Banana Bread

Sometimes I just want simple—where you mix all the ingredients in a bowl and put it in the pan. That’s what this banana bread is about. It comes from Recipes from the Heart (Sacred Heart Parish—where I grew up and went to school). This particular recipe is from Mary Amelong, however, I modified it. Some of it intentionally and other parts not so.

Here’s the original recipe with my version in parentheses.
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas (I used 5 whole bananas and not sure what that came out to be cup wise.)
3 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg (I used ½ teaspoon freshly ground from the nut.)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cup water or orange juice (I forgot this completely.)
1 cup pecans (I made candied pecans.)

Blend all ingredients. Pour in greased bundt pan. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

So here’s what happened. I decided to make banana bread, went into the kitchen, gathered all the ingredients and boom, when it came time to get the eggs, I realized I didn’t have any. Okay, I did have some farm fresh ones from my friend Kim, but I refused to bake with them. One needs to eat farm fresh eggs straight up and not waste them in baking… unless of course you just have them coming out of the hens right and left and HAVE to bake with them. I find them precious and won’t bake with them.

I mashed my bananas and then added all the other ingredients on top of the bananas (except for the eggs) figuring it would keep the banana from turning brown and yucky while I ran out to the store.

After taking a look in the mirror, with sweat dripping from my forehead, I decided there was no time to doll myself up and went out—no make up, hair all kind of crazy, unpainted toenails, bleached stained shirt. I was sure I’d run into someone since that usually happens when you are looking your finest. I kept my sunglasses on, dashed in, grabbed two dozen eggs, snatched a loaf of bread off the shelf and some Tea Tree Oil for that fungus on my big toe. The lines were long. I acted casual as if I was dolled up, going out for tea. The lady in front of me picked up the chocolate covered almonds, looked them over and put them back. I dare not touch them because they’d end up in my gut and did I tell you I’m trying to lose a few pounds? Why am I making banana bread? Oh yeah, I have a husband with a sweet tooth.

By the time I made it back home, I thought I had everything in the bowl except the eggs, so I plopped them in, stirred up the mixture and put it in the pans. At this point, I’m still not remembering the water.

Backing up a little, before I left for the store I got on Katie’s blog for those candied pecans that she had in her banana bread. I read the recipe, but while cooking the pecans, it didn’t seem right, so I added another tablespoon butter. What could it hurt? Seeing that it wasn’t working, I then added more sugar. It seemed like there was enough cinnamon in there for seven Danish loafs, so I skipped adding more cinnamon. I threw in more pecans. After a good five minutes and realizing it wasn’t going to work, I dumped it in the bowl and started all over—following Katie’s directions exactly.

Here's the first batch of pecans:

Since I now had some extra pecans that turned into some concrete nightmare, I chopped them up in my little food processor.

I had more than enough batter to fill my Demarle bundt pan and put the rest in a loaf pan—you know the kind of pan that the bread should go in. I sprinkled the top with brown sugar (a trick I learned from another banana bread recipe) but this time I decided to add those chopped candied pecans.

Pecans. Pecans. Oh, I’ll make some Pecan Pie Muffins from Paula Deen’s cookbook. They are easy and I’ll be able to do something with these candied pecans. Paula’s recipe calls for plain ole pecans, but who knows, maybe I’ve created a masterpiece. I’ll save that for another blog.

All in all… the taste of the banana bread was good, but it was a bit chewy. But I like chewy. If you toast it and add some butter, well it’s even better. But what’s not to like adding butter?

Elsie Pondrom's Homemade Donuts

The first time I sank my teeth into these babies, I thought I died and went to heaven. I spent a lot of time at my best friend Susan’s house when I was younger after my mom died. Probably before that too. I’m sure Susan’s mom was sick of me, but was always gracious and kind—never refusing Susan’s request to have me over. I’m surprised I didn’t move in.

One morning Susan’s mom, Elsie—although I always called her Mrs. Pondrom, (up until a few years ago). Anyway, one morning Elsie made homemade donuts. I tried to be polite and eat just a few, but I don’t know how many I ate. As many as I was allowed. With four other kids in the family, I don’t know how many we each could have, but I ate them all. Then dreamed about them. Hoped I’d be over again when donuts were made. They stayed with me. It seemed too difficult to make even though I was attempting to prepare dinner at home fro my dad and little sister.

The first time I remember making the donuts, I was pregnant with my first born. I was watching my older sister’s two kids, Jason and Vicki. I can’t remember how old they were—let’s see if I do the math—I’d say Jason was around 11 and Vicki about 5. At that time their mom wasn’t allowing them to have sugary stuff or junk food. I decided to make them donuts. Dough fried in oil and then coated in powdered sugar. I never saw two kids gobble down donuts so fast. I wondered if I had been feeding them enough regular food. I couldn’t fry those donuts fast enough. Afterwards I cringed to think I ruined their pure sugarless bodies, although I suspect it wasn’t quite pure. Watching them devour those donuts made me happy though. I knew they were feeling the same thing I did when I bit into my first doughy goodness.

I’ve made donuts for my own kids throughout the years. Whenever friends would spend the night, the request would be, “Mom, will you make homemade donuts?”

When my stepdaugther and her daughter Logan moved in, I found out that Logan loves donuts, so for her birthday I had to make her homemade donuts. Here’s the look on her face as she sank her teeth into the first bite and it’s pretty much the look everyone has as they experience this delight. Logan had goggles on while she powder-sugared the donuts so as not to get sugar in her eyes, I guess.

And the donut coma look. Here’s Elsie Pondrom’s Homemade Donuts

Pillsbury Biscuits—the cheapest ones. They usually come in a 4 pack, blue wrapping. And depending on how many you’re feeding will depend on how many packages to use. I’d say at least two… that’ll make 20 donuts and 20 donut holes. It sounds like a lot, but they’ll go quick. Although I guess if you’re only making them for yourself or one other person, one package would do the trick. Because it can be messy, I usually make them for a group.

Heat up a skillet of vegetable oil, at least an inch and a half or two inches deep. Your oil is hot enough when you drop in a donut hole and it sizzles around the dough. If it stays flat, wait until it begins to sizzle before adding any more dough.

While the oil is heating up, open the package and lay out the biscuit dough. Find a cap of some sort to make a hole in the middle by twisting it around until the hole comes out. Kids like to do this.

When the oil is ready, drop in enough to fill the pan and wait until golden brown before turning. When golden brown on the other side, take out and let cool slightly on a paper towel. You might want to have this ready too—a plate covered with paper towels and a bowl of powdered sugar, and another plate to put the finished powered donuts on.

When the donut is slightly cool, drop in powdered sugar and coat thoroughly. Kids like to do this too, but be prepared for a mess—both in your kitchen and all over the clothes. After coated, put on plate. Or if you can’t wait, bite into the warmed fried goodness of Elsie’s donuts.

And be prepared to get powdered sugar all over you too—I suggest eating over a table with your face over your plate. That and a nice cold glass of milk will put you into a good donut coma.

A little tip on the donut holes. I try and fry these together, or as many as I can handle. You want to flip these around constantly because once they get brown on one side and if it’s still raw on the other, they are hard to turn over. By flipping them around, they’re more apt to turn over. Not sure if that makes sense.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Now this didn’t come from my favorite cupcake cookbook, Hello, Cupcakes! like all my other cupcakes. My best friend gave me this silicone ice cream cone cupcake mold.

Susan handed me the mold and said, “I thought you’d like this to make ice cream cone cupcakes for the grandkids.”

Susan’s thoughtful like that.

For Lily, Lucas and Jack’s birthday—since their birthdays are days apart—I decided I would make them instead of the traditional birthday cake.

I thought if I filled the cake batter to the top of the mold, it would round over like a normal cupcake would do, but even fuller. Boy was I wrong. They spilled over, batter landing on the oven racks, in the bottom of my spotless (not) oven. The cupcakes ended up flat on top.

I wondered what I’d do to make the tops rounded and then I remembered the trick from, ta-da, Hello, Cupcakes! I took miniature marshmallows (coated with icing so they’d stick together) and placed them on top of the cupcake. I covered the entire marshmallow blob with icing, added sprinkles and whoo-hoo, ice cream cone cupcakes! Only they wouldn’t stand up on their own—too top heavy. I found some clear glasses to place them in. The grandkids seemed to love them. But then what’s not to love?

Fleur de Sel Caramels

Sounds pretty fancy, but this is relatively easy to make. I first tried these at my sister Ruthie’s who had me over for a birthday dinner. This was one of my three—yes three—desserts she made me. You can read about it when I featured Ruthie.

Even though I have a ton of cookbooks, I felt compelled to add yet another to my collection where I got the recipe for these caramels. I’m not a big plain ole caramel fan. I like it with some chocolate and/or pecans. But these caramels, well… I end up in a caramel coma from eating too many.

I made my own batch for my husband (snicker snicker, he’s always a good excuse to make something that I really have a hankering for).

When making something for the fist time, I like being prepared, and measure everything out before hand. I think for these caramels, it’s a good idea.

If you’re a tightwad like me, you might think it’s a good idea to substitute Fleur de Sel salt for another salt. Don’t. Even at the high price of this salt, I have no doubt it’s the salt that makes this caramel. What else could it be?

Oh and the recipe—you can find it in Barefoot Contessa, how easy is that? by Ina Garten.

Be prepared to go into a caramel coma.

Here's my pictures of my adventure in making caramels, starting with prepping the pan.

The cream, butter and salt before heated.

The sugar, water and syrup before heated.

The cream mixture blended and heated.

The syrupy mixture in stages.

After about five minutes.

After about 10 minutes to the stage of warm golden brown.

Adding the cream mixture to the syrupy mixture.

Adding the vanilla.

After it's cooked and ready to be put into the prepared pan.

After they've cooled.

Then you cut the caramels and wrap them in parchment paper, that is if you don't eat them all before hand.

Apple Pie

Who doesn’t like this All American Favorite? When someone says pie, usually people think apple. If you make the entire pie from scratch, it can take a while. See my Cherry Pie for the pie crust.

Peeling and slicing the apples can take a good deal of time, but if you have a peeler/slicer gadget thing that certainly helps.

After you have the two-pie crust made and you’re ready for the filling, I use Betty Crocker’s recipe, but sometimes I add an extra apple or two.

For a 9 inch pie:
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash of salt
6 cups thinly sliced pared tart apples (about 6 medium)
2 tablespoons of butter

Prepare your pastry or see my post for step-by-step directions of making pie crust. Mix sugar, flour, spices and then stir in apples. Turn into pastry lined pie plate and dot with butter. Cover with top crust with slits, seal and flute. Cover the edge with 3 inch aluminum strip and remove during the last 15 minutes of baking if necessary. Bake at 425 degrees until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits, about 40-50 minutes.

I have one of those pie crust covers, but they don’t seem to work for me even though it’s much easier to plop that over the pie plate then fooling around with the foil strips. I have found if I tear the three strips in half (so there’s six little strips), it’s easier to keep around the pie plate. One always wants to fall off causing the others to fall off. I don’t know why the smaller strips stay on better, you’d think it’d be the opposite. Another tip of mine—I always use glass pie plates. I don’t know why I don’t like the metal or tin plates, but for some reason they seem to take on the flavor of the metal.

Oh yeah, after the pie comes out of the oven, I sprinkle it with a sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Watermelon Cake

My little sister and I had a little time to kill in an area we weren’t familiar with, so as we drove around we came upon a used bookstore. A bright yellow house. You couldn’t miss it. We had to stop.

As we browsed around and did some last minute peeking at various things, I saw on the front of a magazine—maybe Woman’s Day—the cutest watermelon cake.

Did you know I’m a fan of watermelon? My favorite fruit—and it’s such a cute and refreshing delight. And it reminds me of my momma.

Too cheap to buy a used magazine, I turned to the instructions in the back and did my best to memorize how the cake was put together. It seemed simple enough.

Here’s my attempt.

I know you could make a box cake and I’m pretty sure that’s what it said, but I felt that a homemade cake would be more dense, therefore holding shape better.

There’s two round cakes. You cut both in half—leaving you with four halves. One of those halves you cut in thirds, so you have watermelon “slices.” The other three halves you will stack on top of each other. Then you’re going to turn the three halves on its side—rounded end down—so it’s going to look like a watermelon hunk.

Here's my icing:

In the magazine it said to use chocolate covered raisins as the seeds. My shopaholic best friend helps me shop. We were out one day and as we were leaving a store, I spotted these chocolate covered sunflower seeds. Inside there were black ones. After conferring with my personal shopper, we decided they’d make better seeds for my cake. Darn, I had to eat the chocolate covered raisins. What I do to sacrifice, can you imagine?

What is not to love about this cutie cake? And a cute dessert for a summer gathering.

As a side note, I was originally going to make my mom’s Breath of Spring Cake that had lemon filling. Except that I decided to try a different yellow cake. I also made a chocolate cake since I couldn’t decide between yellow or chocolate. I used a buttercream icing. But how fun would it be to make the lemon filling and decorate the cake to look like a lemon instead of a watermelon? Or use orange filling and make an orange slice? Oh the possibilities.

Let me also just say, forget the “slices” because the icing sticks to the crumbs and makes this crummy looking mess. I’m a little embarrassed to show this photo, but what the heck.

I fed it to my sweet-toothed husband who didn’t seem to mind. That slice was all chocolate. My yellow Butter Bonnie Cake (from Betty Crocker Cookbook) was on the dry side.

Overall icing the cake was the hardest part.

I made this cake for bunco and I decided to have the other cake be on its side rather than standing up as it was easier to put the icing on.

Crème Brulee

I didn’t think I was much of a crème brulee person. I’m not sure what I thought crème brulee was but I have an issue with custards that appear lumpy and especially anything that might resemble tapioca type filling. Ugh. Just the thought.

I went to a parochial school first through eighth grade. Since we lived two houses away from the school, I always went home for lunch. Back in the day when you could walk unsupervised and you could leave the school premises without anyone giving it a thought. Now you’re padded down to come and go and have to be chaperoned to and from the school.

So back in the good ole days, I begged to buy my lunch. Please, please, pretty please. One day I was allowed.

It was exciting standing in line waiting for the hot plate lunch.

I watched as a girl younger than myself got up to throw her trash away and leave. But Sr. Mean Nun pointed her shaking finger at her, scowling, and telling her she had to eat all of her dessert. It looked like pudding. We girls whispered and stared. I overheard someone say it was tapioca pudding. I stood in horror as I watched Little Ms. I Hate Tapioca spoon tapioca pudding in her mouth only to vomit it in her school uniform. Bite by bite, vomit by vomit she carried on until she was finished… eating every last drop of that tapioca pudding.

Never having had tapioca pudding, I knew I wasn’t going to like it now. I wondered how I was going to get rid of my tapioca pudding when it came time to do so or how would I avoid Sr. Mean Nun. I’ll never beg again to buy my lunch were the thoughts running through my head. I was never so grateful to find someone who wanted my tapioca pudding and gobbled it right up. I turned away and thanked God privately.

My best friend who stood beside me on that day can’t eat any type of pudding or custard. Mention tapioca in front of either of us and we, “ewwwwww” in unison. Some moments one never forgets.

Now that I’ve ruined your appetite, try not to think tapioca but luscious cream that’s cooked to a smooth goodness, velvety and rich. I wish I could remember the restaurant we were at when I had a bite of my husband’s crème brulee because that was heaven. That’s when I discovered it was smooth and not lumpy. The crusty brown sugar on top gave it that lumpy appearance.

I made crème brulee for a special dinner I created for my hubby and unfortunately I don’t know where I got the recipe. But I do know there’s a recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking that I plan to try some day. I’m sure it’s good… so long as it doesn’t call for tapioca. It doesn’t matter what kind of recipe it is, if there’s tapioca involved, I skip right over it.

Here’s a few pictures of making crème brulee.