Homegrown Thoughts

Saturday, October 11, 2008 - Banana Bars

For some reason we never seem to finish all the bananas I buy before they get too ripe. Which means I have a freezer full of frozen bananas. I decided that since they’ve started falling out and nearly breaking familial toes, I needed to start using them up. I love banana bread, but I wanted to try something a little different. Thus my foray into the world of Banana Bars.

The recipe originally came from Taste of Home, but I don’t know if it’s been modified since then or not. I did change the icing recipe a little bit and it tasted a lot like glazed donut icing. Yum!

Frosted Banana Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Dash salt

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, bananas and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into creamed mixture just until blended Transfer toa greased 15 x 10 x 1 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack.

While the bars are still hot, prepare the glaze.

Powdered Sugar Glaze:

1-1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 Tablespoons milk

In a small mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and beat until smooth. Add milk until glaze is a nice drizzling consistency. Pour glaze over hot banana bars and spread evenly. Applying the glaze when the bars are still very warm allows it to sink into the bars a little bit and helps keep them moist.

You could also use a favorite cream cheese frosting on these (which is what I would normally do) and that would taste really good, too!

This is a big pan of bars and they were gone in about 3 days with basically 2 people eating them. :-) It’s a keeper!

Technorati Tags: recipe, banana, bars, dessert

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - Raspberry Buckle (with photos)

Posted in Home Arts

As promised, here is the recipe I used to make my Raspberry Buckle. For those who aren’t familiar with the term ‘buckle’, think coffee cake with fruit. I’m happy to report that it did turn out nicely. I find red raspberries a bit too tart for me to LOVE them and I’m wondering if I could soak them in sugar like strawberries. Most people probably wouldn’t have this opinion, though. I just happen to have a huge sweet tooth. The cake as a whole is very good. :-)

This is perfect to have with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

$Slice o\' Berry Cake$

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart. I made minor adjustments like using an 11 x 7 baking dish, using frozen berries (from my back yard), and adding about a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Here is the original recipe so you can follow it exactly or make changes like I did.

Raspberry Buckle

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking dish
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 containers (1/2 pint each) raspberries (2 3/4 cups)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)
Whipped cream (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart oval or square baking dish. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition to combine. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder; with mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture until incorporated.
Spread batter in baking dish. Scatter raspberries on top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean and top is golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool 20 minutes; dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired. With a large spoon, scoop out onto serving plates; serve with a dollop of whipped cream, if desired.

Technorati Tags: recipe, buckle, fruit, baking, dessert

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Saturday, July 5, 2008 - Knitting Show Off

Posted in Home Arts

As I was reading my Wonder Woman neighbor Gina’s blog today, I realized that I haven’t posted any pictures of my knitting projects here. At least I don’t think so. Forgive me if I have and I duplicate anything. I haven’t been knitting all that long, but I enjoy it and have done quite a bit.

Here are some of my favorite projects from the last year or so:

Cell phone hoodie
I didn’t want my cell phone to get cold, so I made it a little hoodie.

This was the first felted bag I made. I use it as a purse.

This is a bunny I made for a friend’s baby. The body is actually just a square folded and seamed to make it the right shape.

This is a bunny I made for another friend’s baby. I guess I was on a bunny making kick.

Some baby booties.

More booties. :-)

Baby blanket - the pattern is called “Angel Baby”.

Baby sweater (fuzzy picture of a fuzzy sweater).

I have another felted purse that is what I use now, but apparently I never took a picture of it. I guess I should do that. And yes, my friends have all been having babies lately! Baby girls, every last one of them. Hooray for an excuse to have some pink in my life. :-)

So that’s what I have to share today. Maybe I’ll share some other items another time. I need to remember to take pictures of things when I finish them. Usually I’m so excited to move on to the next thing, I forget.

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - Butterscotch Cream Cheese Blondie-type Bars

Posted in Home Arts

I came across this recipe awhile back and couldn’t wait to try it out. Warning: This stuff is addictive! This makes a lot of bars and unless you want to gain 10 lbs., it’s probably best to share. I don't, but you should. :-) These are very rich - FIVE eggs in this one. This is one of my new favorite recipes. Let me know if you try them!

I found the original recipe at Bake or Break and added notes from my own experience below.

Butterscotch Cream Cheese Swirl Bars

Cream Cheese Filling

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add egg and beat well. Add flour and combine. Set aside.

Bars

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 12″x 18″jelly roll pan.

In a medium saucepan, melt butterscotch chips and butter over low heat, stirring occasionally until smooth. Alternatively, you can melt them in the microwave. Remove from heat and beat in brown sugar. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, to butterscotch/butter mixture. Add vanilla extract. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat until well combined. Stir in nuts, if used. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Drop the cream cheese filling by teaspoonfuls over the batter. With a small knife, swirl into the batter. Bake 25-30 minutes or until a pick inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached. Cool to room temperature before cutting into bars.

Makes 24 3-inch bars.

Technorati Tags: recipe, bars, dessert

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - Snickerdoodles

Posted in Home Arts

I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but lately I’ve been on a big baking kick. I’ve been looking at tons of recipes to try and they all look so good and I feel the need to make them all!

My most recent baking foray took me to very familiar territory. Snickerdoodles. I’m pretty sure these are the first cookies I ever made by myself and I’ve made them a lot in the intervening years. I’ve always used the same recipe from the very beginning and never considered trying a different one. Until this week. As I was perusing allrecipes.com, I came across a Snickerdoodle recipe with a 5 out of 5 rating and 2,142 votes! Now that is pretty amazing. So I decided it was time for this old dog to try a new trick and I made the new recipe.

I’ve compared this recipe to my old standby and much to my surprise, there is quite a bit of difference between them. And here I figured all Snickerdoodle recipes were pretty much the same. Apparently not! I don’t notice a huge difference in taste, but the new recipe seems to be holding up better than my old one. The cookies are maintaining a nice crispy/chewy balance that my old recipe would lose in about a day. I generally like to slightly undercook my cookies to keep them chewy but I cooked this one about a minute longer than I normally would have because I mistakenly believed I was making the cookies larger than the recipe called for. It turns out I got exactly the amount the recipe said I would (48 minus the 2 cookie’s worth of raw dough I ate, heh heh) using my cookie scoop. So I might bake them a slightly shorter time next time, but they are actually good just the way they are, too. I did alter the recipe slightly as the sugar/cinnamon mixture they are rolled in was not enough in the original recipe.

Snickerdoodle goodness

Adapted from:

Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles

Yields: 48 servings

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 tablespoons white sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2.	Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3.	Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4.	Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.