Tag: bananas

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.

Banana Bundt

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.

So many things to do with jell-o

Have truer words ever been spoken?
It is the eternal cure for the stomach flu.
It identifies in no uncertain terms the pot-luck participant who doesn’t cook.
It’s got a hand in a great office prank (thanks to Derrick and Jenni for illustrating this one).
It does not, however, satisfy the sweet tooth of a hard-cord weight loss seeker, even when prepared with diet soda and whipped topping.
Sorry, Hungry Girl.
Having had such success with the shrimp and asparagus corn chowder in the Hungry Girl cookbook (recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World), I went a little wild and made two desserts from the cookbook in one evening – I know, I know, hold me back.
The first was a southern-style banana pudding with sliced fresh bananas, vanilla wafer cookies and pudding, which topped with the new Cool Whip in a spray can.

Reasonable Banana pudding

This was delicious in a fat-free-sugar-free-pudding-kind-of-way, and went over very big with the other eater in my household, as well. I used parfait glasses to stack 4 slices of bananas and 4 cookies in the glass before I dumped pudding over the top. I think I‘d even serve it for a small dinner party with close friends.
But the jell-o dessert was a disaster. I made a special trip to the store for unusual ingredients because it sounded so promising: sugar free jell-o, diet cream soda, and Cool Whip. It’s not bad enough to throw away (thanks, Dad, for that Depression-era mentality), but I found the soda overly sweet and the portion size totally unsatisfying. I was hoping it would be more like pudding than jell-o and thus become a new comfort food, but such is life.
But I’m still two-for-three in this cookbook, so I’ll keep trying.