Banana Bread and Chocolate Spread

Posted by Lindsey @ Baking Bytes in Baking, Bread, Quickbread, Sauces and Frostings and tagged with Banana, Chocolate 9 June 2014

Summer is here! Not sure I’m quite ready for the heat but I am thrilled that the prospect of snow has dropped to near zero. I recently developed IT band syndrome which put my training on a hiatus. On the one hand, it was kind of terrible, but on the other hand, it was a great excuse to get new running shoes. Because you definitely need a reason for new running shoes. (False. You don’t.) I have since started running again, carefully, so hopefully my half marathon on Saturday doesn’t kill me. I’m heading home to Alaska to run the Skagway Half Marathon, and then skipping back to Juneau for the following week. Hopefully the weather cooperates.

In any case, I’ve been consoling myself with copious amounts of baking. The usual cookies, as well as new ice cream flavors, and a birthday cake for M.

Delicious.

I also reverted to an old favorite: banana bread.

Growing up in Alaska the bananas arrive chartreuse in color and sprint past yellow before surrendering to the brown of overly ripe fruit. Maybe you are one of those people who likes the brown ones, or the spotty bananas, but my neon supply has resulted in a preference for yellow with the barest hint of green remaining. Of course this means they move rather quickly past what I call their “edible phase”, and if M isn’t around to eat them I just wait for the inevitable browning that makes for the best bread.

This is a very classic recipe pulled from the Gold Medal flour bags I used to buy. It is not overly moist, slices beautifully, and always turns out perfectly. I opt to use Crisco in lieu of butter, partly because that’s what I’ve always done and partly because you don’t have to wait for Crisco to soften. One of these days I’ll try it with butter just for comparison. Or you can try it and let me know what you think.

This bread is best wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and left on the counter overnight before slicing. It will be substantially dryer if you cut it ahead of time, so do your best to wait awhile. It also freezes beautifully, if you want to make two loaves and save one for later.

I happened to be craving something sweet, but not too sweet, so I whipped up a quick chocolate spread to use with this loaf. It pairs beautifully and still leaves the rest of the loaf chocolate free to eat plain or with butter some other ~~hour~~ day. To be honest, I use far less in real life than you see in these pictures, but it looks prettier and yummier with a thick coating. (If you use this much, or more, I promise I won’t tell.)

I don’t care for nuts in much of anything, but if that’s your thing I won’t judge you too harshly for adding them. Probably.

If you’re a chocolate banana fan, throw in some chocolate chips or make the easy chocolate spread below. It’s a great way to dress up a classic recipe while still sticking to its roots. I would probably use about a fourth cup of mini chocolate chips, but just fold some in until it looks like enough for you.

Banana Bread

Adapted from Gold Medal
Makes one loaf

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup mashed ripe banana (2-3 medium)
1/3 cup shortening or butter
2 Tbsp milk

2 eggs

1 cup walnuts, optional (I never add these)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a 9×5 loaf pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
Whisk together dry ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat bananas briefly until well mashed. Add shortening or butter and milk, and stir until combined.
Add dry ingredients and stir (2 on a Kitchen Aide mixer) until incorporated, then on high (6) for two minutes.
Add eggs and beat on medium (4) until blended and fluffy.
Stir in nuts, if desired.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool for ten minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and/or a Ziploc bag, and leave on the counter overnight before slicing.
Use a sharp knife to cut, and serve plain, with butter, or with the chocolate spread below.

Chocolate Spread

Makes about 3/4 cup

Ingredients

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup half and half

Directions

Place chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl, and zap for one minute.
Stir and repeat in 30-second intervals until chips are completely melted and smooth.
Let cool for a few minutes, then slowly stir in the half and half until completely combined.
Store in an airtight container, and keep in the fridge if you’re not going to use it right away. (Microwave for 10-15 seconds to make it spreadable if you don’t want to wait for it to warm up on the counter.)

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes and Buttercream Frosting

Posted by Lindsey @ Baking Bytes in Baking, Celebration/Holiday, Cupcakes, Dessert, Sauces and Frostings and tagged with Blackberry, Summer, Vanilla, Vanilla Bean 12 May 2014

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, but especially to mine for being my proofreader (and just generally awesome). Thanks Mom!

This month my best friend finished her Master’s degree in Computer Science, which is super exciting! To celebrate the occasion I offered to make cupcakes for the party. The first time I made these cupcakes, a year ago, they turned out delightful so I decided to revisit the recipe.

Some of you may be thinking, “Vanilla? How boring.” but I assure you these cupcakes are amazing. Unless you are just completely anti-vanilla, in which case I think you might want to get that checked out. These cupcakes are light and summery with a full vanilla flavor and pretty specks of vanilla bean throughout. They are quite delicious on their own, but of course make a great base for almost any frosting. For this occasion I used the vanilla buttercream from the original recipe, as well as a blackberry buttercream I sort of made up as I went. Although it was delicious, it’s not quite ready to share. But don’t worry, it’ll definitely be up here soon.

This is a very beginner friendly recipe as well as an excellent staple for the experienced baker. The original recipe calls for a vanilla bean, but I substituted vanilla bean powder which you can buy off Amazon. I love vanilla bean powder because it’s far less hassle (and cheaper!) than whole beans but has a much stronger flavor and the lovely specs that extract doesn’t. You can also use it in place of vanilla extract (or in addition to) in pretty much any baked recipe. I hear it’s also great to add a little to your coffee grounds before you brew it, but I haven’t personally tried this (yet).

These cupcakes are great for any occasion, but they are best for decently large parties as the recipe makes over three dozen. You could try shrinking the recipe, of course, but I suspect your friends would prefer you had extras to give away.

Pair with the vanilla bean buttercream frosting below, or your favorite frosting recipe. It would go great with a whipped cream frosting if you want to keep the whole concoction extra light. Maybe even Bailey’s whipped cream.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

Adapted from Bella’s Bistro
Makes so many cupcakes (~40)

Ingredients

3 cups cake flour (or all-purpose)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
2 tsp vanilla bean powder

2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temp

1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line muffin tins with cupcakes liners.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat butter and vanilla powder together until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
Add sugar and beat until completely combined.
Add eggs one at a time, mixing until just combined after each one. You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
In a small cup, mix together buttermilk and vanilla extract; set aside.
Beginning and ending with the flour mixture, add in alternating additions with the buttermilk, mixing on low speed just until incorporated between each addition.
Scrape the sides of the bowl if necessary, and mix an additional 15 seconds.
Using a 3 Tbsp scoop, fill the cupcake liners and bake for 18-20 minutes (a toothpick should come out clean).
Let rest at least 5 minutes in the pan, then remove cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.
Frost and decorate as desired.

Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from Bella’s Bistro
Makes enough for ~20 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temp

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 Tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Using an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until smooth.
Add sugar and beat on low speed until incorporated completely.
Stir in vanilla and cream, then beat on medium-high speed for a few minutes until light and fluffy.
Pipe or spread on completely cooled cupcakes as desired.

Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted by Lindsey @ Baking Bytes in Baking, Cookies, Dessert and tagged with Craisin, Oatmeal Cookies, White Chocolate 28 April 2014

Welcome, friends, I hope you’ve had a lovely April. Montana is still struggling to fully commit to spring but right now it’s delightfully sunny and almost 60, which makes for a smiley Lindsey instead of the frowny Lindsey of last weekend’s flurries.

This weekend I decided to cover one of our household cookie staples. These are personally one of my favorites, although M is a bit more indifferent towards them. Regardless, if you like Craisins and white chocolate, you’ll likely enjoy today’s recipe. A bit less sweet than your average cookie, these are a light and summery cookie great for lunches and snacks (or dinner, I don’t judge). They freeze exceptionally well in case you want to make a double batch and store the extras. (As if you can have extra cookies, ha!)

I love these cookies for their light texture and cranberry white chocolate combo, but also because they feel just a bit healthier than the usual peanut butter and chocolate combos you find ’round these parts. Obviously they’re still cookies, but I feel slightly less guilty having a few of these. (Psyche! I never feel guilty eating cookies.) And cranberries are fruit, and fruit is healthy, so basically these are healthy, right?

My favorite part about these cookies is that even though they taste summery to me, they have no seasonal ingredients, which means you can make them all year round. Especially in late January after the Christmas fun has worn off and spring isn’t quite on the horizon. They are also super easy and take minimal measuring cups, which are always extra points in my book.

For this recipe I like to use my small 1 Tbsp cookie scoop that results in bite-sized delights. If you prefer a large cookie, you’ll need to bake them an extra minute or two, so bake a test cookie to figure out the timing.

Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Ocean Spray
Makes ~4 dozen small cookies

Ingredients

2/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups oats (not quick oats)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup Craisins dried cranberries
2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and line two cookie sheets with silicon mats.
Beat butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy.
Thoroughly beat in eggs.
Whisk together oats, flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.
Beat in flour mixture in three or four additions, mixing well between each addition.
Gently stir in Craisins and white chocolate chips until well distributed.
Using a 1 Tbsp cookie scoop, drop onto cookie sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes, (I usually do 9) or until lightly browned.
Let cool on cookie sheet for a couple minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container on the counter for several days, or in the freezer for several weeks.

Lemon Bundt Cake

Posted by Lindsey @ Baking Bytes in Baking, Cake, Celebration/Holiday, Dessert, Sauces and Frostings and tagged with Easter, Lemon 14 April 2014

Hello my friends, I’ve been busy attempting to find a lemon cake to share with you guys. As mentioned last post, attempt #1 was rather a fiasco, resulting in an overflowing, collapsed mess that was somehow over-baked and under-baked at the same time. And to top it off, it failed to cleanly come out of the pan.

Disaster.

The following week I tried again, using a new recipe. This recipe baked beautifully but was not quite as lemony as I prefer. I like lemon desserts to smack you in the face with lemon rather than leaving you wondering if that was really lemon flavored after all.

And so this weekend, attempt #3 was meant to boost the lemon flavor from the previous week, which was successful, finally.

I finally present to you a fully lemony bundt cake for your springtime pleasure. If, like me, you’re ignoring the attempts at snow outside and the chilly wind, and looking longingly towards the blue patch of sky, bake this cake. This morning was a rather gray day, with flurries of now, but as I type up this post it’s now sunny and nearing 50 degrees.

Obviously the weather gods approve of lemon.

Fairly dense but not sickeningly sweet, the lemon scent permeates the air even before you have a taste. The color of sunshine guarantees a smile even on a cloudy day, and the burst of flavor leaves no questions about its contents. Although I love a strong lemon flavor, I realize it’s not for everyone. If you prefer it a bit more subtle, leave out the syrup step entirely. If you want the experience to have a bit more ka-pow (definitely a technical term), the syrup will give you that. Add as much or as little of it as you like, but make sure you poke deep holes into the cake to allow the syrup to permeate all the way through, or you’ll be left with a soggy bottom/middle that sticks to your wire rack. Don’t be afraid of the holes, they won’t show once the cake is inverted.

This is an easy cake, and although a teensy bit time-consuming, it’s very beginner friendly. It would make a delightful addition to any table, sure to please any lemon fan. If you do decide to forego the syrup step, I recommend using a thinner glaze than shown here so you can cover the entire cake. The glaze is a necessary complement to the plainer cake and this will ensure you have some with every bite.

Lemon Bundt Cake

Adapted from Baking Bites
Serves 8-12

Ingredients

Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup butter, room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large eggs
2 Tbsp fresh lemon zest

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk

Syrup

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar

Glaze

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1-3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter and flour a 10+ cup bundt pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat butter and cream on medium speed until lightly colored and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until just combined between each one.
Stir in lemon zest.
Add one third of the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated.
Repeat with lemon juice, one third of flour mixture, buttermilk, and remaining flour mixture (in that order), stirring just until incorporated with each addition.
Scoop into prepared pan, gently smoothing out the top.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
During the last 10 minutes of baking, heat 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/2 sugar to boiling, then remove from the heat.
Immediately after removing from the oven, poke deep holes in the bottom of the cake, and slowly pour the lemon syrup evenly over it, letting it soak into the cake.
Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then carefully invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
After the cake is cooled, vigorously stir together powdered sugar and lemon juice, adding more or less of each to desired consistency, and drizzle over the cake.
Let the glaze set 20-30 minutes, then serve on its own or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Notes

You’ll need 5-6 lemons for the whole recipe
A skewer or a meat thermometer is ideal for poking holes

Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Posted by Lindsey @ Baking Bytes in Baking, Cookies, Dessert and tagged with Chocolate, Oatmeal Cookies 31 March 2014

I was originally planning to share a lemon bundt cake with you guys today, but the recipe was almost a total flop. Still edible, but not a recipe I’d ever use again, and definitely not pretty enough to entice anyone into making it anyway. Instead, please enjoy this cookie recipe, and hopefully in a week or two there actually will be a lemon bundt cake featured here.

Four years ago my mom emailed me a recipe entitled “Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies”. I labeled it under “recipes” in my Gmail account, and then promptly forgot about it.

Until now.

When M is in town, I try to bake cookies every week so he can have them in his lunches. I do occasionally miss a week (at which time he makes his own, because it usually means I made a pie instead), but most of the time Sunday is cookie day. Peanut butter chocolate chip are a household staple, as well as oatmeal raisin chocolate chip, or oatmeal Craisin white chocolate chip. (One of these days each of these recipes will make an appearance on here.) One week however, I wasn’t feeling like the regulars and when I asked M for suggestions all he came back with was “something with chocolate chips.”

So helpful.

I perused my recipes folder and rediscovered the email with this one. Since I had everything on hand, I decided to give it a shot. This was a wise decision as it is easily the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made, and probably one of the best cookie recipes, period. Unlike your average oatmeal cookie, this one calls for the oatmeal to be finely ground in a blender before adding it to the dough, resulting in the wholesome flavor of oatmeal without the usual telltale texture. Super soft even a week later (in case you, too, forget one in your backpack) and a bit less sweet than most chocolate chip cookies, this recipe has definitely become a new staple at our house. I even made it two weeks in a row, which is a pretty rare event around here.

Using both white and brown sugar gives the soft texture and very slight caramel flavor generally found in peanut butter cookies, while the oatmeal lends a wholesome flavor that almost makes you feel like you’re eating something healthy. (Pro tip: you aren’t.) The original recipe calls for chocolate chips and a chopped up chocolate bar, but I decided to use the bag of Nestle chocolate chunks I had in the cupboard. (I have a slight addiction to buying random bags of baking chips. Shh.) Due to their size, I opted to forgo my usual one tablespoon cookie scoop in favor of the three tablespoon size I generally reserve for cupcakes. This was my second wise decision of the day, as we ended up with three dozen bakery-sized cookies perfectly saturated with chocolate chunks.

Pour a glass of milk and have a couple. You can thank me later.

Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes 3 dozen large cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups (310 g) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup (200g) white sugar
1 cup (150g) brown sugar, lightly packed

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups (250g) oatmeal, finely ground

~12 oz (360g) package chocolate chunks

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
Cream butter and both sugars until fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla and beat until just combined.
Add flour mixture and beat until just combined.
Push dough to the bottom of the bowl, add ground oatmeal, and stir until just combined.¹
Push dough from the beaters, add the chocolate chunks, and stir until chocolate is well distributed.2
Use a 3 Tbsp cookie scoop and place dough balls at least 2″ apart on a cookie sheet.³
Bake for 12-14 minutes, let cool on the pan for a few minutes, then remove cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container; cookies stay soft for at least a week (at which point ours were all eaten.)

Notes

¹ If you don’t push the dough off the paddle, it likely won’t mix properly.
² It may be necessary to mix the last bit of oatmeal into the dough by hand.
³ I couldn’t fit more than 9 cookies on a sheet at one time.