Banana Nana Fofana

A few weekends ago, my oldest asked if we could make something fun. Fun for me is baking, so I decided we would do that. I had two very nicely ripen bananas, plus one more in the freezer, which was just enough to make some banana muffins. To make them even more fun, I decided to make them dark chocolate, because as we all know chocolate is way more fun!

I found the banana muffin recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. This is the book I won from Beantown Baker a few years back. To make it chocolate, I simply substituted some flour with cocoa. Here is the recipe I used.

Dark Chocolate Banana Muffins

1 c Flour
3/4c Cocoa (I used Premium Cocoa which is a mixed of natural and Dutched Process Cocoa)
1/3 c Sugar
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1/2 c Milk
1/4 c Cooking Oil
3/4 c Mashed Banana
1/4 c Dark Chocolate Chips


Streusel Topping

In a small bowl combine 3 tablespoons flour, 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.


Preheat oven to 350 and grease twelve 2 1/2-inch muffin cups. Do not use paper bake cups.

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In another bowl combine egg, milk and oil. Add the egg mixture into the flour mix and stir until just moistened. Stir in banana and chocolate chips.
Scoop batter into muffin tins and top with streusel topping.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden and a wooden toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Cool for about 5 minutes, then serve warm.

Maybe with a nice cup of tea.

Enjoy!

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

Last night we went to a farewell party for our dear friends Stephanie, Michael and their adorable little girl Ellie. They are leaving our fun group here in Green Bay because Michael finally was given the promotion he deserved at work. And while we are all sad to see them go, we couldn't be happier for them. I made the cake for the party which was Dark Chocolate with Chocolate filling and Vanilla Buttercream. Lately on the blogs I read, I have been seeing black and white cakes with cool geometric design on them. I have to say I am always mesmerized by these cakes and have been wanting to make one myself. Stephanie is my young hipper friend (she gets me carded at ballparks when we go!) and I thought she would really like this design.

Extreme close up!!! I love the pattern created by just some simple pieces.

The cake says it all...we will truly miss our friends and wish them the best in life.

Dessert Incognito

This post has a little bit of an indentity crisis going on. I'm not really sure if you should consider it a salad or a dessert. Or maybe a dessert with multiple personalities. Either way, it's really simple to make and very yummy to eat. Now I have heard this called a couple of different names, but I call it a Snicker Salad, but in no way should the name make you think it's at all healthy like a normal salad.


Here are the ingredients in this salad. Yep, three things, couldn't be simpler right? Amounts you use can vary, if you like more apple or more Snickers. And don't feel you have to use Granny Smith apples, I just like using them because I think the tart helps balance out the sweet of the Snickers and Cool Whip.
Step one is to cut up almost a full bag of mini Snickers bars. A way to make it easier to cut them up is to refrigerate them before cutting. I cut them in pretty small pieces because I find it easier to eat once the salad is all together.
You can peel the apples, but I like it with the skin on, and it's one way to make it just a little bit better for you. I used about 4 good size Granny Smith apples for this recipe. Once things are all prepped, mix in a full container of Cool Whip thoroughly.

And because I am a dork and after 10 years of making sure things look nice as well as taste good, I decorated the top of the salad. Trust me this is so not necessary. But if you would like to, I cut up two Snickers into very small pieces and had thin slices of apples (I did soak them in some lemon juice first to prevent browning) to arrange around the edge.

The Unsharables

Back in August of 2010, I made a batch of Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies to take tailgating before a Brewers game with our friends Aimee and Steve. The cookies where a big hit and I posted the recipe I used here on my blog. Aimee made a big batch at home one day and gave some to a friend to enjoy. Upon hearing this, Steve explained to Aimee that "these are cookies we do not share". Now fast forward to August 2011, and it's time for some Brewers tailgating again. This time we were with a pretty large group, and we decided that everyone was to bring a dish to share. I, naturally, decided to make cookies, the chocolate ones at that. But this time I made a slight recipe change.

I went a little chip crazy! I saw these Dark Chocolate Chips and knew they had to be in the cookies. And I love the Caramel Chips, so those were a must, with the White Chocolate Chips seeming to mellow and balance out the other two. I used the same recipe I posted here (although I did double it) http://abakersremix.blogspot.com/2010/08/c-is-for-cookie.html. To the batter I added a total of 4 cups of chips. The breakdown was the entire bag of the Dark Chocolate, and about 1 cup of the other two.

I once again had a hit on my hands, as all the cookies were devoured. And I am happy to say that everybody shared the unsharable cookies, even Steve.
Steve with one of the unsharable cookies!

Sweets for a Sweet Girl

So to continue on with our crazy birthday weekend of August, we had our daughter Samantha's 6th birthday party. Samantha is a very energetic and creative little girl, and has been planning her 6th birthday party, well since before her 5th birthday party. (and yes she was planning her 7th before this party even started) She asked to have her birthday at Chuck E Cheese, and after that I was free to have what ever theme my heart desired. I choose a Sweet Shoppe Theme and while Samantha loves her fruits and vegetables, she did inheret my massive sweet tooth. That is why I chose the sweet shoppe theme.

I saw this gumball machine on another cake, and thought it would be great to make for Samantha's cake.

Sorry for the bad picture, it really was a crazy weekend. There was fondant gumballs, wrapped candy and lollipops decorating a dark chocolate cake with raspberry and chocolate fudge KitKat filling. The KitKat filling was Samantha's idea. The mini gumballs next to the cake were the favors, I just thought they were to cute not to have.

Here's our Happy 6 year old (still can't believe she's 6) with her cake. Before the party, she told me that her cake was beautiful and the best, oh how I love her.

Game On

We were party central here in Wisconsin this past weekend. And not just any old birthdays, but some milestones. We had 3 family parties to throw and attend... our oldest turned 6, Jeff's grandmother had her 90th celebration and my hubby Jeff finally turned 40. Now he has to tell people he's only a year younger then me, not the two years he usually tells people the 5 months between our birthdays.

Jeff is a little bit of a gamer, so I instantly thought of a video game cake for him. And what better video cake than an XBox.
Jeff has an XBox 360, so here is my interpertation of the game console. The cake itself was a dark chocolate with a raspberry and chocolate fudge filling. I also made a small game case to have his birthday greeting on, the controller and games in the picture are real and not at all edible.

Buzz Buzz

Last week, I saw some adorable ladybug pretzels on a couple of different blogs. The creators of these cute treats were some talented ladies of Bee In Our Bonnet. After seeing their ladybugs, I wanted to try and make some myself and also make some bumblebees to go with them.


To start, I gather some colored candy melts and mini pretzels. I couldn't find any black candy melts at the store, so I got dark chocolate and added some black food coloring (and shortening to help keep it thin).

I dipped the bottoms of the pretzels to make the heads of the ladybugs and bees.

Then I dipped half of my pretzels in red candy melts...

and the other half in yellow candy melts.

I added the final touches of the ladybugs' spots and the bees' stripes and wings.

And there you have it, some cute bugs you would love to see at your next picnic.