Bananna Bread

Tried out the new Nordic Ware pan I picked up the other day from Michaels. Beautiful design on the pan but it sure didn't transfer onto the bread. The recipe tasted wonderful but looked like meatloaf. Very disappointing! :( Don't think it was me either. I might have to retry with pound cake or something with a finer grain to the dough. Attached are my pics. The recipe is as follows:

Bananna Bread

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

No posts?

I have no excuse.It is rather inexcusable, 100% so.I have postable things happen to me. On a severely regular basis, actually.But often when I sit down to write them out, they are flat; they are like what the earth used to be before Columbus decided to throw us all for a loop, or for a globe.I need to take time to unflatten them out, and I plan to do that soon. Like yesterday.

These cookies melt in your mouth. The sugar cookie recipe is one that I found in my mom's recipe box and can be found below.

This morning Michigan received it's first snow of the season. Luckly both dumpings were north and south of me. I am not a snow bunny so I don't look forward to sub-zero temps! But, seeing how it looks to be miserable out this weekend maybe I'll make some bananna bread.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Royal icing

Cocoa Puffs cereal (a couple of handfulls)

Chocolate for piping

Directions:

In a bowl cream together the sugar and butter then mix in the egg, vanilla and almond extract. In another bowl stir together the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Mix the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture then cover and refergerate for 2 to 3 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Recipe instructions: Divide the chilled dough in half and roll it out on a lightly floured pastry cloth to a 1/4 inch thickness. Lightly grease some baking sheets. Cut the dough with a floured cookie cutter; sprinkle with sugar. Transfer the cookies to the prepared sheets and bake for 9 minutes.

How I prepared: Using a small cookie scoop, scoop the chilled dough out and roll into approximately 1" to 1 1/2" balls. Place the balls onto baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Using the bottom of a glass, dip into sugar and squish down the balls gently. Bake for 9 minutes.

After the cookies are cooled, prepare a batch of Wilton Royal Icing and color 1/2 to 3/4 of the batch orange and 1/4 black (or leave white). Put the frosting into 2 seperate decorator bags. Use the thinned orange Wilton frosting to cover the top of the cookies. Immediately, after covering 5 - 6 cookies, use the black (or white) to make rings on the top of the orange frosting. The frosting colors will merge together. Then immediately draw either a knife or toothpick through the frosting from the center to the edge to make the spider web look.

After this has dried for a few hours you can melt the chocolate and using a disposable pastry bag add the chocolate spider legs immediately putting a Cocoa Puff on top of the soft chocolate. The chocolate will dry quickly.

This was fun to make. My 18 year old thought they looked "creepy." The skull was made using a boxed pound cake mix in the Wilton 3-D skull pan.

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-1181






Witches Finger Cookies





Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup whole almonds
1 (.75 ounce) tube red decorating gel or red chocolate discs
Optional: Green food color

Directions:
1. Combine the butter, sugar, egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Beat together with an electric mixer; gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt, continually beating; refrigerate 20 to 30 minutes. Optional: Add green food color.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.
3. Remove dough from refrigerator in small amounts. Scoop 1 heaping teaspoon at a time onto a piece of waxed paper. Use the waxed paper to roll the dough into a thin finger-shaped cookie. Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail. Squeeze cookie near the tip and again near the center of each to give the impression of knuckles. You can also cut into the dough with a sharp knife at the same points to help give a more finger-like appearance. Arrange the shaped cookies on the baking sheets.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are slightly golden in color, 20 to 25 minutes.
5. After cooled, squeeze a small amount of red decorating gel around the nail or use red, melted chocolate discs.

Halloween Treats

Well, it took a few days but the treats turned out beautiful. Made these for my fiance's associates where he works.