Banana Muffins

Don't let those over-ripe bananas go to waste!

Okay, here it is... The banana muffins recipe! It's a basic banana bread recipe that I add a streusel topping to. I like making muffins instead of a loaf because they cook faster and evenly. By the way, this is a lot of batter - it made 30 muffins so use a big mixing bowl.

Muffin ingredients:
5 super ripe bananas
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Streusel ingredients:
1/4 cup butter at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Streusel directions:
- Using electric-mixer, beat butter until creamy. Mix in granulated and brown sugar.
- Add flour and cinnamon until well blended. Mix will be crumbly.
- Set aside

Muffin directions:
- Preheat oven to 315 degrees
- Mash bananas then mix in eggs. Using a electric-mixer, mix in vanilla, shortening, applesauce, granulated sugar and brown sugar.
- Sift flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to batter. (I mixed it until it was super smooth)
- Fold in pecans/walnuts
- Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full of batter
- Sprinkle each cup with streusel, covering the entire top of muffin (I liked the ones that were totally covered, see picture below. The ones above were lightly sprinkled)

- Bake for 30-35 minutes. Insert toothpick to check for doneness (it should be clean when removed from middle of muffin)

Strawberry Tarts

Bite-size strawberry tarts served with chocolate dipped strawberries

I found the easiest fruit tart recipe ever from Paula Deen! I tested it on my cousins, and even though they weren't pretty the first time, they loved them. Instead using an assortment of fruit, I opted for strawberries with a strawberry glaze. I also made them bite-size by baking them in mini-cupcake lined (to give that tart pan crease effect) mini muffin pans. This recipe will make about 24 bite-size tarts or one regular tart.

Crust ingredients:
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened and sliced

Filling ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Fresh strawberry slices

Strawberry glaze ingredients:
2 tbs and 2 tsp white sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon strawberry flavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- For crust: Combine crust ingredients in a food processor (I used my mixer) until it forms a dough. Press the dough into a tart pan or into lined mini-muffin pans. Bake until light golden brown (For mini, I baked for about 8-10 minutes). Set aside to cool.
- For filling: Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Spread over cooled crust (I piped it in). Top with strawberry slices.

- For glaze: Combine ingredients and boil for one minute then remove from heat. I painted the glaze onto my strawberry slices. If you make a large tart, you can also toss the strawberries in the glaze then place on the tart.

All packed up for Sheila's baby shower!
Tip: Save your plastic containers for transporting goodies. This one was from Costco's bbq ribs



Enjoy!

Hello again!

Dear friends,

I haven't been blogging because I promised myself to stay away until I passed the NCLEX-PN. Well, I passed! I am a licensed nurse! My next step is continuing my education in the Fall to pursue my BSN/RN, but for now I have a little break for the summer. I'm also working part-time in a home health office handling compliance paperwork. Yes, all of this in addition to the whole wife and mommy thing... Basically, I'm a busy bee!

Until my life gets all crazy hectic again in the Fall, I'll share some of the yummy recipes and "secrets" that I've encountered these past couple months. I've also taken up crocheting, which I learned from YouTube (I know, I know, where do I find the time? Sleep is overrated!). Interested in learning? Check out this chic, Theresa. She's an excellent instructor, and she does slow-mo, really slow-mo edits so that you can follow. Here are some of the projects I've completed after I got the basics down.


Baby beret with flower


Rasta hat with brim


Baby paperboy hat


Panda hat with smile


SF Giants inspired Panda


Baby cupcake beret

Apple Turnovers

I made Apple Turnovers with crescent roll dough which turned out yummy, warm and comforting. It also made the house smell so good =)
BUT, here is an early disclaimer: I threw this all together so there aren't any real measurements. BUT, I honestly don't think you can mess this up. Cinnamon and sugar complement the apple so well that you just can't go wrong!


Crescent roll dough is awesome and versatile. I'm sure many of you have used it to make pigs-in-a-blanket, wrapping little smokies or vienna sausages with crescent roll dough for appetizers. Some of you probably even add cheese to make it fancy, haha! But have you ever tried to use it for dessert? I did that this evening, and it turned out sooooo good! It's already got me thinking about what else I can make with this amazing stuff.

Ingredients:
(I'm giving you the ingredients I used this evening, but you can change it up depending on the size of your apple(s) and taste)

• 8 oz. can refrigerated crescent rolls (I used reduced fat. You gotta reduce it where you can!)
  
• 1 medium fuji apple diced
  
• little less than a 1/4C sugar
  
• ground cinnamon (start with a little and work more in to taste. Sorry, I wasn't measuring)
  
• 1 tbsp flour
  
• 1 tbsp butter

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  
• Mix diced apple, sugar, cinnamon and flour in a bowl
  
• In a small pan, melt butter under low to medium heat; Add apple mixture and saute until apples are tender (You can skip this and add the mixture directly to your dough, but I like my apples a bit more tender. The dough bakes pretty quickly, and I didn't want to burn the dough waiting for my apples to have the right consistency. Again, it all depends on your taste); Remove from heat
  
• Separate the crescent roll dough into 8 triangles; Fill each triangle with about a tablespoon of the apple mixture and fold the dough over to create a smaller triangle; Keep at least an inch of space between each turnover
  
• Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown

While they were baking, I made a quick glaze with powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract which you can find in the Raspberry Thumbprints. I did scale it down since this would need much glaze.

Enjoy!

Snowballs revisited

I had another opportunity to make the Dirty Snowball cookie dough this past weekend for my friends and their children. Just like last time, the cookies disappeared off the cooling rack before I could even move all of them. My kids complained how they missed out so I made another batch. This time I rolled them in confectioners powdered sugar. Fancy results - a very pretty cracked chocolate cookie! The biggest difference, aside from being visually pleasing, was that the powder residuals make your fingers sticky. My niece Bianca added white chocolate chips to her dough and said they turned out awesome! This is one of those excellent basic cookie doughs that you can do so much with =)

Carrot Cake Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my favoritest cakes is carrot, but being pressed for time, I haven't had the opportunity to bake one from scratch. I found this recipe from Duncan Hines using their Decadent Carrot Cake mix to satisfy my carrot cake craving. It's a carrot cake cookie that was more like a muffin top (even better!). I topped it with a simple cream cheese frosting recipe from Martha Stewart. And let me tell you, the frosting alone is eat-from-the-spoon deelish!

The great thing about the mix is that it includes dehydrated carrot shreds and raisins. Since I dislike raisins, I removed them before hydrating the carrots. It was an interesting dough that was more like a very thick batter. A small cookie scoop would come in very handy since it's also a very sticky dough.

Carrot Cake Cookie
Ingredients:

• 1 box Duncan Hines Classic Carrot Decadent Cake Mix
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
  
• 1 cup hot tap water (used to hydrate carrots and raisins)
  
• 1 cup oatmeal
  
• 1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°
  
• Hydrate the carrots and raisins in 1 cup hot tap water; Allow to hydrate for a minimum of 5 minutes; Drain and squeeze out excess water.
  
  
• Beat butter and cake mix, add the two eggs; Add drained carrots and raisins to batter; Mix in the 1 cup of oatmeal and nuts
  
  
• Spoon heaping teaspoons of batter onto lightly greased cookie sheets; Press batter out slightly with back of spoon(cookies do not spread)
  
  
• Bake for 12 minutes at 350°
  
• Cool on cookie sheets and then transfer to wire rack and allow to cool completely
  
• Frost cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
  
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
  
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• Place cream cheese in a medium mixing bowl. Using a rubber spatula, soften cream cheese. Gradually add butter, and continue beating until smooth and well blended. Sift in confectioners' sugar, and continue beating until smooth. Add vanilla, and stir to combine.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have you ever had the pleasure of eating an Oatmeal Chipper cookie from Paradise Bakery? It was my sweet indulgence when I worked at the Great Mall while going to SJSU. I haven't found a recipe that comes close (they must put some secret ingredient in there!), but here's one that still satisfies the sweet tooth. And you can claim it's healthy since there's oatmeal in there!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
  
• 1 cup sugar 1 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 cups old-fashioned oats 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  

Directions:

• Cream the butter, sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl and beat in eggs and vanilla
  
• Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture.
• Stir in oats and chocolate chips
  
• Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 11-12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

I found that these cookies tasted even better the more they sat. Days later, they were super tastier than when I baked them =). This dough also made about 48 cookies - it was a lot of dough!

I now understand why people pay just a smidge more for the bigger mixer. I had to mix the oatmeal and chips in by hand because it was too much dough for my mixer. But lookie here! I had one of my little helpers in cow pj's to ease the burden!

Random Thoughts

I just wanted to share a couple of my favorite things somewhat related to baking.

Grease your cookie sheet no more!!
I heart parchment paper! Nothing sticks to your baking sheets, cleaning them up is so much easier and you don't have to grease the baking sheets. Be careful not to mistake wax paper for parchment - wax paper will burn if you bake it. Wax paper can be used later for storage and packing but NOT baking.


Achy feet/back when baking?
Have you ever noticed how painful it gets standing for long periods of time while baking? The HR/Safety Manager in me just wants to remind you to work as ergonomically correct as you can or improvise. At the hotel, we provided gel mats for our pastry people to reduce leg, back, feet problems so I was suprised to find a gel mat at my friend Gail's kitchen. I don't have one, so today I slipped on my Reebok Runtones, and my legs and back didn't suffer since I usually bake barefoot. What a difference! I'm hoping it was tightening my tushie too!

Dirty Snowballs

My niece Bianca gave me this easy-peazy boxed cake mix cookie recipe. She was right when she raved about how pretty they looked with their cracked topping, but she didn't push how super scrumptious they would be! The first dozen I baked were gone from the cooling rack immediately! Ben's mom and grandmother each had two and loved them. Reese said they tasted like brownie cookies... mmmmmmmm

Ingredients:
- Box of Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil's Food Cake Mix
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- Small bowl of sugar (to roll cookie dough in)

Directions:
* You will not be following box instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Pour cake mix, oil, vanilla extract and eggs into mixing bowl. Mix until dough forms

- Shape dough into 1" balls and roll in sugar. Place dough on ungreased cookie sheet (I line all my cookie sheets with parchment paper)

- Bake for 8-10 minutes (I baked some smaller portions since they were disappearing, which took 8 minutes).
- Allow to cool, but my family ate them before they could =)

Enjoy with a glass of milk!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011 everyone!

New year, new treats to try! Here are some photos of past treats that I've done with love. You may have seen them on my FB site.

Spider cupcakes for Reese's Halloween party in preschool


Random designs on leftover red velvet mini cupcakes


Monkey cupcakes for Taylor's 2nd Birthday


Curious George cupcake theme for Taylor's 2nd Birthday


Dora cupcake theme cuppies for Taylor's 3rd Birthday at daycare(I don't really like those sugar things, but they worked for this)


Valentine's Day mini cupcakes for Reese's class