banana

Triple Fudge Banana Bread.

December 9, 2011 · 119 comments

Yes.

I did just say TRIPLE FUDGE. You heard correctly.

But this has like, tons of bananas.

So it’s practically a health food.

Definitely a breakfast food.

Absolutely an eat-right-this-minute food.

Aren’t you glad you have me in your life to make decisions like that for you?

I am too.

Triple Fudge Banana Bread

makes one loaf (or about 3 mini loaves)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 large bananas, mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/4 cup milk

4 ounces dark chocolate, melted

3/4 cup milk chocolate chips + 1/2 teaspoon flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a loaf pan (mine was 9×5) liberally with non-stick spray or grease with butter. In a bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder, then set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk egg and sugar together until smooth. Whisk in vanilla extract, then add bananas and milk and mix until combined. Add in dry ingredients slowing, mixing with a spoon until batter comes together. Add in melted butter and mix until incorporated, then stir in melt chocolate.

Toss chocolate chips with 1/2 teaspoon to coat, then fold into batter. Pour batter into loaf pan. Set pan on a baking sheet, then bake for 55-60 minutes, or until center is set and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove bread from over and sprinkle with additional chocolate chips if desired. Let cool completely (1-2 hours) before cutting.

If you’re also wondering if the cookies on your counter are a breakfast food, you are right. See? I have all the answers.

{ 119 comments }

Brownie Banana Bread Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting.

September 20, 2011 · 182 comments

Today is a special day! It’s a certain someone’s birthday… you know, that guy I live with? Yeah. It’s his birthday.

He turns 83 today!

Oye. Okay, he’s really only in his 30s. I guess the “he’s older than me” jokes got old themselves about three years ago. I’d say I need some new material but the fact is that he gives me new material daily. Sometimes even hourly.

This marks the 5th birthday that Mr. How Sweet and I will celebrate together. In fact, we started “officially” dating only a few days before his birthday 5 years ago. “Official” simply meaning that I had to stop flirting with other boys and he had to stop drunk-dialing girls. True story!

I thought he was super old. I am the oldest child – the oldest cousin, grandchild – oldest everything. So to be dating someone that was 10 years older than me… it seemed like a big deal because it was just different than anything I was used to. I denied the feelings for a long, long time (read: like seven months) before he finally broke me down and got me to commit. Romantic right?

Next came our first “official” date. I’m not going to explain anymore of this “official” business but you are more than welcome to speculate. He planned a fun night: going to see a Pirates games (if that’s what you want to call it) which really translates to eating a bunch of Pittsburgh-themed food while watching fireworks, then going out for dinner and drinks. It was the perfect end to summer and I was even too annoyingly enamored with him to care that he was taking me a baseball game outdoors in 90 degree heat. AKA: my worst nightmare. I’m a huge sweater.

Just before we arrived he decided to glance at the tickets and realized they were actually for September 30th – over a week away. Oops! Secretly I thought this was perfect because it would be a fun way to celebrate his birthday… which was on the 30th. Trying to figure out what to buy your new boyfriend for his birthday is challenging… you don’t really know each other well enough to be fully aware of his favorite interests (or insanely annoying quirks) and well, when he’s a good bit older than you and has his own place, and when you have only ever dated boys who lived with their parents and taken you to the Olive Garden where they order the Tour of Italy every.dang.time… yeah, it’s challenging.

So I stopped fretting about what to plan and simply had to find the perfect gift for his birthday… which was on the 30th.

Right?!

Yeah. Not sure if you’ve looked at a calendar… but today is September 20th, so you can imagine how great it is forgetting your new boyfriend’s birthday two days after you started dating. Someone clued me in that morning on the 20th back in 2006 – of course after I had talked to him numerous times with no mention of a birthday. I argued back, “uhh… no. His birthday is on the 30th. I know this!” To which I was just stared at with a blank glare.

Turns out, his birthday is September 20th. Who knew? Instead of admitting defeat and turning his day around, I acted like the stubborn ass that I am and pretended that I “purposely” forgot just so I could surprise him. And my pathetic attempt at “surprising” consisted of me tying a balloon to his door like he’d just had a baby or something and buying him a season of Entourage on DVD, because seriously, what do you get the guy you’ve been seeing for two whole days?!

I still have a difficult time deciding what to buy for his birthday considering he has almost everything and what he really wants (a vintage $60,000 Rolex, anyone?) I can only dream to afford. So I just make him food and give him a bunch of stuff he doesn’t need.

He loves chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes after they’ve been in the fridge, so I went the cupcake route. As I was frosting them, I called out, “you like banana bread, right?”

Him: “Ugh, no. You know I don’t like banana bread! I only like bananas when they are green and banana bread has black bananas in it. Blech.”

Hmmmm. I thought that sounded eerily familiar.

Fail. What the eff? Why do birthdays and I not get along?

Lucky me, these looked too appetizing for him to turn down. After I frosted them and packed them away for the night, and after we returned home from seeing Straw Dogs and fulfilling my Alexander Skarsgard void, he opened the fridge and yelled, “What the %$&@ is in this container? I think I want one.”

I then spent the next 20 minutes watching him eat four cupcakes over the sink with a can of Diet Coke. Apparently cupcakes are the new chocolate chip cookie.

So there’s that. If that isn’t love… I don’t know what is.

Oh! And by the way, Mr. How Sweet has a name. I know…weirrrd. But let’s be serious – you’ve probably wanted to virtually stab my eye out every time I type the words “Mr. How Sweet” as much as I mentally punch myself in the face each time I write it. His name is Eddie. Or Ed, which my dad calls him because he thinks it’s more manly. I might still call him Mr. How Sweet or I might call him Ed or I might call him something completely different, but I sure as heck won’t call him late for dinner.*

Brownie Banana Bread Cupcakes

[adapted from my brown sugar banana cupcakes + red velvet brownies]

makes 20 cupcakes

brownie layer

1/4 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips, lightly tossed in flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy – about 3-4 minutes. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until combined, scraping down the bowl a few times. With the mixer on medium speed, add in flour, salt and cocoa powder, mixing until just combined. Line a cupcake tin with liners, then spoon about 1/2-3/4 of a tablespoon of brownie batter in each cup. Press down with the back of a spoon coated in non-stick spray.

cupcake layer

1 1/3 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1 egg

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup butter, melted

Combine dry flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg and set aside. In a bowl, whisk egg and add brown sugar, mixing until smooth. Stir in vanilla extract. Add sour cream and melted butter and mix. Stir in dry ingredients, then add mashed bananas and mix until batter comes together. The batter will be thicker than normal cupcakes. Using an ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measure, scoop batter in liners over top of brownie batter. Bake for 15-18 minutes, then let cool completely before frosting.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

3/4 cups of butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature

8 ounces (1 brick) of cream cheese, at room temperature

1 3/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese in the bowl of your electric mixer until completely combined and creamy, scraping down the sides a few times. Add in brown sugar and powdered sugar, beating on low speed and gradually increasing to medium speed. Add in vanilla extract. Beat frosting for 4-5 minutes on medium-high speed until really creamy and combined. This frosting is not very thick or study, so make sure to either frost immediately before eating, or keep in the refrigerator for up until 30 minutes before serving.

*yeah… desperately need some new material.

{ 182 comments }

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies.

December 28, 2009 · 48 comments

Please update your googles readers! http://feeds.feedburner.com/howsweeteats/smSp

I had about 4 very ripe bananas, and wanted to do something other than banana bread or cupcakes. I love bananas from the point of them being yellow until they turn very brown. I usually freeze them for shakes, but these ones were really on their last leg.

I didn’t want to throw them away and my husband only eats green bananas. I know. He is a strange fellow.

After staring at them for 25 minutes, I knew a cookie was in order.

These were so ripe. As in, ‘I can’t peel the skin off without mashing the banana’ ripe. Perfect!

There is something about mashing bananas that I just love. Perhaps it is because I picture smashing the daylights out of a certain stuffed turkey.

Perhaps I just really love to mash bananas with a fork.

The dough was incredibly tasty.

I would know because I consumed spoonful after spoonful after spoonful after . . .

Wait.

That’s not very motivating for the New Year.

The cookies have a cake-like texture. It is like eating a tiny slice of banana bread.

Or in my case, an entire loaf.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

from allrecipes

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
2/3 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mashed bananas
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 .

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda together, and set aside.
Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the mashed bananas. Add the flour mixture, and stir until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

I hope you try these and love them as much as I did. Beware: you may consume an entire loaf of banana bread in the process.

Now, I must get back to lounging around and not cleaning up the kitchen. I’m enjoying watching Paula Deen fry sugar-free ice cream too much. That sounds like an oxymoron.

{ 48 comments }

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate and Peanut Butter Frosting.

Update your google readers! http://feeds.feedburner.com/howsweeteats/smSp Have you checked out my fitness section yet? Workouts, thoughts, recipes and eats will be accumulating there. We buy bundles of bananas every week. I like them very ripe. My husband eats them green. How gross is that? Are there any other green-banana-eaters out there? This poses a dilemma, as green bananas only stay green for about what? A day? We are always left with bananas, which forces me to make banana treats. Then I’m forced to eat the banana treats. You know what I mean. They sit on the counter and taunt me. A few months ago for my parent’s anniversary, I made a banana cake with cream cheese icing. My dad and brother said it was so sweet that it hurt their teeth. That is the best thing anyone could ever say to me – since nothing is too sweet for me and my butter-lovin’ tastebuds. This cake was made before I began blogging ever wrote anything down, so I was on a mission to recreate it. All I could remember was that I put brown sugar (the healthy kind, since it’s brown) in the cake. I added a bunch of other ingredients, hoping it would turn out [...]

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The Best Banana Bread. Ever.

I love banana bread. I have loved it since I was young, though I do have to admit that we used to make it out of a box. How dare we! I even think my grandmother made hers out of a box? How dare she! I will have to double check. I stumbled upon this banana bread recipe one evening when I was craving banana bread, but – oh gosh, it’s true – RAN OUT OF SUGAR. So my first thought, you know, was to run to the store IMMEDIATELY since I come from the internet generation and expect everything NOW. (My dad likes to remind me of this. Alot.) Then, on second thought, also probably due to being a part of the internet generation, I decided I was too lazy. So I hurrily searched for a recipe using only brown sugar. Which I have boatloads of. Because I love it. And it’s brown, so it’s healthy right? Kind of like ‘brown’ flour – aka wheat? Or not. Anyway, I found this recipe from the excellent chefs of Chez us posted on Tasty Kitchen. Have any of you ever been? Well if not, leave here immediately. Go directly to that site. I [...]

16 comments Get More Sweet Eats →