Overnight Coffee Cake

I've been making this coffee cake for a long time.  It's so convenient - mix it up the day or night before, refrigerate it overnight, and bake it in the morning.  Warm fresh-baked coffee cake for breakfast or brunch.  What could be better than that?

Actually, I think I may have just figured out how to make this coffee cake even better - after all these years!  Add banana!  I don't know why I never thought of it before, but this past weekend I added a layer of chopped banana between the cake batter and the topping.  It baked up ooey gooey and yummy.  I may just be adding bananas from now on.  For now, I'll leave the bananas as optional - while I let my imagination go wild thinking of all the other fruits I can add and should have been adding all these years.

Overnight Coffee Cake
adapted from The Best of Mennonite Fellowship Meals

 Cake:

• 2/3 cup butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Topping:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
  and/or 1/2 cup coconut
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Directions:

1.  Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Stir in buttermilk.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Stir into butter/sugar mixture and mix well.
3. Spread batter into greased 13x9" pan.  OR divide between 2 round cake pans.
4. Mix all ingredients for topping and sprinkle over batter.  Variation: cut up 2 bananas and spread over batter before adding the topping. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.
5. Bake at 350° for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the middle comes out clean.

I usually make this in the 13x9" pan. This time I wanted to try the banana but I wasn't sure I wanted it on the whole cake, so I used the 2 round pans.  I spread a layer of banana on top of the batter in one of the pans before sprinkling the topping on, and I did the other pan like normal.  I should have just used 2 bananas and gone with the whole 13x9" cake.  It was that good!

When the kids were little I used to bake this cake in the two round pans all the time.  We'd have one to eat, and I'd freeze the other one for later.  If you use the disposable foil cake pans, one of them will fit nicely into a gallon zipper bag.  My cake pans won't fit, so we just had to eat both cakes.

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Frozen Chocolate Covered Banana & Peanut Butter Bites

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal!  My secret blog assignment this month was Not Enough Cinnamon.  Born and raised in Paris, Marie now lives in Sydney, Australia.  Her blog is full of unfussy recipes you can actually make, with simple ingredients you probably already have. I love that approach! Many of Marie's recipes also focus on health and using real, unprocessed ingredients.

There were so many yummy sounding recipes to choose from!  Some that caught my eye were:

• Healthy Peach BBQ Pulled Chicken
• Mexican Sweet Potato Gratin with Chicken
• Chicken Rollatini stuffed with Pesto and Philadelphia
• Coconut Berry Popsicles
• Honey Lemon Ginger Glazed Chicken

I'm pretty sure I will be trying several of those recipes!  But the second I saw this recipe for Chocolate Covered Frozen Peanut Butter & Banana Bites, I knew I had to try it.  To be honest, I wondered why I'd never thought of it.  You're wondering the same thing right now, aren't you?  Three perfect flavors together, frozen, in bite-sized pieces. What could be better? 

Frozen Chocolate Covered  Banana & Peanut Butter Bites
from Not Enough Cinnamon

Ingredients:

• 3 medium-ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 10 oz dark chocolate
• coconut oil (optional)

Directions:

1. Slice bananas and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicon mat.
2. Put peanut butter on half of the banana slices and place a second slice on top.  Place in freezer and freeze for at least 1 hour.
   
   
3. Break chocolate into pieces and put 2/3 of it in a double boiler or place a heatproof bowl over a small saucepan filled with simmering water. On low heat, stir chocolate until melted. (Or place chocolate into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on medium power for 30 seconds, stir, then repeat at 15 second intervals until the chocolate has melted.) Add the remaining 1/3 of the chocolate and keep stirring until it is fully melted. This is to allow the chocolate to have a glossy texture and to set correctly.
4. Remove bites from the freezer and dip them in melted chocolate. Working quickly, so bites don't begin thawing, dip one bite at a time in melted chocolate and roll it to cover all sides. Use one fork to remove bite from chocolate and a second fork to remove excess chocolate and arrange bite back on baking sheet. You may want to leave most of the bites in the freezer and work with a few at at time so they don't start getting mushy.
   Note: I have not worked with chocolate much, so I had some issues with this.  The frozen bites made my chocolate stiffen up so that I couldn't coat any more of them.  I added about a T of coconut oil, stirring that into the chocolate, over low heat, until it was smooth and shiny again, and then I could coat the rest.  Only use coconut oil as needed.
5. Once all the bites have been coated in chocolate, return them to the freezer and freeze for at least 3 hours.  Slide a butter knife under each of the bites to remove them from the baking sheet without losing any of the chocolate and store in a covered container in the freezer.  Enjoy!

Oh yum!  I pretty much always have frozen bananas in the freezer.  Yes, they're great for making a batch of banana muffins, but they're also the perfect snack on a hot day.  Add some peanut butter and chocolate, and it's even better!  The hardest thing is going to be not eating all these at once.

An InLinkz Link-up

Puffed Oven Pancake with Banana Sauce

I made this for breakfast Saturday morning. It was yummy! But so rich.

Puffed Oven Pancake with Brown Sugar Banana Sauce
adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

Ingredients:
Pancake:

• 2 T butter
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 t salt

Banana Sauce:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 medium bananas, sliced
• 2 T rum
  

Directions:

1. Place butter in a 10-inch ovenproof skillet.  Place in a 400° oven for 3 to 5 minutes or till butter melts.
2. In a medium mixing bowl use a wire whisk to beat eggs.  Add flour, milk, and salt.  Beat till mixture is smooth.
3. Pour into the hot skillet and bake 20-25 minutes or till puffed and well browned.
4. For brown sugar-banana sauce, in a small saucepan combine the 1/2 cup butter and the brown sugar. Cook and stir over medium heat until melted. Add bananas; cook about 2 minutes or until heated through, stirring gently. Carefully stir in rum; heat through. 
5. To serve, spoon sauce over pancake. If desired, sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar and serve with whipped cream. Serve warm.

Like I said, this was very good but very, very rich.  I want to try it again but cut down the butter and only use 1/2 of what it calls for.  Also, I think I could use a teaspoon of vanilla instead of the rum.  (I used spiced rum)  Yes, the rum was good, but it seems to be more of a dessert than a breakfast.  The original recipe said you could use 2 T of apple juice, but I didn't notice that until now.  Of course, I didn't have any apple juice.  I wonder how orange/pineapple juice would have worked?  I may just try that next time!

This made a lot of sauce, probably enough for two pancakes.  I poured all of the sauce onto the uncut pancake for picture purposes, but next time I'll just cut and serve the pancake and let everybody spoon the banana sauce on top.  And, yes, this sauce would be good on other things, like waffles and pancakes.  And ice cream.

I used my regular recipe for the Puffed Oven Pancake, which is pretty much the same as the Better Homes & Gardens recipe, just with one less egg and less flour, mostly because I wanted to bake it in my cast iron skillet, which is a 10-inch and not a 12-inch. 

Forever Bags

I grabbed some Forever Bags at Menards a couple weeks ago.  They were free after rebate, so I thought it was the perfect time to try them.  The first thing I tried was bananas.

I had 6 bananas in one bunch, so I put 3 of them in one of the bags and left the other 3 out on the counter.  After 5 days, my bananas looked like this:

So, there was definitely a difference. Unfortunately, I stopped paying close attention after that.  I left the bananas in the bag for several more days, and then I noticed that they were turning a little brown - and they were soft.  They weren't as brown as the bananas that weren't in the bag, but they were just about as soft - so I'm not really sure the bag made much of a difference really.

It wasn't a huge problem. I just made some banana muffins.

I'm really interested in seeing how these bags work on other things.  Right now I have some bell peppers in one and some chard in another one.  We'll see how well things keep.

Cocoa Branana Muffins

I usually make Banana Muffins with chocolate chips, and everyone loves those, but I thought I'd try something a little different. I've had had this recipe for ages but never made them until yesterday.

Cocoa Branana Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups Kellogg's All-Bran cereal
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 ripe banana, sliced
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

1. In large mixing bowl, combine cereal and milk. Let stand 5 minutes or until cereal is softened. Add egg and oil. Beat well. Stir in sugar and sliced banana.
2. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa together and stir into cereal mixture, stirring only until combined.
3. Portion batter evenly into 12 paper-lined or greased muffin tins.
4. Bake at 400° F about 25 minutes or until muffins are lightly browned. Serve warm.

Yield: 12 muffins

The original recipe called for skim milk and 2 egg whites, but I just used 2% milk and 1 whole egg. They turned out really well, though I'm pretty sure our regular banana muffins will remain everyone's favorite.

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Take Your Bananas with You

Image by Harry‧黃基峰‧Taiwan via Flickr

I saw this recently in the food section of my Sunday paper, and I thought it was really neat. It's called the Banana Saver, and it's made to keep your banana from bruising when you pack it in your lunch. How cool is that? And why didn't someone think of this sooner?

They're designed to fit most bananas and even have a hole for the stem. Imagine - completely portable bananas without all the brown spots. I just might have to get some of these to try.

Banana Cake

One of my friends is allergic to eggs and she doesn't eat wheat, so when I saw this original recipe for eggless banana bread, I thought I'd give it a try. Sometimes it's just so hard to find something to make that she can eat.
 

I substituted spelt flour for the wheat in this, and it turned out really well. It seemed more like a cake than bread, so I added the coconut topping to get this Eggless Banana Cake. (If you want banana bread, just bake it in a loaf pan and leave off the topping.)

Eggless Banana Cake

Mix:

• 3 mashed bananas (very ripe)
• 1/2 cup honey or 1 cup sugar (part brown)
• 3 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Combine:

• 1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or one cup whole wheat flour and half a cup white flour - or the spelt flour, of course)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pinch of nutmeg (not quite 1/4 teaspoon)

and add to banana mixture. Then fold in:

• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan. Bake for about 40 minutes in a pre-heated 350° oven. When cake is done, top with broiled coconut topper.

Broiled Coconut Topper:

• 1/4 c. butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. milk
• 1 c. shredded coconut

Cream butter and brown sugar. Add milk; mix well. Stir in coconut. Spread over warm 8 or 9 inch square cake. Broil 4-5 inches from heat, about 4 minutes or until golden brown.

This is so good!

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While I was searching for a photo to use - the original photo from the original recipe I found on Flickr isn't there any more - I came across this Jacked-up Banana Bread recipe that I'm going to have to try next. (not for Peggy, but for my Jack-loving husband. Yes, I know the recipe calls for bourbon, which would be from Kentucky, but I'm using good old Jack from Tennessee.)

Banana Muffins

One of the favorites at our house. It started one day when Jeffrey brought home a couple bags of (cheap) overripe bananas, and I had to find something to do with them.

Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

• 3-4 large bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/3 cup margarine, melted
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts or chocolate chips

Directions:
Blend bananas, sugar and egg together. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Blend well. Stir in margarine and nuts.

Fill paper-lined or greased muffin tins 2/3 full.

Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes.

The original recipe called for the chocolate chips. While I like nuts in these, the rest of the family wants chocolate chips. Also, I usually use at least 1/2 cup whole wheat flour when I make them.

Note: if you have overripe bananas but you're not ready to use them, you can peel them, wrap them in plastic wrap, and put them into a zipper bag in the freezer. Then, when you're ready to bake muffins or banana bread, simply take out the desired number of bananas, unwrap, let sit out to thaw, and you're ready to go.