Daring Bakers: Get Creative!

Recently I decided to step outside of my baking comfort zone and joined the Daring Bakers. A group of passionate bakers testing their skills on a series of unusual and tempting desserts. Past challenges have included crafting baked Alaskas, making their own puff pastry and taking on the French macaron. Personally I am very comfortable making cookies, quick breads and muffins. Anything that requires little thought and is tough to screw up. What can I say? I’m busy and muffins are easy!

My first challenge really pushed my skills, not as a baker, but as a decorator. I’ve made sugar cookies for years and years. I remember Christmas break with my mom and brother rolling out dough, stamping out trees, camels and Santas. After a quick trip to the oven our cookies would be ready to decorate. This would usually consist of royal icing, in varying shades of red, blue, yellow and green. Pink candy canes, blue trees and yellow penguins, all very true to reality. What can you expect? I was twelve.

I was hoping that my icing skills had improved over the past fifteen years and that my cookies wouldn’t turn out looking like something a kid had done. With the directions provided by Mandy (from What the Fruitcake?!), I think I came out with a success! The key to these cookies is patience. Set aside the time to allow for good chilling. You don’t want to roll out room temperature dough, it just won’t work. If the cookies are too warm, then they will puff up in the oven and lose their shapes!

So dust off your cookie cutters, buy a few zip-top bags and get baking! Push your comfort level and you might just surprise yourself.

Best Banana Bread

I seem to have made a lot of fruit breads recently. Apple cake Wednesday, banana bread today! Some people like apples, and some like bananas, gotta try to make everyone happy! Personally, I am a big banana fan. I start my morning, everyday, with a banana. It could be with cereal, a muffin, pancakes or just milk. The main dish is ever changing, but the banana remains. Unlike some picky people, I will eat a banana at most stages of ripeness. From once it turns mostly yellow (green around the edges is okay) until it is almost overwhelmed with brown spots, I’m going to eat it. There is a line that I just won’t cross, that last banana inevitably turns completely brown. I won’t touch it and into the freezer it goes.

I have several single bananas in the freezer, waiting to be baked into tasty treats. I find that freezing the bananas leads to a creamy texture in the final bread. Freezing them slightly breaks down their cellular structure and makes them easy to mash (just be sure to let them thaw in a bowl). You could even buy some bananas just for the purpose of baking them! Toss them in the freezer once they turn yellow and a few days later they are ready for baking!

This particular recipe has its healthy quotient bulked up with its use of whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt. I also love to bake them in mini loaf pans, that way your serving looks so much bigger! And if you can’t stop yourself from eating the whole thing, you only had three servings… Excuse me now, I have to go eat a loaf of banana bread.

Apple cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

I love apples. I even have photographic proof of my deep and enduring love of apples.

Notice how the woman behind me looks on with disgust of my apple love. Too bad lady, I’m hugging my apples. They were so perfect. Right off the tree, hand-picked by me. Jonathan, McIntosh, Honeycrisp and red delicious, these were all keepers. My ten pound bag of apples would be turned into crisps, pies and sauces. They would be eaten fresh and with each bite, a loud crunch. Ten pounds of apples to enjoy into the cooler months of the year.

I also love picking apples. It is just a wonderful way to spend a crisp Saturday morning. Wandering the rows of the orchard you seek out the best, brightest, freshest fruit. You reach high to get that just out of reach red jewel. You climb up the tree (shhh, don’t tell) and finally have the one you were looking for. Oh, wait, there’s a hole in that one. Never mind. That one goes on the ground.

Once you’ve filled your bag full of delicious apples (and you’ve eaten a few along the way), it’s time to bring them home. But what do you start with when faced with ten plus pounds of apples? You must start with this cake. It perfectly shows off the bright apple flavor, while complimenting them with the right amount of spices. Once baked, the cake is drowned in brown sugar frosting. Warm with ice cream, or with a cup of coffee, this cake delivers.

Now I’m down to 8 pounds of apples. You can expect to see several more apple postings in the weeks to come! So head out to your local apple orchard and pick some apples. It’s easy, throw on a light sweater, lace up your hiking shoes and grab the sunglasses. Fall is settling in, and it brought apples.