Saturday, August 11, 2007

Bananas!

So I finally made some banana muffins. And I'm glad I waited to blog about this batch because the recipe involves mini chocolate chips! How fun!

This is another goodie from Taste of Home - but specifically the Taste of Home Baking edition. (Fabulous stuff in there - someday I'll tell you about my lemon blueberry biscuits...)


Anyway, the bananas were ready to roll, extra-ordinarily ripe even & while sometimes that makes the baked good taste a little bitter it didn't have that affect this time. This time...there were chocolate chips. :)

So here's the recipe...

You will need:
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
3 medium ripe bananas (mashed)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (I've used quick-cooking too!)
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, beat egg, oil & sugar until smooth.
(Action shot!!!)

Stir in the bananas.

In another bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder & salt.


Stir dry ingredients into wet until just moistened.






Stir in chocolate chips.


Fill greased muffin cups three-quarters full.




Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

(If you use a bigger muffin pan like I did, they may need another minute or 2.)

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing from the pan to a rack.

Yields 1 dozen regular muffins or 6 large ones


Now look how wonderful they are! They taste just as wonderful! This recipe is definitely going into the repetoire. I left the house for a bit after they were done & when I got back, Will said "you know, those muffins are good." HA!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

As promised...

This is seriously a fantastic dessert. People go simply batty & it's probably one of the easiest things I have ever made.

It's an ice cream cake...made out of ice cream sandwiches. Yes, another recipe that is not really a recipe - but you will thank me!

Of course, credit must be given to someone and this time it is the Taste of Home cookbook. Taste of Home is one of those magazines that relies mostly on home cooks to submit their own recipes. Sometimes the stuff sounds absolutely ghastly...other times, you get ice cream cake.

You will need...

Ice cream sandwiches
Cool Whip (approx. 12 oz)
fudge sauce
& something crunchy for in between.

Ready for the tough stuff?

Put a layer of sandwiches on the bottom of the dish. Cut whatever you need to make them fit without any big gaps.

Next, spread half of the Cool Whip over the sandwiches.

Sprinkle your crunchy stuff.

Spread fudge sauce over crunchy stuff.

Make another layer of ice cream sandwiches.

Cover with last of Cool Whip.

Decorate & stick in the freezer. Overnight is perfect - if that's not possible, at least try to give yourself 4 hours for it to set up.



Now, the recipe says to use 19 sandwiches for a 13x9 pan - this particular time, I made a smaller version soooo....I'm not sure how many you'll need - but if you have some leftover, is that really a problem?

Also, you have to work fast. The sandwiches melt very quickly & getting them out of their paper wrappers isn't as easy as you might think. It's a sticky process. Keep extra sandwiches in the freezer until you need them or you will have a real problem - especially when you are trying to cut them to fit.

For crunchy stuff, I've used many different things - nuts, praline topping, toffee bits & mini M&Ms - basically, whatever makes you happy. Have at it!

Now, I will confess that because I was documenting this for y'all, I followed the directions from the recipe for the order of the layers. The recipe wants your crunchies on top of the fudge layer.

I won't be doing THAT again because the cake split in half right between the crunchies & the top layer of sandwiches - there was nothing sticky in between! Follow my sequence as written here & your layers will stick together nicely.

Oh & I'm only telling you this because my pictures don't follow my written instructions.

Also, there aren't nearly enough pictures of this one. Sorry!

I got home from the grocery store & knew I had to move fast in order to give the cake time to set before I had to bring it somewhere. By the time I realized that I had promised to tell y'all about this, I had nearly the whole cake done.

But this isn't exactly a complicated gourmet construction. It's ice cream sandwiches. Now I want to say that this is a fantastic cake for a kiddie party. It would be. But I've only ever made it for adults & you would not believe the reactions I get. People love this damn cake.

Oh & don't be afraid to ad lib! If you prefer carmel sauce, use carmel. If you want to smash up cookies for your crunchy layer, smash away! Just make it. I'm telling you! Nothing could be easier!