LEMON-GLAZED BANANA BUNDT CAKE

    

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could solve problems with cake? 

I have my own reasons for baking and one of them is of course my quest for the best darned fool-proof cake recipes.  Another reason is that baking cakes brings me immense pleasure.  I actually like the feeling you can get when the cake’s in the oven and the aromas wafting out are sweet and enticing.  I like the anticipation when you have to wait until the cake cools on its rack—or you’ll risk unmolding a broken cake if it hasn’t had time to firm up. I like my fingers dancing a hot chunk of cake into my mouth; the crust still crunchy, caramelized and warm. 

However, one of the more esoteric reasons I bake, is so that I can give away my goodies.  Only that doesn’t jive with some people I know.  The concept eludes them.  They must think I’m nuts to spend good hard-earned money, time and effort to feed people I don’t have any reason to feed.   I understand.   It must seem weird.   But it feels good.  So I do it.   

I must not be alone though.  There are a kajillion food blogs out there (hello, fellow foodies!) and not a small number of these food bloggers also gift the products of their labour away. 

I do wonder what those other people (the food recipients) think though.  Sure, you get recipients who, like Pavlov’s dog, start salivating when they see you.  Or the Hoovers who eat pretty much everything and anything you place on the staffroom lunch table (bless them!) and profess their undying love for your baked goods.  But there are a few recipients who kind of smile a little funny at you and you can detect their little hamster wheels turnin’ inside as they’re thinking “what the heck does she want in return?” 

Nothing.   Don’t wanna be your friend if you aren’t already.  Don’t want a favour.  Don’t want you to bake me something in return (unless of course you want do).  Don’t want to pad my “Owes me something” list.  Don’t want to get rid of stuff ‘cause it tastes bad. 

Don’t eat it if it’s causing you any angst whatsoever because it’s simply flour, butter and sugar.   It’s not a covert operation where I’m baking and gifting for some sort of world domination.

or maybe?

BWA-HAHAHA!

Well, not this time.  I was recently inspired to make yet another cake with bananas when I noticed a frozen lump of ripe bananas in the back of my freezer.  No, it didn’t have freezer burn.  Frozen bananas don’t really last too long in my household.  Not when there are so many different banana cake recipes to try!

 

This Lemon Glazed Banana Bundt cake was inspired by Greenspan’s “Classic Banana Bundt Cake” recipe in her Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  I say inspired because I totally took liberties with it and adapted the heck out of it.   However, the overall recipe and technique is still pretty much the same.  I discovered that I don’t really like sour cream in my banana cake.  It’s too twangy for me.  But buttermilk’s okay.  So I tried an experiment using a soured whipping cream.  I added a tablespoon of lemon juice to one cup of whipping cream and let it sit for a while while I readied my other ingredients. I swapped out the regular sugar for a combination of brown sugar and organic evaporated cane sugar and used all organic ingredients to ensure profound yumminess.

LEMON GLAZED BANANA BUNDT CAKE

(inspired by and adapted from Greenspan’s “Classic Banana Bundt Cake” from Baking:  From My Home to Yours)

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup organic evaporated cane sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• approx. 4 very ripe bananas, pureed (1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups)
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Generously butter a 9-to 10-inch (12 cup) Bundt pan. 
2. In a cup, add the lemon juice to the whipping cream and allow to sit until ready to use.
3. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.
4. Working with a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy.  Add the sugars and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the bananas.  Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients (don’t be disturbed when the batter curdles), all the soured whipping cream and then the rest of the flour mixture.  Scrape the batter in the pan, rap the pan on the counter to de-bubble the batter and smooth the top.
5. Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.  Check the cake after about 30 minutes—if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent.  Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.
6. Glaze with the Lemon Glaze (recipe follows).  Or eat plain because it’s SO good on its own too!  Wrap in plastic and allow to sit on the counter overnight before serving—if you can wait that long!

LEMON GLAZE

Sift 3/4 cups confections’ sugar into a bowl and squeeze in enough lemon juice to make an icing thing enough to drizzle down the Bundt’s curves (2 teaspoons, added in drops).

HALLOWE’EN OREOS

What’s a mommy to do when her 6 year old daughter has a play-date the next morning and there’s no time to bake?

I wanted to do something craftsy, but then didn’t have any idea what to do on such short notice. You know I have a pantry of baking supplies, so I thought best to bake cookies or something. The girls could bake the cookies and decorate them for hallowe’en. I had a flashback to last Christmas when I did something similar and recalled vividly the colourful sprinkles and dragees all over the countertops and floor. You couldn’t walk a step in the kitchen without hearing the tiny crunching of the sprinkles and roly-poly dragees underfoot. If was fun but oh so messy! Also, considering my time frame, I thought I had better rethink that whole process. By the time they rolled out the dough and cut them out, it’d be time for her buddy to go home and the cookies wouldn’t even have been cooled and decorated yet.

Fortunately, I work well under a bit of duress and the creative juices seemed to be flowing. So, being the smartie-pants that I am—actually, in this case, the m&m’s-pants—I had the brilliant idea to use white chocolate-covered oreos for my cookie base and just have the girls decorate with prepared tubed black icing (from Wilton). I grabbed some mini m&m’s, some hallowe’en coloured sparkles and raided my cake decorating cupboard for little sprinkles and candies. The spider bodies are of course, brown m&m’s. The heads are brown-coloured decorator candies. I clumsily piped 8 legs on the body and had myself a pretty tasty-looking spider!

When I did my jack o’ lantern oreos, I used the same black icing to pipe the lines that would hold the orange sprinkles first. Then I piped more icing on the north pole to have the green sparkles stick. The face was piped last.

A batch of Hallowe’en cookies isn’t complete without some ghosts, so I did some simple free-hand ghosts with the piping tube. The pink sprinkled ghost is a girl ghost.

You know…kind of like a “princess” ghost? Well, you’d know what I mean if you had a girl.

I am loving these white chocolate covered oreos. Whenever I see them in the store from now on, I’m going to grab myself a few dozen bags! What a super easy treat for Hallowe’en!

Happy Hallowe’en and do link back to me with your own creative Hallowe’en Oreo images!

Boo!

THANKSGIVING DINNER

I promise I have a reasonable excuse for not having posted regularly in such a long time. Really I do.

First, since I’m an English teacher, you know that high school can be hectic in the first couple of months. It has been a tad more hectic this time--more than usual.

Also, last week, I just had two root canals redone. My ex-dentist didn’t really didn’t do a good job of it (about 10 years ago) and I think as a result I developed an infection recently. I went to a fantastic specialist—an endodontist this time and he was highly recommended by my current dentist. I am much more confident that this time it’ll work.

However, after 2 hours in the chair and listening to drilling and chiselling, I still currently have cheeks that only a chipmunk would love and I have slight bruising. This is all normal of course, and though I ate congee for the first few days, I was able to eat the gorgeous free range turkey I roasted today. I just cut everything in itty bitty pieces and chewed on my left side only. Hey, whatever works, right?

Since I discovered the joys of brining turkeys, I’ll never go back. One year, I delayed too much at purchasing a turkey and as a result I couldn’t find a fresh one anywhere in the supermarkets. I happened to go to Capers/Whole Foods and lo and behold, they had quite a few fresh turkeys left in their fridge. I grabbed one and made the tastiest turkey ever. Since then, I haven’t gone back to the regular supermarket turkeys. I buy free range or organic. It costs way more money but the taste is remarkable. This turkey was a little over 15 pounds. It was $95. Yup. That is indeed pricey. But it is so flavourful!

I loathe dry breast meat and so I don’t waste my hard-earned money on a pricey bird by treating it poorly. I always brine my fresh turkeys the day before. I start in the morning and put the turkey in a large plastic bin. Then I mix hot water and kosher salt with a bit of sugar and stir to dissolve. I then toss in a tea bag filled with some cloves, black peppercorns, and juniper berries. I add plenty of cold water and then submerge the turkey in the brine and stick it all in the fridge until the evening. I drain and dry the turkey and place it uncovered on a rack atop a sheet pan and allow it to dry in the refrigerator overnight. This helps with a crackly skin.

I start the bird out on a rack in the roasting pan lined with carrots, onions, celery, thyme sprigs from my backyard and some water to catch those yummy drippings. The turkey starts its journey to yummyville with its back up, at a high temperature – 400 degrees F. After an hour, I flip it over and have it breast up for most of the time at 250 degrees F. Then I blast it on high heat again for the final hour for a crisp and crackly skin. Because I have a Wolf oven, I have the luxury of the built-in meat probe and also a convection feature if I’m in a hurry. I never have problems with over or under-cooked meat.

The best part is the stuffing, and though I’ve tried other types of stuffing, I like a traditional moist bread stuffing: cubed white bread, onions, celery, parsley, poultry seasoning and some eggs and chicken broth. It never disappoints.

Sure, I’ve even heard of sticky rice stuffing and thought of making it, but since I only make turkey twice a year, I don’t want to take a chance on anything we may not like as much. I’ve tried sausage, bacon, fennel, pine nuts and all the fancy other additions to stuffing, but I like the star attraction to be the turkey. The plain bread stuffing is a wonderful accompaniment.

One of my daughter’s favourite side dishes is creamed spinach. This time I added chopped white mushrooms. I sauteed them until dry and added them to the creamed spinach mixture and topped everything with parmesan cheese. After baking, it was bubbly, creamy and delicious!

For dessert, I had planned to make a pumpkin créme brulée. Unfortunately, when I got to Superstore, the entire section of canned pumpkin was sold out. I looked high and low and thought it better to just forget the idea. So I made créme caramel. It was a perfect ending to a satisfying meal.

Now, I’ll be saying bye for now because I have a stack of things to mark and my seratonin levels are sky-high from all that turkey. I’ll be putting my feet up shortly.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!