White Chocolate Orange Banana Bread

Whew - long title. But it's got a lot in it. Including walnuts, but I left that part out of the title. This is based off of "The Best Banana Bread You'll Ever Have" from A Cup of Jo, which I had found on Pinterest. Which I followed more closely in this post. However, I had a couple bananas about to spoil, and an orange I was being finicky about eating, and thought I'd just experiment a little bit. It came out fairly well, though was quite a bit more moist. The white chocolate chips seem to melt into the batter mroeso than chocolate ones, which is not so great. Changes (full recipe at end of post):

• Two bananas, one orange (zested orange and saved for later, peeled orange and put it in the blender
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp vanilla (in place of lemon juice)
• 3 Tbsp rum (in place of bourbon)
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 325 F for 60 minutes

Creaming the sugar and butter, one of my favorite things :)

All the liquidy things.

Everything! You can see little bits of orange.

Ready to go - so I made the center not as high to make to top flatter.

...which was okay, and it worked, but doesn't look as good without the peak in the middle :)

See how the white chocolate kind of melted in?

Good stuff !

Here is my version of the recipe (which we will now call White Chocolate Orange Banana Bread, haha):

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 orange, peeled and blended
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons rum
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1 cup (6 ounces) white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 F (for dark pan, 350 F for light pan or glass) and prepare loaf pan - I use the cooking spray with flour in it, otherwise grease and flour.
2. To prepare orange, zest (you can save this for other things, or add to the batter), peel, and puree in blender or food processor.
3. Mix dry ingredients in medium small bowl.
4. Cream butter and sugar in a medium bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly after each. Add the rest of the liquid ingredients (including banana and orange) and mix well.
5. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients, stir until just blended. Add walnuts and white chocolate, stir until they are distributed.
6. Pour batter into loaf pan, place in oven and back for 60 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool, enjoy, and save in plastic wrap.

Sweet Orange Cupcakes

I had some oranges that were nice and ripe, but I was being finicky about eating them. Since I also had a desire for some kind of baked good, I decided to make orange cupcakes. I used a yellow cake recipe from the grand old Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. Magically enough, the recipe is also online! For the frosting, I used a recipe from Woman's Day (April, 2007) for their Chocolate Orange Blossom Cake, also online! I, of course, made a few adjustments based on my desires and kitchen stock (below). Overall, the cake was a little dense, but tasty, and didn't have a strong orange flavor. I think next time would add twice as much zest. The frosting was perfect. It was sweet and orangey, and had a pretty glossiness from the marshmallow fluff.

• I made half the cake recipe, which resulted in 11 cupcakes.
• Instead of milk, I made up that volume with about half soy milk, half orange juice from the orange, and a couple tablespoons vanilla to make to full volume.
• I added about 2 teaspoons orange zest to the cake batter.
• I only made half the frosting recipe.
• Instead of orange juice, I just added more vanilla to the frosting.
• I used about 3 tablespoons orange zest in the frosting, and about 2 tablespoons honey.

Butter and sugar - a favorite step of mine. I use a whisk to help get bubbles to make it fluffy.

Orange zest! This was from one orange.

Batter ready to go - to the right you can see t cookie scoop I used to put the batter in the pan.

Mmm.

I made largish cupcakes; two scoops using my cookie scoop which is about 3 tbs. per scoop.

So sweet!

After baking - I baked for about 12 minutes.

Ingredients for the frosting.

I ended up adding a bit more powdered sugar to stiffen the frosting a bit more.

It was so good!

I love the sheen the marshmallow fluff gave the frosting.

Yum!

And again :)

Quick Breads - Lemon Cranberry

Last week I made use of some extra lemon juice and zest I had from another recipe I had made by making some quick bread. I got the recipe from "Old Fashioned Bread Recipes" by Bear Wallow Books. You can find these books at various places, usually gift shops. I think I got mine from the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, AR. I made the following adjustments:

• I only had about 1-2 tbsp lemon juice, but I did have 2 tbsp lemon zest. I was hoping the zest would make up from the juice, but in the end it wasn't as lemony as I'd hoped.
• I made up for the missing liquid provided by the lemon juice with vanilla. Don't know that I tasted that much.
• Sprinkled in some poppy seeds for fun; maybe about 1 tbsp.
• Also threw in some dried cranberries for fun, maybe a bit less than 1/2 cup, which ended up being plenty.
• Did not do the glaze, but should have as it's not too sweet on it's own. It's not bad by itself by any means, though.

Sadly didn't get any photos of the sliced bread :(

Wet and dry ingredients

Batter looks good! Think I shoudl've mixed it a little less though.

Mmm.

Wrapped it up in plastic wrap after it cooled to help keep it moist.

Eurypterids and Cake Balls



Fossil cake!

 The other day one of my friends did his oral exam for his PhD. There is a tradition in the paleontology group to make special cakes for big events such as this. This time, we made an giant eurypterid cake. Don't know what a eurypterid is? Also known as a sea scorpion, it's a creature that lived long ago and no longer exists, thank goodness. I mean, it would be terrifying if they did, since some were huge. Anyways, a standard Google search produces decent images. I used cake mix to simplify things, and made one rectangular red velvet cake, and two round chocolate cakes. Do various cutting and piecing together, you get the beauty on the right. Below, is the frosted, decorated final objet d'art. We ran out of frosting, but it did make for a nice two-tone effect. Cashews for eyes, Twizzlers Pull n Peel for...the other parts.

The dead dinosaur on the bottom is a running joke.

I think he enjoyed it :) His advisor stopped by, and seemed happy, though noted there were not enough plates on the back. Yeah, it's generalized. But the recipient was able to guess the genus, so I don't think we did too bad!



Leftover cake pieces to be repurposed!

After all this, there were some miscellaneous pieces of cake left. A proponent of "waste not want not," I decided I had enough to try making cake balls! I had never done so before, though I have enjoyed a few made for me. I checked out Bakerella's site for the basic info. I pretty much decided the key was in the cake to frosting ratio. I made about one cup frosting for what I deemed was about one cake's worth. They were harder to coat than I anticipated, but didn't look as ugly as I thought they would, haha. Notes:

1. Great use of shaved tops of cake!
2. I used my bigger cookie scoop, and made about 21 balls, they were a bit big, next time will use smaller scoop. Chilled scoops for a bit before rolling.
3. Used about 6 blocks of chocolate coating. If you have a little extra, again, "waste not want not!" Surely there is something in your pantry that can get coating and make a nice snack later - pretzels, marshmallows, graham crackers, nuts...
4. Chilled balls easier to dip, as the coating heats them up and harder to tap off excess coating. Freezing them makes the coating stick to the dipping apparatus.
5. I made half a batch of Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting - it's my favorite chocolate frosting. Not that I've ever made any others. Not that I need to.
6. By the way, I *do* waste sometimes...but why waste when you can make cake balls?!

   

   Frosting! I sometimes add extra vanilla in place of some milk.

   

   The cake crumbs pretty easily by rubbing between your hands.

   

   Mixed crumbs and frosting



Scooped balls, stuck them in the fridge for a bit...

...then rolled them.



Coating, fun sprinkles, and Wilton dipping tools.

Look pretty messy, but a little nicer lined up. Plus coated oatcakes.



Cute and tasty!

Springtime colors :)

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I greatly enjoy Pinterest, like many girls out there. It's pretty fabulous. It's also a fabulous way to waste time, haha. Anyways, not that point. The point is, I've made a few items I've found on Pinterest, and last week I made this!

The Best Banana Bread You'll Ever Have - A Cup of Jo

Well, I came upon this, and it was perfect because I had two rotting bananas I needed to deal with. I ended up modifying the recipe a little:

1. Only 2 bananas - though the volume seemed to be about right
2. I used vanilla instead of lemon juice (and doubled it to make up for the potential lack of moisture from the bananas)
3. Don't like bourbon, but I had rum on hand
4. No walnuts, as I was expecting a nut-allergic guest I was hoping to share some with
5. I had a dark non-stick pan, so I lowered the temperature to 325 F and ended up baking for 50 min.

At first I though it was too dry, but once it cooled I wrapped it up in plastic wrap, and the next day it was perfect. Not so great out of the oven. I used some Ghirardelli 72% dark chocolate chips, and they were a bit overpowering. I almost used white chocolate chips, and I think I will do that next time to let the banana flavor stand out a bit more.

My photos...