Make, Bake, Be Happy!

I heart bananas, but sometimes they get neglected, and they start getting really ripe.  They get so ripe that when you try to peel it, they start falling apart.  That’s the signal to you to make banana bread or banana bread muffins as I will be showing you!  I got this recipe from AllRecipes.com but it’s for a loaf, and since my husband liked the fact muffins are easier to eat, I decided to make banana bread muffincakes (as I call ‘em).  Sure, this is a classic “everyone has made this before recipe” but whatever!  You’ll know where to go if you wanna make banana bread muffincakes (here *ahem* here)

You will need:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown suga
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas – I used 3 since that’s all I had
Cupcake wrappers
Your favorite cupcake/muffin pan(s)- makes 12 cuppycakes

Here’s how I did it:

Set  your oven to 350 degrees!

In one bowl…

Before we move on, I just wanted to show you my butter. Bought a big one at Costco and added some to the smaller container.

Ok, back to business.

The muffincakes overall tasted good, although it would have been better with walnuts. Unfortunately, the ones I had were no good.  They taste moist and not too sweet, just how I like em!  Now you can refer to this banana bread muffincakes recipe whenever!

One of my favorite foods at the moment is bread.  I know, bread = carbs but it’s so good.  And who says you can’t have healthy bread, in moderation?  I recently bought the book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients by chance.  I saw the video on the Amazon page and was so intrigued by the fact that bread could be made that easily.  Seriously.  The idea of baking bread intimidated me, and honestly, I was expecting to mess this loaf up.

It took longer than 5 minutes to prep for me only because I boiled water and it took forever to get lukewarm.  I probably would have been better off microwaving the water for 30 seconds or so.  I also got to use my trusty Kitchenaid mixer to easily mix up the bread dough and then placed it in a plastic bowl to give it time to rise.  For some odd reason, I like the smell of bread dough rising.  I guess I’m just weird like that.  Anyway the baking was a success and I learned some things along the way.

• Parchment paper and wax paper is NOT the same.  Glad I caught that one before I really messed up the bread.
• Following directions is key, reading ahead is even smarter.
• Do not open the oven door while the bread is baking, as I wanted to do this many times, and read it’s best to keep the oven closed in order for the bread and steam to stay inside.  I was excited, what can I say?

Here is the end result.  A nice looking loaf of bread.  I was so excited, I cut into the bread right away.  It was pretty hot.   I topped the bread with sesame and poppy seeds, as you can see… Does it look home made??  The taste is very good and wholesome.  I can’t help but say that I am proud of baking this loaf of bread.  Yay!

I have enough dough to make a few loaves which I’m going to make for my parents and Glen’s parents to bring to Thanksgiving.  I guess I can only get better from here.  The book I got has loads of recipes, so I’m sure you’ll see more bread recipes attempts in the future!!

Tomorrow’s Glen’s birthday, but since his birthday is on a work day, we thought it would be nice to celebrate today.  Sundays are usually when football is on, and sometimes I watch, but mostly I think about what I should cook, or bake.  I had planned to make a cake for him, and I even asked him what kind of cake he wanted, and he wanted a chocolate cake with strawberries.  So I went and looked for a chocolate cake recipe with chocolate frosting.  I found a recipe I figured I couldn’t go wrong with, since Hershey’s is pretty much the ultimate when it comes to chocolate, right??  And following it to the tee, I now understand why this cake is called “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate cake!

I also got to use my Kitchenaid stand mixer that I got for my birthday for the first time, and I was pretty excited about it.  I was so mesmerized that I didn’t have to hand stir I made a short video on my iPhone.

Here was the end result:

For someone who’s never made cake from scratch (and mostly using those ready made boxes by Pillsbury) it was pretty easy.  I realized I need more cake tools such as a cake cutter and one of those cake stands with the cover.  And I’m sure you’re probably wondering what the gibberish on the cake is, well, all couples have their inside jokes, right?  Even made up words only they can understand.  Hahaha.

And here’s Glen blowing out the candles!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! <3

Glen’s parents and brother came by and brought dinner from Smokey Bones BBQ, a barbecue place nearby.  I swear, this weekend was really all about FOOD.  Just how I like it. 

I love fall, and today was just a beautiful, cool, fall day.  Actually, today is probably the only day that the weather will hold up this way, as a cold front has hit the east coast, but something is definitely better than nothing!  I had to take advantage of the day and go for a run at the nearby park.  I discovered a fit trail which is pretty cool.  A fit trail is pretty much a trail where you can walk or run and along the trail there are exercise stations.

Afterwards, I went to get groceries for the week and I had been craving pumpkin pie.  I found this recipe online from VeryBestBaking.com and found that the only can of pumpkin they sell is Libby’s which was convenient, since the recipe is straight from there!  This is probably the easiest pumpkin pie to put together, not to mention really good.  This is going to be the only pumpkin pie recipe I’ll probably ever make!

Ingredients I Used:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk
• 1 unbaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep-dish pie shell
• Whipped cream (optional)

How I Made It:
I put together the sugar, ground cinnamon, salt, ground ginger and ground cloves together in a small bowl – the “dry ingredients.”  Let me just say that ground ginger is really potent!  Wow.  Then I beat 2 eggs in a large bowl and added the “dry ingredients.”  I then added the can of pumpkin and mixed all of that together.  Gradually, I added the evaporated milk.  Mix that well, and pour the mix into a deep dish pie shell.  I actually had a lot of mix extra that I ended up saving, and put that in a container in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and when ready, place the pie in the oven for 15 minutes.  Then, lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 40-45 minutes.  You’ll know when the pie is “done” when you can place a knife into the pie and none of the pumpkin mix sticks to the knife.  Once done, place it on a cooling rack for about 2 hours.  That, is really it!  Super easy.

End Result:

Unfortunately, my digital camera card reader is busted so I had to use my iPhone to take the picture.  Better than nothing, I guess!  Add a dollop of whipped cream for even more yumminess! 

Today I decided to bake/make something that looks easy, but really is quite a challenge. At least for me. I’m probably far from being an artist so I decided to keep it simple. I decided to make these cake lollipops that I stumbled upon from Bakerella. She makes them look so easy to make, and I guess after making them so many times, it probably is. This definitely tired me out though. And I’m not exactly done yet. I was only able to successfully make one cake lollipop without messing it up.

I basically baked a chocolate cake using the boxed version where you add water, eggs and oil and cake mix and bake and done. That was probably the only easy part.

Then I had to crumble it all up like so…

Then I had to make the cream cheese frosting. I made it from scratch. I read somewhere you could actually buy this already made, and I wish I had done that because it’s really messy. I also have an old school hand mixer which kind of freaked me out since the first speed was lightning fast!

Then I mixed the cake crumbles and cream cheese frosting together, and I think I may have put WAY too much cream cheese frosting vs. cake crumbles because the texture was soggy, and I later realized that it probably shouldn’t have been as I started rolling them into ball form. This step is also a messy step, so be prepared to have chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting combined all over your hands.

After melting chocolate, and then burning chocolate (which sucks big time), I was only able to successfully make one chocolate covered cake lollipop, in plastic and bow.

I think I may have rolled the cake balls too big so I made them smaller and put them back in the fridge to cool overnight. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have better luck. Will let you know how that goes!!