Brown Butter Banana Bread

I've made a few dry, plain, not that tasty banana breads, so I don't really agree with what most blog entries about banana breads say - that it's so easy and foolproof. My past few attempts have been extra good, though, including this one with brown butter, so it makes me want to make banana bread a lot more often.

My all-time favorite banana bread is the Nutella-swirled one I posted way back in March 2013. Also, if you want to do the opposite of this brown butter version and not include butter at all, you could try Michelle's vegan version with homemade vegan Nutella. And Julia posted a whole wheat flour version almost exactly two years ago! 

When Joy the Baker's posted this recipe, it was made with cranberries - I have fresh cranberries in the freezer and was fully intending to put them in the batter but decided not to at the last minute. Even though I really like baking with fresh cranberries, I just wanted a more simple banana bread this time. In Joy the Baker's recipe, she adds 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries to the batter, folding it in right before turning the batter into the loaf pan. 

Brown Butter Banana Bread

Adapted from Joy the Baker

For the bread

6 ounces unsalted butter, melted and browned to just over 1/2 cup of butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

2 large eggs

3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1 1/4 cup mashed banana (from about 3 medium bananas)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup plain yogurt

For the crumble

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup oats

Apple Custard Pancake

I'm always on the lookout for brunch recipes since it's my favorite meal to host. Back in college, we would call it epic brunch. After Sunday mass, we would gather any friends that showed up and have what we called epic brunch. Brunch would last until the late afternoon and we would put off our studies to eat and spend more time together. It is a tradition that has carried on even after graduation. Even though we're all miles away, we still have brunch during our reunions. Since Sunday is a day for sleeping in and general relaxation, I like simple recipes that can be thrown together quickly. This apple pancake is one of them. I made it with the anticipation that it would be more like a German pancake. It wasn't. It was really more of a custard- at least, to me! It reminded me of Laura's apple cinnamon bread pudding minus the bread. The recipe is from the Kitchn.

Apple Custard 

3 medium Granny Smith apples

4 tablespoons sugar, divided

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

5 eggs

Gooey Butter Cookies

My sister's boyfriend's family makes a ton of cookies for Christmas. This year she got to take part in the tradition and brought back a tin of cookies. I ate pretty much all of them and these ones stood out to me the most. I knew just from the taste that cream cheese was in the recipe, but otherwise I had never had any cookie like it. After pestering my sister (and her bf) for days, we finally tracked down the recipe. It originated from Lottie + Doof. If you've ever had gooey butter cake before, you'll know what to expect but in cookie form. Nevertheless, these are amazing and should definitely be a staple from now on at my family's table!

Gooey Butter Cookies

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 pound cream cheese

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 vanilla bean, scraped 

3 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Confectioner’s sugar for rolling and dusting

First make sure everything is at room temperature. Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.  In a large bowl, cream together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar with a wooden spoon. Then add the eggs, vanilla seeds, and extract until combined. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet. The dough will be pretty light. Then cover bowl tightly and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Since it's cold outside, I just set the dough on our picnic table for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Fill a shallow bowl with about 1 cup powdered sugar. Form slightly heaping tablespoon size balls, roll between your hands, and roll in a bowl of powdered sugar. Place on prepared baking trays 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes and take out before any browning occurs. I let them bake until at least one of the cookies was very very lightly golden on the edges. 

Let cool on the baking sheets until the cookies reach room temperature. They will be very soft even when cooled. Store and serve cold since they are delicate. Another blog suggested adding an extra egg yolk for more stability in the dough. 

The site says the cookies will last for a week in the fridge. I stored them in a cake dome layered with extra powdered sugar.

Fresh Raspberry Goat Cheese Brownies

The best word to describe these brownies is decadent! The recipe is from The Kitchn just like Laura's last recipe. I've been baking constantly in exchange for crashing with my cousins. Apartment hunting has been a fail but we're having a lot of fun with my family. Yesterday we went to a night market filled with about 40 food trucks. The best parts were the funfetti macarons and macncheese topped with braised short ribs.
If you're not planning on feeding a ton of people, I would cut this recipe in half. We have a lot of leftover brownies in the fridge.

Ingredients (all at room temperature please)

2 cups raspberries, lightly mashed

Brownies
10 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Raspberry Goat Cheese Swirl
4 ounces plain goat cheese
8 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Heat the oven to 350ºF and lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking pan. 

Melt the chocolate and butter until liquid in a saucepan over low heat. When the chocolate is completely melted, remove from the heat, whisk in the milk, and cool for about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Stir in the eggs one by one. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and fold in until just combined. Fold in 1 cup of the raspberries and spread this brownie batter in the prepared pan using a spatula. 

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the goat cheese with the cream cheese, butter, egg, sugar, and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the other half of the raspberries and their juices. Drop the goat cheese mixture on top of the brownie batter in spoonfuls, then swirl the batter gently with a knife. 

Bake for 45 minutes until just set. If the cream cheese is browning too fast, cover with aluminum foil for the rest of the baking time. The topping should just be the lightest golden brown.

The longer the brownies sit, the better the flavors become. But they probably won't last that long. 

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Our friends Kate and Mark got married this weeked! My contribution to the Pittsburgh cookie table was pumpkin snickerdoodles from A BItchin' Kitchen! They went perfectly with the Weyerbacher pumpkin beer that was served! The wedding was full of gorgeous DIY decorations and lots of great homemade food. (Kate made dozens of cottage cheese pierogies from scratch!). My only advice is to make these as soon as possible! Halloween is tomorrow : )

Cookie Dough:

3 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 slightly heaping cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cinnamon Sugar mixture (makes extra):

1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Haluski

I'm going to admit, I had to double check the spelling of this dish before posting it! Well I'm definitely not Polish. The first time I had this was from a Croatian church and it was drowned in butter : ) This is the perfect dish to serve with pierogies (carbs plus carbs!). Nick, Laura, and I rolled these homemade egg noodles out pretty quickly. The recipe is from the food blog, Sugar Aunts.

For the egg noodles:

2 cups flour plus more for kneading

1 tsp sea salt

4 eggs

1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp warm water

Whisk the flour and sea salt together. Make a well in the center and pour in the wet ingredients. Mixing with a fork, beat the eggs and start incorporating the flour a bit at a time. Add additional flour as needed until the dough forms a ball and does not stick to the mixing bowl too much. (I added maybe half a cup of flour since the  eggs I used were pretty large)
Cover mixing bowl with damp tea towel and let sit for 10 minutes. On a floured surface, knead the dough until it no longer sticks to the counter.
To roll out the noodles: divide out the dough, roll it out thinly, and then slice into thin strips of pasta (like linguine). Slice again to make shorter egg noodles. We also just formed some noodles by breaking off small pieces of dough and shaping rough noodles with our hands.

For the haluski:
1/2 head cabbage (1 whole head if it's a small cabbage)
1 large yellow onion
2-3 tbsp ghee
homemade noodles!

Ghee!

I've been reading about the health benefits of ghee for a while now (antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties), and I finally decided to make it. I even read somewhere that they use it as a nutritional supplement or medication in India. I keep it near the stove to cook with since it is stable for frying. It also tastes delicious! You want the best quality butter you can get, preferably organic and grass fed for the most vitamins and omega-3's. The ghee is casein and lactose free!

1 pound butter (4 sticks)

In a heavy pot, melt the butter over medium heat. The melted butter will form a thick, foamy layer. You can use a spoon to discard the foam or just stir it into the butter. Picture of the first foamy layer:

Continue cooking over low to medium heat until the butter foams again. This foam will be less thick. The milk solids (proteins) should separate to the bottom and start to just lightly brown. The butter will be completely transparent and you should be able to see the milk solids sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Turn off the heat as soon as the solids are very lightly golden brown. Pour the butter into a large liquid measuring cup to transfer to a mason jar. I used a thin dishtowel to strain the ghee since I found that the towel is more effective than cheesecloth. Place the dishtowel over a pint mason jar and use the screw-on lid to hold it in place. A picture from before when I used cheesecloth:

Then just pour the ghee into the mason jar and the dishtowel will strain out the milk solids.

The ghee keeps for about 1 month at room temperature and longer in the refrigerator. There's no need to refrigerate it, and you'll probably use it before it goes bad anyway.

Belgian Waffles

I found this recipe on The Kitchn, labeled under The Best Waffle You'll Ever Eat. I think that my roommates and I would agree that is correct. The waffles serve better as a dessert or a sweet snack since they are pretty decadent! Making these waffles also creates a mess in the waffle iron since the key to sucessful waffles is for the sugars to caramelize on the outside. On the plus side, it smells delicious and once the sugar hardens, you have candy! Also, make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature to avoid deactivating the yeast.

6 tablespoons warm almond milk 
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar 

2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 medium egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at slightly cooler than room temperature
140 grams turbinado sugar (about 3/4 cup)

Mix the almond milk, 1/2 tsp sugar, and yeast in a small bowl together. Set aside for 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. You're looking for the mixture to get nice and foamy.
In a mixing bowl, whisk the spelt flour, cinnamon, and salt together. Make a well in the center and add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and yeast mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon until no flour streaks remain since the mixture will be pretty thick.
Cover the mixing bowl with a wet dishtowel and set in a warm place for the dough to rise, about 1/2 hour to 1 hour. You could also let it rise overnight so the dough is ready for brunch. Just let the dough come to room temperature before continuing on to the next step in the recipe.
Cube the butter and beat in the cubes piece by piece with a mixing spoon. The butter does not have to be fully incorporated. What you want is kind of a swirled effect. Then mix in the turbinado sugar just until spread throughout the dough. Separate the dough into about 12-14 pieces and set aside for 15 minutes. Heat up the waffle iron and cook each waffle until golden brown and crispy. Take care not to let the sugar burn. Some waffle irons run really hot. If this is happening, after you place the dough in the waffle iron, just unplug it for each waffle.
Set the waffles that are done on a cooling rack so they crisp up nicely. You could also put them directly in the oven to keep warm at 200 degrees until they are all done.
Serve with some speculoos, ice cream, or homemade chocolate sauce! Look you can see the crispy goodness up close:

Salted Butter Break-ups

This is a nicely Frenchified and classy-looking version of a really easy Martha Stewart recipe for chocolate chip cookie break-up that I’ve been making since high school. This version comes from Dorie Greenspan, who suggests bringing the whole enormous cookie to the table for everybody to break off their own piece. This proves Dorie Greenspan is not only an amazing cookbook writer but also that she’s a much better host that I am because I like to save all the breaking fun for myself.

Since we’re still figuring out our kitchen storage situation, I couldn’t find any coarse salt even though we probably have some hidden away somewhere. It was still very tasty with table salt, but I’m sure it will be even better when I make it with coarser salt. 

Twilly is pretty busy these days finding his new sleep spots.

Linda, Brittany and I went to the East Liberty Farmer's Market this Monday and got some strawberries, which went soooo well with these buttery cookies. I would definitely recommend combining cookie and strawberry in the same bite. Also, I made some salad dressing with the Fresh Herb Cheese that I posted about a couple days ago by adding in some extra olive oil and vinegar, and that also goes very well with strawberries. 

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"Salted Butter Break-ups"

Straight from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3/4-1 teaspoon sel gris or kosher salt
• 9 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 18 pieces
• 3-5 tablespoons cold water
• 1 egg yolk, for the glaze

Pierogie Pizza

Pierogie pizzas are quintessential Pittsburgh. The only requirement is that they need to have lots of butter! (Sometimes when my friends and I go out to get this pizza, we even order it with extra butter.)

You will need:

Pizza dough (I like Trader Joe's refrigerated pizza doughs)
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
7 small red potatoes
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
LOTS OF BUTTER!

First make the mashed potatoes by boiling in a pot full of water until fork tender, about 15 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, caramelize the onions by cooking them over medium heat until golden brown in plenty of butter. Once the potatoes are done, drain them and then mash them with (again) plenty of butter.  I like to keep the potato peels on but if you don't like them, peel them after boiling. Roll out the dough and spread the mashed potatoes thickly over the entire surface. Cover with the caramelized onions and then sprinkle the cheese on top. Dot the pizza with pats of butter to melt in the oven and make a crispy crust on top of the pizza.

Cook the pizza at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes until the cheese is as lightly browned as you like!

Crazy Coconut Cake

 

 Coconut Cake, with Coconut Buttercream Frosting, topped with coconut flakes. Obviously for the hardcore coconut lover.

Much to my aggravation, my fiance Mark's birthday happens to be three days after Christmas. It's killer for me because he's already hard to buy for, and I have to think of enough present ideas for two occasions in the same week.

His food tastes, however, are pretty easy to figure out. When I saw the recipe for Coconut Cake in the June/July 2012 issue of BUST magazine several months ago, I knew I had to keep it in mind to try.
So, the morning of his birthday, I woke up at 8 a.m. to put the thing together. I never made a homemade cake before, let alone a layered one, but I was extra motivated by the fact that his mom just bought us a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas. It was also my first time making homemade buttercream frosting.

This recipe I found in BUST, but they cited the recipe from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook, by Cheryl Day & Griffith Day. This recipe is repeated nearly verbatim from the magazine.

Cake Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder, preferably aluminum-free
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. fine sea salt
3/4 cup cream of coconut (could not find this stuff in the store anywhere, so opted for coconut milk instead)
1 1/2 tsp. pure almond extract
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3/4 lb. (three sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
3 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Prep time: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Cook time: 45-50 minutes
Serves: 10 - 12