Chrissy Teigen's Banana Bread

The last couple of months I've had little interest in cooking. Even a sandwich or a frozen entree or scrambled eggs almost seemed like too much effort. I can't claim the spell is broken, but yesterday I made something from my dormant to-try list - Chrissy Teigen's banana bread.

I missed this recipe when it was all the rage around 2018, but it came to my attention a few months ago. Despite my long-time devotion to another banana bread recipe, I'm always willing to try something new. 

This recipe requires no creaming, which I like (and is one reason I like my usual recipe). It uses instant pudding mix, in common with some popular cake recipes. It has coconut, but shouldn't scare coconut haters. It has a LOT of sugar compared to the amount of flour, yet doesn't taste "too sweet." I'm not a fan of chocolate chips in banana bread, and I was wanting a nutty bread, so I swapped in chopped walnuts.

The top had a great very thin crackle layer day-of-baking, but after an overnight in the cake keeper that became a slightly sticky top.

It's excellent & I would make again.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/09/17/chrissy-teigens-famous-banana-bread-recipe/1283473002/

One-Bowl Banana Bread

This one-bowl Banana Bread recipe is what I call Banana Bread Without All The Fuss. I have been making this recipe since I purchased my first cookbook, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, in the early 1980s. Unlike most recipes, this banana bread doesn't require a mixer, as it has no butter that needs to be creamed. In fact, it has no fat at all other than that provided by the eggs. This is not a banana cake, therefore, but a banana bread that has a compact crumb that is moist purely from the power of the bananas.

As with all banana breads, though, you want to use ripe bananas. The riper, the better. One common trick is that when you are down to that last banana that's riper than you prefer, let it continue to ripen until it is spotty brown, then stick it in the freezer. The skins will turn almost black, but that's OK. When you have collected 3 or 4, let them thaw to make the banana bread. You'll want to peel them over the mixing bowl. Depending on how ripe they were when they went into the freezer, they will be very soft, and there may even be a separated liquid. That's OK.

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

I've been making blueberry muffins for a long time, using various recipes over the years. I never had a particular favorite, though. I hadn't made any for a long time, but recently I needed an easy breakfast-y treat for a Meal Train and the idea of blueberry muffins struck. Looking for a new recipe, I checked Smitten Kitchen as I almost always do, and of course she had one that looked just the thing. It included lemon, which is my favorite flavoring for blueberry muffins, and called for yogurt or sour cream in place of the usual milk or buttermilk. Her recipe is an adaptation of other recipes, and so on, and so on .... Here's my take on it; I've even included a variation for Orange Cranberry Muffins.

Butterscotch Blondies

This recipe for Butterscotch Blondies from Land O' Lakes has been a standby for me for many years. I picked up the recipe one year when I was doing an assortment of bars for Christmas boxes. It earned a firm place in my repertoire and is an easy choice when I need to bring a treat to a potluck or party but am short on time. It's one of those recipes -- like my Ginger Molasses Cookies -- that tastes so much better than you would assume from just reading the recipe.

Butterscotch Blondies

Note:  This recipe can also be made in an 8 x 8 square pan, although it may require a little more time in the oven. Double the recipe if you'd like to make a 13 x 9 pan, and increase cooking time by 5 to 10 minutes.

adapted from Land O' Lakes

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup (about 1/2 bag) butterscotch morsels

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan. Sift together flour,

baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a bowl, with an electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter with sugar and brown

sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Gradually add dry ingredients,

beating on low speed until thoroughly combined.

Spread batter in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle butterscotch pieces evenly over top.

Bake 5 minutes or just until butterscotch is shiny and soft. With knife, swirl pieces

into batter to create a marbled effect. Return to oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes

longer, or until set. Cool on wire rack; cut into bars.

Yields: 16 bars

Sweet Relief 3.0 Bake Sale Wrap Up

Yesterday was the Nashville Food Blogger bake sale Sweet Relief 3.0 to benefit the Houston Food Bank in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Tailgate Brewery generously provided the space, and the turnout was great. We raised just over $1200 for the food bank! If you were able to make it out, I hope you enjoyed the treats that we were able to provide. Three of the items I donated have been posted on the blog previously; one is new. Follow the links below to get recipes and information about each. Barbara's Sour Cream Pound Cake Ginger Molasses Cookies Lemon Ricotta Cookies Lime Coconut 1234 Cake

Ginger Molasses Cookies

These Ginger Molasses Cookies have been in my repertoire for a long time, but it had been a while since I'd made them. I usually baked them to include in treat boxes that I used to make up for Christmas gifts. When I was considering what to make for the Nashville Food Blogger bake sale for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, they seemed a perfect option. The warm spices and dark sweetness of the molasses are appropriate for the approach of autumn. Better yet, they are easy to make and package, both important considerations when baking for a sale.

Whenever I make these, I wonder why I don't make them more often, because they are more delicious than the recipe would make you think. The original recipe (I didn't make note of the source and have forgotten what it was) called them a Ginger Snap, but they do not snap. While they are a firm cookie with a slightly crisp edge, there's still a bit of softness that makes them a satisfying bite with a bit of chew.

Sweet Relief 3.0 - Nashville Food Bloggers Bake Sale to Benefit Houston Food Bank

Just a brief note to say that I am participating in the Nashville Food Bloggers bake sale to benefit the Houston Food Bank in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. My list of contributions is not yet finalized, but I'll be contributing several different types of treats.

You can read all about it on the NFB web site:  http://www.nashvillefoodbloggers.com/2017/08/sweet-relief-3-0-bake-sale/

Hope to see you there!

A Tale of Two Crackers, Part Two: Thin Wheats

This post highlights the second homemade cracker I made to go with the Thanksgiving Soup Bar. The method is very similar to the Black Pepper Parmesan Cream Crackers, with the added twist of whole wheat flour and no cheese or cream. Thinner and a little less rich, as well as nuttier from the whole grain, these make a great accompaniment to soup or salad or as just a stand-alone snack.

A Tale of Two Crackers, Part One: Black Pepper Parmesan Cream Crackers

This cracker is a recipe that I've made several times, but not in a while. I pulled it out of the file to include as part of the Thanksgiving Soup Bar. Crackers are one of those foods that we tend to take for granted as coming from a store. They are actually quite easy to make at home, though, if you have a reasonable amount of experience working with cookie or pie crust dough. They are lower-pressure though -- for some reason cracker dough isn't as fussy as pie crust can be, and don't have the expectations associated with Good Pie Crust.

Crackers can be simple -- flour, salt, water -- or enriched with fat, or punched up with whole wheat flours or other grain flours, or flavored with an endless variety of herbs and seasonings.

I first ran across this recipe in the fabulous, now retired, Minimalist column from Mark Bittman in The New York Times. Then Deb Perelman posted the recipe with her commentary on her blog Smitten Kitchen, and I had to make this cracker.

Of course you can use the recipe as a jumping off point and add whatever seasonings or seeds you like, either mixed in the dough or as a topping. You can also vary the liquid, switching from cream to half and half or milk (or buttermilk, or yogurt, or sour cream, or ....) Instead of cutting into squares, you can cut out shapes or even bake the sheet whole and just break apart by hand after baking.

More Yeast: 100% Whole Wheat Bread

My favorite white bread recipe was featured on the blog a few weeks ago. (Yeast Bread - Yes You Can!) I have another favorite recipe for yeast bread -- this one is whole wheat. Baking with whole wheat flour presents some special challenges. As noted in my previous post about wheat flours, a good wheat yeast bread made depends on gluten for structure. In general, the higher the protein content in the flour, the more potential for gluten development. When you are working with white flours -- flour where the germ and the bran of the wheat kernel has been removed -- this relationship is pretty straightforward. If you are working with whole wheat flour, however, a number of factors complicate matters. This recipe provides some techniques for getting the most out of a 100% whole wheat loaf.

Picking the Right Flour for the Job

In most grocery stores you'll see many types of white wheat flours: all-purpose, cake,  bread, self-rising (if you are in the South), and sometimes pastry. Less common are the whole wheat varieties -- you can usually find whole wheat all-purpose flour easily, but whole wheat pastry flour and whole wheat bread flour are harder to come by. When I was growing up, we usually had all-purpose white flour, self-rising white flour, and cake flour on hand. The cake flour was always Swans Down, and the others were nearly always White Lily. I never heard of bread flour or pastry flour until I was grown! So ... what distinguishes these types of flours, and why should you care?

Missing: The bag of unbleached all-purpose white flour I have; it was way in the back of the
flour/cornmeal/sugar cabinet. Yes, I have an entire 2-door cabinet devoted to baking supplies.

Yeast Bread - Yes You Can!

When I was out on my own and expanding my culinary skills beyond the (very good) Southern basics I learned from my mom, I decided to tackle yeast bread for the first time. I had a number of failures, a number of mediocre loaves, but gradually with practice I got better. One day I came across this recipe for an enriched white loaf, and everything finally came together. I've been making this loaf since the mid-80s, and now I'm excited to finally share it.

Mini Chocolate Empanadas

It was a tough week. It started on Sunday with a difficult evening on the personal front, then it evolved into a long work week. (Because we can't let personal issues get in the way of work, can we?) I'm not a chocoholic, so I'm not a person who keeps bags of Hershey's Kisses around for emotional emergencies. Still, I'd been thinking for a while about experimenting with an idea I'd had for chocolate empanadas, and even I am not immune to the power of chocolate. So, it seemed as good a time as any to give it a go.

Ricotta Cookies and an Old Friend

When I was in college, I found an inexpensive Sunbeam hand mixer on clearance at Target. If memory serves, it cost something like $11. Not only did it have the standard beaters, but a whisk, a paddle, and a milkshake spindle. Until a little over a year ago, it was my only mixer. I wanted a stand mixer, but never felt I could justify spending the money a good one would cost. Being limited to a hand mixer didn't hold me back much -- I've made a metric ton of cookies and cakes and the like over the years, in addition to using the other attachments for a million other things. I've also made yeast breads, but always by hand -- kneading is a great stress-reliever, if a bit messy.

Then, last December I hurt my back and was essentially in bed for 2 weeks. I spent a lot of time web surfing on my netbook, and found myself on the KitchenAid Outlet web site. Between my upcoming birthday and my bedridden state, I was vulnerable to the terrific deal on the factory refurbished, all-metal gear, 6-qt bowl, 575-Watt, onyx black, "Professional" line thing of beauty I found. After all these years the hand mixer is still going strong, but I was ready -- more than ready -- for a grown-up mixer. I wanted to do some Serious Mixing when I got back on my feet.

The New Guard watches the Old Guard make cookies

It's great to have the KitchenAid, especially one so large & powerful. I made several batches of marshmallows, for example. Those require a motor with heft & stamina; the hand mixer would never have made it through. (Most regular stand mixers wouldn't make it through.) It's great for the stiff cookie doughs I'd never try with the hand mixer. Of course the dough hook makes yeast breads much easier, too. Still, when I want to make something simple, I find myself pulling out the little Sunbeam.

This weekend I made a batch of ricotta cookies from a recipe I've used for many years. In fact, I was only going to make half a batch, so I didn't need to fire up the KitchenAid. Old Sunny would do just fine.

The cookies were part of a dessert platter I had for Sunday after lunch with my friend Matt. They were accompanied by local organic strawberries from my CSA, Fresh Harvest, as well as cool white chocolate ganache and warm dark chocolate ganache. It was fun to try different combinations of fruit, cookie, and the two chocolates. The strawberries were nice and ripe but not terribly sweet, so having the chocolate to go with them was especially welcome.

Photo by Matt, who also helped eat them

The cookies themselves are a little unusual -- they are soft (but not gooey) and rise quite a bit, so that they are almost like sturdy little cakes. The flavor is subtle, rich with vanilla, and that makes them perfect to go with lots of things, from coffee to ice cream. They are also small, nice to have around when you want just a bite of something sweet. As you might guess from the featured ingredient, ricotta cookies are Italian in origin, and are often flavored with lemon juice and zest. I like them with lemon, but I thought the plan variety would be more suitable with the ganache. As is usual with basic baked goods, I also think they would be good with an addition of almond extract.

It's also a good recipe to have in your repertoire because they are drop cookies -- easy to mix, no refrigeration of the dough or rolling/cutting required. You also don't have to be terribly fussy about the way you mound the dough on the cookie sheet if you don't mind slightly irregular shapes. A cookie scoop helps form more evenly-sized, round cookies, but I just used two iced tea spoons.

Ready for the oven

The recipe below is the full recipe; I frequently make only half. I also usually serve them as is, but you'll frequently find recipes where they are iced with a confectioner's sugar glaze. You could also sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking.

Ricotta Cookies

adapted from several sources

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 (15-ounce) container ricotta cheese*
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula occasionally if necessary. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the ricotta and vanilla and beat until well blended, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. With the mixer on medium low speed, gradually beat in the flour mixture until well combined, but do not overmix. 

Using a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart onto cookie sheets (preferably lined with parchment paper). Bake until the cookies start to brown on the bottom, about 11 to 13 minutes (the tops will not brown). Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the cookie sheet for 1 to 2 minutes before transferring them with a spatula to wire racks to cool completely.

*I use whole milk ricotta

Variation: If you'd like the traditional lemon flavoring, add the zest and juice of one lemon with the ricotta and vanilla.