Banana Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream, by Request of My Sister

To begin with, I apologize most profusely for the late post. I went to a writing conference this weekend and was deprived of the internet for that time. But believe, I'm making it up to you with this recipe.

My sister is a bit of a pinterest fiend. I'll often check my facebook to find that she has left a recipe on my wall demanding kindly requesting that I make it for her. This recipe was just one of those finds. It was a bit of a chore to make, but the result was delicious.

What you need...

For the cake:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
2 egg yolks
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
3 crushed bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites, beaten

For the frosting:
1 cup milk
5 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, line with parchment paper and flour three 8 or 9 inch round cake pans. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar and butter. Add the egg yolks and beat on high speed, creaming the mixture until it is light and fluffy.

In a medium bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients, whisking until they are well combined. Add to batter in three additions, alternating with the milk but beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix until your batter is nice and fluffy.

Thoroughly crush the bananas and add to batter, along with vanilla. Mix until the banana is distributed throughout batter.

In a separate bowl, beat your egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold them into your batter, trying to keep them light and fluffy.

 Divide batter evenly between the three prepared pans. Bake for 28-35 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean with very few crumbs clinging to it. You don't want to overbake these either.

Let cool in pans for about 10 minutes. Release from pans and cool completely on wire racks. Meanwhile, let's get the frosting started.

Stir together the milk and flour in a small saucepan. Place over medium heat and whisk constantly until the milk mixture has thickened into a cream. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Meanwhile, cream the butter, brown sugar and salt until fluffy and very few grains of sugar remain. Be patient. This process takes awhile, especially if using a hand mixer.

Stir in the cooled cream and stir until well mixed. The frosting is deliciously sweet and buttery, but try not to eat too much of it before frosting the cake, or you might come up a little short!

 

Tada! I have to say, this turned out to be one of the nicest looking cakes I've ever made. The layers turned out nice and even and it looked incredibly pretty. A bit of warning, if you live in a warm climate like mine, you may want to store your cake in the fridge. I had to do this because the frosting started to get a bit melty if I left it out for too long.

 Pretty close to perfection I must say. This cake is RICH. I was stuffed after eating only a small piece of it! But the texture is really light and the combination of banana and buttery frosting is simply divine.

Good luck and happy baking!

Rosie

Sources: Cake: How to Cook Like Your Grandmother, Frosting: How to Cook Like Your Grandmother

Mother's Day Praline Peach Muffins

I've been obsessed with peach lately. Peach yogurt, peach cupcakes, peach ice cream... You name it and I crave it! So when I started brainstorming over what I should make for Mother's Day, I knew it had to have peach in the name!

I adapted this recipe from a basic peach muffin recipe I found online. I'll post the original but I've tweaked some of the details.

What you need:
1/2 cup (1 stick) plus two tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup peaches, chopped (see below for details)
1 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup brown sugar
Dash of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a microwave safe bowl, melt two tablespoons of butter. Stir in brown sugar and cinnamon. Place pecans in bowl and stir until thoroughly coated. On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, spread the pecans in a single layer. Bake for 5 minutes or until brown and toasted.

Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add egg, sour cream and vanilla and mix well. Combine flour and baking powder, stir into cream mixture until just moistened.

To begin with, I suggest using fresh peaches as this will give the muffins much more flavor. For my muffins, I pureed about 3/4 cup of the peaches and then roughly chopped the remaining 1/4 cup.

Break up the praline pecans so that they're not in giant chunks. Gently fold in the pecans and peaches.

Fill either greased or paper lined muffin tins 3/4 full with batter. Try to even the batter out in the tins as it is thick enough that it forms big lumps if you're not careful. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Good luck and happy baking!
Rosie

Source: Recipe adopted from here

Cinco de Mayo Sopapilla Cheesecake

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I don't know about you guys, but I'm looking forward to tacos tonight. I have to tell you a secret though... I may have cheated and started on dessert last night. What can I say? I made this sopapilla cheesecake last night, expecting to eat it tomorrow, and I just couldn't resist!

What you need:
2 cans (8 oz) refrigerated crescent rolls, butter flavor
2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray. Take one can of crescent rolls and gently roll out until they cover the bottom of the pan.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Spread over the crescent roll layer.

Roll out the second can of crescent rolls and lay on top of the cream cheese layer.

In a small bowl, stir together the butter, 3/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Place dollops of butter mixture over the top crescent roll "crust". Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crescent roll layer is golden brown and flaky. Drizzle with honey and let cool completely. Makes 12 bars.

Now tell me, if you saw this coming out of the oven, would you be able to resist? Not only does it look good, it SMELLS like heaven!

This recipe is super easy to make and requires very little time. This cheesecake is delicious as a dessert, but also makes a tasty brunch treat!

Good luck and happy baking!
Rosie

Source: allrecipes.com

End of the Semester Nutella Brownies

It's finals week, y'all! Not that this is good news for me, but it does mean I've got three days left before going back to Texas for the summer. I'm so excited to see my family, my boyfriend and my three little dogs. I've also had a run of amazing luck this week. On Monday, I was promoted to supervisor at my job and on Friday I got the position of prose editor for an on-campus children's lit mag. So to celebrate, let's make semi-homemade Nutella brownies!

Semi-homemade treats are the best treats. These are SO EASY to make and they are just as gooey and delicious as if they were made from scratch.

What you need...

For the brownies:
1 box brownie mix
2 eggs
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup Nutella

For the frosting:
1/2 cup Nutella
1 1/2 cups Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 or 9 inch square pan with cooking spray and then line with parchment paper. In a large mixing bowl, combine brownie mix, eggs, oil, water and Nutella. Stir until just combined (the batter will be a little lumpy).

 Gently spread batter into your prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out nearly clean. Don't overbake! Let brownies cool completely.

In a small bowl, fold the Cool Whip into the Nutella until blended. If you are like me, you will then eat all of the remaining Cool Whip.

Spread the whipped Nutella topping over the brownies. TRY to leave the brownies in the refrigerator for two hours before cutting. Or, eat some now, refrigerate, and eat some more later!

That is one sexy brownie. The best part about these? They take all of ten minutes to prepare.

I must warn you, these brownies are incredibly rich. Don't overestimate just how much you can eat in one sitting!

Good luck and happy baking,
Rosie

Source: Little Bitty Bakes

Ricotta and Chocolate-Hazelnut Calzones... Meh?

In our third installment of Nutella adventure month, I decided to make something cool. Something unexpected. And you know what? I was pretty unimpressed. I tried making these Ricotta and Chocolate-Hazelnut calzones that I saw on the Food Network's website. They had some iffy reviews but I decided, "What the heck? Couldn't hurt to try."

What you need
3/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/4 cup marscapone cheese
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
8 oz frozen strawberries, thawed
2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup Nutella
3 tablespoons whipping cream, room temperature
6 (2 oz) pieces pizza dough, cold
1 large egg, beaten to blend

Blend the ricotta, marscapone, egg yolk, and powdered sugar in a food processor (or blender) until smooth and creamy.

Transfer the ricotta mixture to a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, blend the strawberries and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a clean food processor until smooth. Transfer the strawberry sauce to a small bowl and set aside.

Whisk the Nutella and the cream in a medium bowl to blend. Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper Roll each piece of dough into a 7 inch round. Spoon the ricotta atop the center of the lower half of each round. Spoon Nutella atop ricotta. Brush lower edges of dough with egg wash. Fold plain dough halves over filling and form half circles. Pinch edges together. Trim excess dough and transfer calzones to prepared baking sheet.

Brush tops of calzones with egg wash. Bake until the calzones puff out and become golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool for 15 minutes. Transfer to plates, dust with powdered sugar. Drizzle strawberry sauce around the calzones and serve.

As you can see, I had no problem finishing the calzone. However, I just didn't find it to be all that special. The filling burst out of the calzones during baking and I really didn't find the flavor to be all that exciting. Overall, they were good, but it's not something I can see myself going out of my way to make again.

Good luck and happy baking!
Rosie

Source: Food Network

Oh Em Gee Nutella Cinnamon Rolls

I never thought about combining the rich, delicious taste of cinnamon rolls with the chocolately goodness of Nutella. But when I was scouring the vast plains of the internet for a suitable recipe for Nutella month, I knew I had to try these. This is going to be an amazingly simple post because we already know how to make the dough. We've done it before. In fact, it was the very first post on this blog. Now, with a few new steps, we're going to take those awesome cinnamon rolls in a whole new level of awesome.

What you need:
1 batch of cinnamon roll dough, prepared as in this post
1/3-1/2 cup of nutella (depends on what level of ooey gooey you're going for)
6 tablespoons butter
Cinnamon
3 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Prepare your dough and roll it out into a 12x9 inch rectangle. In a microwave safe bowl, add the nutella and butter. Microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each one, until butter and nutella is mixed and smooth. Spread over the dough. Sprinkle cinnamon over the nutella filling.

Roll your dough into a 12 inch roll. Slice into eight pieces. Place into a round cake panned lined with parchment paper. Melt two tablespoons of butter and brush on top of the rolls.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Dump the rolls out onto a greased wire rack.

 Allow rolls to cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together milk, powdered sugar and vanilla. Glaze the still warm rolls.

Oh. Oh yeah. Look at that sexy roll.

 Now that is delicious! These rolls were incredibly rich and wonderful. They're more of a dessert than a breakfast, but buttery rolls really balance out the nutella well.

Good luck and happy baking!
Rosie

Sinfully Delicious Nutella Stuffed French Toast

If there's one thing my best friend and I share a love for, it's Nutella. That's why, when I suggested that April be a Nutella themed month for my blog, she heartily agreed to join me in my baking adventure. Our first project? Nutella stuffed french toast.

Of course, we decided that no Nutella party would be acceptable without proper girly day materials. So when we went grocery shopping for, y'know, basics like Nutella and bread, we might have come home with more than expected...

Don't worry. We put it all to good use.

What you need for the french toast (for two)

4 slices Texas toast (don't skimp on this and use regular bread; it won't be nearly as good!)

3 eggs

1/4-1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1-2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Nutella

Bananas and/or strawberries

Cool whip

Smother the Texas toast with Nutella.  Show that bread no mercy and make sure it's drowning in Nutella by the time you're done with it.

Now slice up some fruit. Personally, I just like bananas with mine, but my boyfriend likes his with bananas AND strawberries. Lay the slices evenly on one slice of bread.

Whisk together your eggs, whipping cream, and powdered sugar until well combined. The sugar will make it a little thick.

Smoosh the banana layered slice of toast together with the plain Nutella slice. Carefully dip in the egg mixture. I like to dip it so that the middle doesn't get egg in it (raw egg-yuck!) so I dip one side, flip, and then the other. Place in a warm, lightly greased skillet over medium heat.Watch the toast carefully as it has a tendency to burn quickly. When one side is thoroughly cooked, flip and cook the other side. At this point, the center should be turning into molten, Nutella lava. When done, remove from skillet, top with Cool Whip or syrup and enjoy!

This stuff is heavenly! The center is an ooey gooey river of Nutella and banana. The toast is perfectly sweetened and tender. With the Cool Whip on top, it becomes Nutella heaven.

This was all that was left on my plate when I finished! 

Good luck and happy baking!

Rosie