Banana Bread

Recently I spent some time with two of my best friends from college. I do believe we three were the original stumblers - you never knew what was coming out of our college house. They are both quite health-conscious people, so we tried to make sure that the dishes were very healthy. My friend Kim found this recipe for banana bread from Technicolor Kitchen which only called for 3 tbsp of sugar and she was hooked. I saw that it called for yeast and was skeptical, but it actually turned out quite good.

Ingredients
2 tsp instant yeast
3 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water
3 cups unbleached flour (we used bleached and it was fine)
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1 ripe banana, slightly mashed

Add the yeast, pinch of salt, and water together and beat until foamy. The original recipe calls for using a stand mixer which was not available at the time, so we just used a hand. As for the foamy part, most of it was foamy. It took too long to get it all so we just went with it.

While the mixing is going on (if you have two people or a stand mixer), add together all of the other ingredients. Then add the foamy mixture and knead until dough is tacky. If you don't have a dough hook or stand mixer, I highly recommend that you flour your hands for this. I didn't and it was a mess. Don't add too much extra flour though because the bread will get dry. Place in a greased/oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let rise for one hour. It should double in size.

Knead the dough on floured surface for ten minutes. Break into 8 balls and put into a cake dish. Cover and let rise for 1 hour to double in size. We didn't have a cake dish (are you noticing a theme?) so we just used a bunt pan and it was fine.

Bake the bread at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown.

Despite the use of yeast and lack of sugar, this was a really nice bread. I might suggest using 2 ripe bananas just to give it a little more banana taste. These had only the slightest hint. I don't know if that will throw off the flour measurements, but it is something to investigate.

Baklava Muffins

There are many things that I just cannot get enough of, but one of my absolute favorites is honey! Oh my goodness, I can't start my day until I put an unholy amount of honey in my tea. Mike is always astonished by how much goes in there. Since I love honey so much, it is safe to say that I love baklava as well. This dessert is fabulous. I first had it at The Parthenon in Chicago, and I have loved it ever since. Lately I have been finding/seeing baklava recipes all over the place. You'll probably see some more here. I found this recipe on another blog that I follow. As always, I've made a few adjustments here and there where I felt like it. I'm not really a muffin baker, but what the heck. First time for everything, right?

Filling
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I chopped them even more than the bag had them)
1/3 cup sugar
3-4 tablespoons of melted butter
1 1/2 -ish teaspoons cinnamon
-ish ground cloves (this wasn't in the original, but I see it in lots of other recipes - not too much through!)

Muffins
1 cup plus 7ish tablespoons flour (what's up with the tablespoons???)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup & 2 tablespoons buttermilk
3 tablespoons of melted butter (I just used the rest of the stick)
honey

Filling
1/2 cup honey


Preheat oven to 400

Mix all filling ingredients and set aside. I really just taste tested this until I got the right combination of sugar, cinnamon and clove. Best way to get it right!

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, egg and honey. They original didn't call for honey, but I thought that would be wonderful. That's also why I used -ish amount of flour. I didn't know if the extra honey would make it too wet. Make a well of the dry and stir in the wet. Use a fork so that it's lumpy (apparently that's they way it is suppose to look).

The recipe says to use baking cups. I didn't have any so I just sprayed the heck out of it with baking PAM. It was fine. Here's where I came into trouble. You are supposed to fill the cups only 1/3 full with the muffin batter, put a bit of filling in and then fill the cup until about 2/3 full. I don't know what that's supposed to look like. I didn't eyeball it very well and started to run out of batter at the end and other muffins just baked quite large. Oh well. I work on presentation another time.



Let the muffins cook for about 15 minutes (mine only needed 13). Take them out and drizzle with honey. I was pretty happy with these. I think if I ever make these again, instead of drizzling with honey, I will make a honey butter to spread over.