All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel
Banana Oat Bread is a wonderful banana bread that has oats mixed into the batter to make it hearty and healthy. Delicious!
This Banana Oat Bread is a wonderful banana bread that has a hearty and toothsome bite to it with a lovely oats mixed into the batter.
…Zucchini Bread with Honey Butter is going to be a summertime staple that you will love to make for yourself and for everyone you met. Spread the love! And the Honey Butter!
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Yesterday was the unofficial end of summer and it makes me so sad!
Summer is my favorite season, because I love the long days, hot afternoon sun, and fresh summer product. So I am bummed, but at least I have a ton of zucchinis now.
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I’m addicted to a show called The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network. I sit on the sofa with my iphone and my yelp app and bookmark the places to eventually go to. One of the latest episodes was featuring Snacks and while several featured places interested me I fell for the donut muffin. I don’t think Price would go for a trip to Downtown Bakery and Creamery in Healdsburg, CA just for a muffin. So what’s one to do…. google, google, google and then bake.
I didn’t find a recipe I exactly loved for a donut muffin so I made mine own. One of the things I wanted to emphasize was vanilla so I used the vanilla sugar and vanilla extract I made. I now need to make more vanilla sugar but it was worth it. I think they had a great texture like a cake donut but were sweeter like a muffin- hell, being rolled in cinnamon and sugar will make anything sweet.
I made a mix of regular and mini muffins for this batch. I perfer the mini muffins because they are a great size and I don’t feel as horrible if I have mini compared to a regular one! Plus they are so cute little. The recipe makes about 60 mini muffins. If you make mini muffins you will need to use more butter and cinnamon/sugar at the end because you will have more muffins (and more surface area) to cover.
I should have taken a picture of it ripped open but I was too busy baking and stuffing Pricer full of them. Then I shared some with Emily and froze the rest. The whole point of explaining this is that the inside was beautifully dotted with vanilla. ahh bliss
Sugar Coating**
1 1/2 cups of vanilla sugar 1 tablespoon of cinnamon 1 stick of unsalted butterPreheat oven to 350. Grease muffin tins.
In a large bowl sift together the flour, salt, and pumpkin pie spice, set aside. Measure the milk and add in the vanilla extract to the measuring cup, set aside.
Cream together the vanilla sugar and shortening together until light and creamy. (be in awe of the vanilla goodness)
One at a time, add the eggs until incorporated.
Alternating with the flour, add the 1/3 of the combined milk and vanilla to the mixture, blend until well incorporated.
Let the batter sit for 15 minutes before dividing it among the tins for baking.
Bake until the tops are golden brown and a tooth pick is clean upon it’s removal. The regular sized muffins will take 20-22 minutes and the mini muffins for 12-15 minutes.
While the muffins are baking melt a stick of butter in a skillet on low. Combine the vanilla sugar and cinnamon together on a plate.
Once the muffins are done and cooled to the touch, quickly roll the muffin in butter coating all sides. Roll the muffin in the sugar mixture.
*Make vanilla sugar by putting sliced and scraped vanilla beans into an air tight container of sugar. The longer is sits the better. I suggest making batches of this and always having it on hang because it is great to add to whipped cream, oatmeal, and other baking recipes. You can even make your own vanilla extract!*
** If you make mini muffins you will need more butter and cinnamon/sugar because of the increased quantity of muffins.
Over 4 years ago Price and I spent Memorial Day Weekend in Rockport, MA. We stayed at the Sally Webster Inn, a cute B&B that is walking distance to the historic district. While there we had this sweet, sticky, yummy breakfast… it was the first time we ever had Monkey Bread. We had never heard of it before so we eagerly asked what it was and how to make it. Our inn keeper told us how simple it was to make so we decide that we must try it at home later on. I have made it several times since but I don’t typically make it at home since it makes a lot, I have even cut it in half when we have had a few people stay over and it is a lot. Plus, let’s be honest, it’s not really healthy…. you’ll see.
Every friday my office has this thing called Pod Breakfast. It just means that 1 person brings in breakfast for our different pods (sections of open workstations). So today is my turn for Pod Breakfast. Since I started working at Gensler 3 years ago Sept I have made Monkey Bread for all but 1 of my turns. I’m kinda sad that I missed that one but I know at the time I correctly choose sleep over getting up early to bake.
I make Monkey Bread and either make something else or purchase something else. I have done everything from a large fruit salad to McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches. So I had to decide what my other item would be… since we just made waffles last weekend I had that on the brain and settled on that. I got up at 6 this morning (luckily I did not snooze for 30-40 minutes like usual) and went to the grocery store to get all the supplies I would need for monkey bread and buttermilk waffles.
Making the monkey bread was easy, like usual, and prepping for the waffles was a breeze however I put the eggs in the fridge and forgot them at home. Damn! I was so annoyed since I had to run out to the closest convenience store to get eggs. Just another thing to juggle this morning. The big scheme it was not a big deal since I made 3 batches of waffles but it slowed me down at the start. Once I got going everything went smoothly- I think I ended up making 45+waffles- which were served with syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream. I sent up a table for the monkey bread and the waffle prep. The monkey bread was a hit since it is a sugary, buttery, sweet breakfast bread. I felt bad that I forgot to invert it since I was so busy with the waffles but it was still good. Inverting the monkey bread allows the buttery ‘caramel’ to sink back into all of the pieces.
pre=””>Preheat the oven to 350. Use a bundt pan or a loaf pan for the monkey bread. Spray with nonstick cooking oil.
In a large bowl mix the sugars and cinnamon together.
Using clean, sharp kitchen scissors cut every roll into 4 pieces.
While you are cutting the pieces melt the butter.
Roll all pieces in the cinnamon sugar mixture until coated. Place all pieces in the pan. Pour the butter overall the pieces. Cook for 30 minutes. be sure to check on the monkey bread so it does not brown to quickly. Invert the monkey bread onto a plate, serve warm.
This past weekend has been a blur! Price and I went out on Friday night for Brazilian BBQ with a meetup group. On Saturday morning Emily and I went to see “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs” … in 3D…. on IMAX. Then I spent the afternoon ripping apart the kitchen. I purged some stuff and brought in a shelving unit to put my cookbooks on. So a lot of things shifted around but I think it works a lot better. Then we slept in on sunday, I went to my site for homework, birthday lunch with Pricer, and then lots of baking and cooking. So the next couple of posts will be about food and recipes, then I’ll get back to scrapbooking and random things.
My boss told me that during a recent trip she had green tomato bread. Being that my tomato plants halted their ripening I figured this would be good way to use them up, besides fried green tomatoes. I found a recipe that looked pretty good so I figured it would be worth a try. I’m so glad she told me about Green Tomato Bread and that I actually tried it. I made 2 kinds- lime and chocolate chip- and both came out really well. I never would have thought of using green tomatoes in a bread but it keeps the bread moist and gives it a sweet tomato flavor throughout. I think the lime zest (approx 1 T) brings a sweet tang to the bread. I used 2 cups of chocolate chips, which I think is a bit much but it still tastes pretty good.
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 9×5 loaf pans. Puree the green tomatoes, add water if needed. Sift the dry ingredients together, set aside. Beat the eggs, oil, and sugar until well incorporated. Add in the green tomato puree and vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients, beat until well incorporated. Gently fold in the nuts and/or raisins, if desired. Divide batter evenly and pour into pans. Bake at 350° for 45-60 minutes.
Other ideas for mixins:
Mini choc. chips (I suggest 1 1/2 cups, max)TIP:
Freezing the puree ahead of time will save you from having the green tomatoes ripen on your counter top while you wait for the spare time to make this treat. If you freeze the puree in 2 cup quantities it will be pre-measured and ready to go for a batch of bread.
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
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.
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