins .

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, mash 2 of the bananas with a fork so they still have a bit of texture.

In a large bowl, beat with an electric mixer, the other 2 bananas and sugar together. You want a light and fluffy mixture, approximately 3 minutes. Add the melted butter, eggs, and vanilla; beat well. Mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas with a rubber spatula. Divide the batter evenly between 18 muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. You may need to rotate the pan periodically to ensure even browning.

Cool the muffins in the pans for 10 minutes or so, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

I felt like mixing things up a bit and used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. The muffins had the same great texture and taste but they did not rise much, compared to when I use all purpose flour. No worries, taste is more important than appearance to me. Plus I made 12 muffins and I used the rest for a mini loaf that I am going to take with us when we go camping this weekend.

Bananas, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla have been incorporated at this point

Adding the whole wheat flour.

Ready for the oven.