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TWD: Banana Bundt Cake

As I’ve come to expect, Dorie’s creation is moist, delicious, sweet, perfect even without icing, blah blah, blah. It’s also easy to make, and produces few dishes to wash. The Other Eater in my Household likes that part, especially.

My challenge will be to find reasons why it is ok to eat this for breakfast the rest of the week. I am proud to say that I made it with fat free yogurt rather than sour cream, which is always nice. Also, the cake does have 4 bananas. These offer potassium, fiber, Vitamin C and Vitamin B, (Thanks, Tao of Good Health). Practically good for me!

What never fails to amaze me is how other TWD bakers move past the excitement of simply having fresh baked good in the house and think creatively. Confectiona’s Realm added almond extract and apple butter (and considered other stuff) before putting hers in the oven. Prudence Pennywise added maple extract, wheat flour and nuts. And Ezra Poundcake is thinking about peanut butter cream. A hat tip to you all!

You’ll find the recipe for Dorie’s masterpiece at The Food Librarian, where Mary touts all things Bundt. I kind of agree that I love my bundt pan and the beauty it brings to the table without icing or frosting or in-some-other-way polishing a less-than-perfect dessert. I’m going to have to check out some of the other 10 bundts she’s blogged about this year…

Side Note: While looking for reasons to eat more of this cake, I found that:

An average American eats 26 pounds of bananas every year – that’s about 150 bananas.
Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in the early years (1892-1920s) were given bananas to eat. Many had never seen them and didn’t know how to eat them – some ate the whole thing, peel and all.
Bananas were introduced to the American public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, the same expo that introduced Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone.

Can it Really be August?

Every news outlet we have in Chicago reported that July 2009 was the coolest July in 85 years: the average temperature was 70 degrees (five below the normal average) and some parts of the state didn’t have any days above 90 yet this year (Thanks, WBBMRadio).

My vegetables are not happy.

Sure, they are lush and green. But where is the fruit? My cherry red tomatoes? The Giant green peppers I long to stuff with meat and potatoes? The onions I should be using to top burgers fresh from the grill. I got nuthin’.

My herbs, on the other hand, are thrilled to no end.

Anyone have any idea of what I can do with all that parsley? I’ve been trimming it and throwing it in the compost pile just to keep the sage and chives happy. The sage is nice on grilled cheese with apples or pears and fontina, and my chives are screaming for pan roasted red potatoes. But parsley? I’m at a loss.

TWD: Tibute-to-Katherine-Hepburn Brownies

Dorie says, “…these are thin, soft, very chocolaty brownies made without much flour…” and truer words have never been spoken. Except for maybe my friend Karen who tasted them at dinner Sunday night (actually, I think she ate them as an appetizer) and said, “those are more like fudge than brownie.”

These brownies may be my favorite yet! They are dense and soft and not at all cake-y, which is the prime reason why I don’t like brownies from a mix. These are MY perfect brownies. I think there might still be one in the cake dome, but probably not for long.

Dorie makes the bold move of adding instant coffee and cinnamon to the batter, which I know isn’t for everyone, but I love it. It’s just a hint of something classy at the end of a pig-out session, and it’s probably not for kids, but I thought it made the whole thing a step above licking brownie batter from the spoon.

You can find the whole recipe here, at Surviving Oz. This non-baker designed the new Tuesdays with Dorie logo and agreed to bake with us as part of her “prize.” Though she was recognized for her design work, she is also a pretty exceptional writer and photographer, and not a bad baker (is there such a thing when you work from scratch?).

TWD: Parisian Apple Tartlet

I’m catching up on posting the baking I’ve been doing lately, and I have to say that this dessert kinda let me down. So did the local grocery stores.

But it’s my own fault, I think. I’ve come to consider Dorie’s cookbook and this weekly baking group as sort of a go-to for fabulousness and decadence. I’ve rarely messed anything up beyond eating, and everything we’ve made I’ve really liked. I may not make something again because I am kinda lazy, but I thoroughly enjoy most of our projects the first time around.
So when the Other Eater’s Birthday fell on Father’s Day, I was challenged to fit it all into one 24 hour festival. There was a restaurant lunch with Dad and then a simple dinner on the patio (maybe soup? maybe leftovers? I can’t even remember – that’s how unremarkable it was) but I was sure I could turn it all around with Birthday Tart. It came from Dorie, after all.

Wrong.

I couldn’t find the all-butter pastry dough for this super simple tart, so I went with the Pepperidge Farm impostor that Dorie warned us about. She was absolutely right that it fell WAY short of greatness. Not even worth eating, really, except that it was easy to scarf down in the car on the way to the train the following morning. The apple was baked perfectly (not too soft), full of natural sweetness and yummy, but the crust ruined it all.

And sadly, I’m not into shopping trips for single ingredients. So since I can’t find the all-butter pastry dough in the two markets I go to regularly, I’m afraid I will forever miss out on this simple dessert…but I may feel differently during apple season.

Also, Dorie, in case you are reading, we both L-O-V-E-D the garlic scape pesto we had a week later, so all is forgiven.

On to the Brownies!

grilled potato salad is better than it looks

Does that ever happen to anyone else? I made Real Simple magazine’s grilled potato and onion salad and it was delicious. Just as simple as they promised, too, and a nice way to christen The Other Eater’s birthday gift, a mesh grill pan. However, I think I need a dinner stylist. Because while dinner was delightful, it didn’t look so good:

I hope my art won’t stop you from trying the potato salad, though. It’s a good find.

TWD: Honey-Peach Ice Cream

oh, honey-peach ice cream, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…This was seriously the best weekend treat I could have asked for. I fire up the ice cream maker a lot during the summer, and previously my favorite was Nutella ice cream. But now that Dorie has given me this, I’m not so sure.

Even though I used frozen peaches (it’s too easly for fresh peaches in this part of the country, and frozen peaches come already skinned. SCORE!) for this treat, I found it wonderful. I like to think it’s the locally produced farmers market honey I used, rather than that flavorless glop that comes in the plastic bear. The ice cream was rich and fresh and summer-tasting. I can’t wait to make it again!

So, to justify my passion, I found several health benefits to my indulgence (via DinineCaroline and Health24):

Peaches are low in calories and one 100 g peach provides almost three quarters of the daily vitamin C requirement.
The fruit has a gentle laxative effect.
Peaches are also rich in iron and potassium.
When allergy season hits, locally-produced raw honey may be an effective treatment. Local honey works best, according to some, because it contains pollen from the same local grass and trees that are making you sneeze. However, few controlled studies support the efficacy of honey as an allergy treatment beyond those showing that it works as well as a placebo. If you have severe seasonal allergies, consult an allergist before self-medicating with honey.
Honey might improve your oral health. Studies have shown that the anti-microbial properties of manuka honey, thanks to enzymes, can help clear bacteria from infected wounds and can be used to treat gum disease and gingivitis.
Honey contains the same level of antioxidants as spinach and strawberries, according to some research. The antioxidants in a gram of honey equal the antioxidants in a gram of fruit.

So, eat up, readers! Visit Brown Interior for the recipe – she added amaretto to her ice cream! Might this be another place for my beloved bourbon?

WebFinds: YourUnemployedDaughter

I love Your Unemployed Daughter for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that she never fails to make me laugh out loud at work, most often when the Executive Director is coming around the corner and I have to explain why I am giggling in an otherwise empty room. YUD is a media professional, a young woman and a friend-of-a-friend, so I feel an odd closeness to her. I bet her twitter follows @APStylebook, too.

But one recent post was especially dear to my hear – inspired by a meatball assault!

TWD: Cinnamon Squares

Oh, baking friends, where do the weeks go? I SWEAR there was no Tuesday this week – nope…skipped right from Monday to Wednesday. That’s GOT to be the reason I am so far behind in these lovely desserts.

I’ve got a few to catch up on, so here goes.

The cinnamon squares were a hit, especially because they fill only a 9″ pan. Any more I think would be overload, but the cake is not dry, the chocolate is not too bitter, and the cinnamon is it spectacular self! It is my favorite flavor in the whole world. Thanks to Tracey for selecting it and posting the recipe on her Web site.

I once heard that a fraternity hazed freshman by making them swallow a whole tablespoon of cinnamon, and it didn’t sound too bad to me – that’s how much I love the flavor. I buy good cinnamon, too, from the Spice House. It’s so much more flavorful than the stale stuff in the grocery store. One whiff inside the store and you understand why it’s worth the trip (or the shipping charge if you buy online).

But I think the cake is perfect not just because of the featured ingredient but because of the combination of cinnamon and chocolate in such perfect proportions (even though I clearly need to practice scooping half of the batter into the pan before I sprinkle in the cinnamon/coffee/sugar/chocolate layer, as you can see that mine is a little too close to the bottom of the pan. Oops). The chocolate frosting is this hardened combination of chocolate and butter that I hope to replicate on many dessert. I can see it on cupcakes, banana bread, peanut butter cookies…

TWD: Chipster-Topped Brownies

The theme at my house this weekend seemed to be “little pieces of heaven.” Between the smell of freshly baked-from-scratch brownies and the fluffy/fudgy texture of the dessert, it was wonderful dessert heaven, which has now turned into breakfast heaven, appetizer-while-I’m-making-dinner heaven…..

The comments during the baking process didn’t conjure the same cherubic bliss. We started with nearly a pound of butter, a half dozen eggs and the double-dessert task of making brownie batter, washing to dishes, and then making cookie dough. But you still only get one dessert out of the deal! After I created the batters – which were each wonderful to lick off the spoon- Mom went to work on the pan, placing tiny drop of cookie batter on a smooshy base of brownie batter. “Tedious” was I believe the word she used (right before she reminded me that she was, in fact, doing a “superb” job). But her face said far more. I don’t think her Dorie experience on this vacation did much sell her one of Dorie’s books.

But, an hour later when we were smelling the brownies and lifting them from the pan, all was forgiven. They are spectacular! The brownie part is heavy on the chocolate, but also moist and dense and delicious. The cookie top provides a non-chocolate crunchiness to soften the blow of the brownies – it’s not far from the Toll House cookie recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag, but the not-for-a-box brownies make it taste like so much more.

I recommend that if you have a whole afternoon to kill making one dessert that you will eat for every meal all week long, you visit Supplicious, where Beth has posted the recipe. (BTW, Mom recommends using many small drops to get the cookie dough onto the brownie batter, rather than large clumps of dough.)

Food Find: SugarBliss Cake Boutique

I had one Wednesday not long ago that was just one of those days. It started with a very frustrating call from my realtor (nine days before closing!), followed by a frustrating conference call, a do-it-yourself plant arrangement (how many Senior Staff Writers can say they’ve arranged Birds of Paradise and orchids with their executive directors?) and finally a Norwegian man who walked into my office seeking asylum from a private company (we’re a professional society, not a church). I needed something sweet.

So when I happened upon SugarBliss on my way to the train station, I found a $10 bill in the bottom of my wallet and picked two: lemon drop and Texas red velvet. They are both fabulous: dense and light at the same time, sugary sweet, made with real ingredients, and TONS of frosting. Perfect!

(The menu also lists frosting shots for $1, which I feel might be in my future, as well as breakfast cupcakes. I’ll have to investigate that further.)

Yet another day called for more of the same, but with limited cash on me I popped for just one cupcake to eat on the train going home: orange creamsicle. It made me a bit nervous, but it was the best available option. It did not disappoint. The frosting alone was a bit cloying, but eaten with the delicate vanilla cake it was delightful – the cake totally mellowed out the frosting and I was one happy commuter. I just wish they had better packaging for a single cupcake fix so that I wasn’t forced to lick frosting off the bag on the train.

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