Banoffee Pie

This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever made. And it was so easy . Semi-homemade, actually. It’s a great dairy dessert for when you don’t have much time to work but want to impress someone. Or, if you’re just in the mood for a great banana dessert but don’t want to go through the process of making a banana cream pie. Continue reading

Chocolate-Covered Frozen Bananas

This post is in honor of the best news ever!

Whenever I buy bananas, some of them start to turn brown before I can eat them. Seriously, they’re green when I bring them home, and when I wake up the next morning they’re already overripe! I usually peel them, cut them into chunks and freeze them for smoothies, but there are other things you can do with frozen bananas; You can dip them in chocolate and coconut or pistachios and eat them for dessert!

Continue reading

Chocolate-Banana Marble Bread

Whether we bake, freeze or make smoothies, we always find ways to use up overripe bananas, but this time we bought bananas especially to make this bread. It was one of the recipes on Jessica’s list in her favorite bakebook (can you guess what it is? She should start one of those cook-through blogs and get a movie deal like Julie & Julia). She started mashing the bananas, but Richie didn’t want her to bake that day, so I took over.

This quick bread can be a dessert or breakfast! We made three, one for the parents, one for my in laws, and one for the freezer, because we always like to make extras for later.

Chocolate-Banana Marble Bread from The Art and Soul of Baking

Ingredients:

  • 2 or 3 very ripe bananas
  • 1/4 cup (2 oz.) buttermilk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 cups (7 oz.) sifted cake flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 cup (1 oz.) unsifted Dutch-process cocoa powder
  • 3 tablespoons (1 1/2 oz.) boiling water, plus more if needed
  • 1 1/2 sticks (6 oz.) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup (7 oz.) sugar
  • 2 large eggs

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease the pan(s). The recipe calls for 1 9×5″ load pan, we used 3 smaller ones.
  2. Peel the bananas and place in a bowl or food processor. Mash or process to a smooth puree. Measure out 1 cup of the puree and transfer to a medium bowl; that’s all you need. Add the buttermilk and vanilla and set aside.
  3. Sift the cake flour, baking soda and baking powder together in a medium bowl and blend well. Set aside.
  4. Place the cocoa powder in a small bowl, pour boiling water over it and stir until it forms a smooth paste-it should run thickly off the spoon. If it’s too thick, add another tablespoon of water and stir again. Set aside.
  5. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high for 4 to 5 minutes until the butter is very light. Turn the machine to medium and add the eggs,  1 tablespoon at a time, completely blending in each addition before adding the next. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
  6. With the mixer on the lowest speed, add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half of the banana mixture. Repeat with remaining ingredients, scrape down the bowl and finish blending batter by hand.
  7. Tranfer half the batter to a medium bowl, add the cocoa paste and gently but thoroughly blend it into the batter with a rubber spatula.
  8. Drop alternating spoonfuls of batters into the prepared pans, then marbleize by using a spoon to gently turn the batter oven in 3 places down the length of the pan.
  9. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes.

 

Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Ice Cream

It was a hot weekend, and David wanted to make ice cream. I didn’t tell him that after we make the ice cream we would have to freeze it and not be able to eat it right away until it was too late. But he wasn’t too mad at me, because we conceived a pretty awesome ice cream flavor: chocolate hazelnut banana. We used an existing chocolate ice cream recipe and added our awesome twist! Continue reading

Throwdown Banana Cream Pie

Somebody I know really likes banana cream pie. I really like Bobby Flay. So I decided to make Bobby Flay’s banana cream pie.

It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Mainly because Bobby’s recipe calls for powdered vanilla pudding mix. Usually his recipes are a bit more complicated than mixes; not that there’s anything wrong with that. At least I made my own graham cracker crust…

banana cream pie

Continue reading