cooks illustrated, best banana bread

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I did a whole bunch of baking last night for today, and while I was at it, my mom requested that I bake some banana bread for her. My family's very traditional and simple-- it's always the same things that they request for me to bake. My little sister always wants cupcakes, my dad always wants everything cookies, and my mom always wants banana bread.

I used the Cooks Illustrated recipe and adapted it a teeny bit (you can see my additions in green). My mom and aunt loved it, but they rarely ever hate a banana bread. To me, it was just okay. Very moist and dense, but perhaps not cinnamon-y enough for me. I actually had the best banana bread while I was in Utah and one of the girls I stayed with baked it. I'll have to make a mental note to ask her for the recipe because seriously, it was the BEST. I inhaled it.

Side note, since it was such a success last year, I'm doing my 12 days of cookies again this year. Starting.. on my next post! :)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour (unbreached) and some for dusting
• 1 1/4 cups walnuts coarse chop (optional)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 very ripe bananas mashed well
• 1/4 cup plain yogurt
• 2 large eggs lightly beaten
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cool
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the topping:

• Mix together 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon white sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon.
  

Preparation

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan; dust with flour, tapping out the excess.

2. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and walnuts together in a large bowl; set aside.

4. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a wooden spoon in a medium bowl. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until just combined and the batter looks thick and chunky. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

5. Bake until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. (The bread can be wrapped with plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Utah Trip

I just got back from visiting my bestie in Provo, Utah. He goes to BYU and I haven't had the chance to see him in months, so I spontaneously planned a trip to go visit him. I stayed for the long weekend and had a blast! Everyone was so nice and it was great to see old friends. I seriously love that place.

The bestie took me to a place called Sub Zero, where they make your ice cream in front of you. It was awesome! Basically, you get to choose your kind of milk that you want (premium with 14% fat, custard 10%, skim 2%, yogurt 0%, or nonfat 0%), the flavor, and what kind of toppings. I got premium marshmallow creme ice cream with cookie dough and the bestie got premium amaretto ice cream with mixed berries. It starts off looking like this:

Next, they spray some liquid nitrogen in it... (which by the way, the guy totally let me touch it. He put the liquid nitrogen into a cup for me to touch and warned me not to leave my hand in it for too long, or I'd die. It's such a weird feelings! It looks and feels like water when you dip your hand into it, but when you take it out, it's completely dry. It just steams a bunch and is freezing. i could play with that stuff all day.
Then mix...
Repeat the process once more, and voila! You get this beauty!:

Super delicious! I wanted to try the yogurt but my bestie made me get the fattiest one for optimal taste. While also in Provo, we went to a gingerbread festival at thanksgiving point. We went not really knowing what it was, but I didn't care cause I love that stuff. It was done by the boy scouts and helped raised money through admission and auctioning off the gingerbread houses. Some of the houses were made by little kids and others were made by professionals. It was so neat to see all of them-- we even got to get our faces painted, decorate our own gingerbread man, and drink hot chocolate! Here's a couple of my favorites from the amateur bunch:


This one is of splash mountain at disneyland. LOVE!


And Dr. Seuss of course:

Not sure what this was of... but it was so good to be made by kiddies!

This is Hagrid's house from harry potter. I probably should have taken a picture of the other side too to get the full effect. Oh well:

Now on to the professional ones. I have no idea how long these must have taken to make-- I imagine weeks, months even. They're so amazing with all the detail put into them. It was like I was at a Food Network challenge!






And of course, I had to save this one for last. This is my absolute favorite of the bunch simply because little kids made it AND it's the house from the movie "Up"!! What a great idea to use lollipops as the balloons. Kids are so amazing and creative.



I just got a box of cookie cutters that I'm dying to use-- so look forward to that! AND Thanksgiving is coming up so that means more delicious treats. :)

Texas Governor's Mansion Cowboy Cookies

As you may or may not know, every First Lady has a unique dessert recipe that they share with the public. At my work, we sell a book called Presidential Cookies. Each page gives a summary about every President and their First Lady, along with one or two of their favorite recipes. Fun, right? The only sucky part about the book is that the pictures included are terrible! No offense, but every picture is taken on the same plate-- same scene-- same ol' dim lighting. I especially love cookbooks with great pictures of each recipe, so I wasn't a fan of the visuals in this one.

It's funny because you can tell how much the cookies have improved from the 1700's. They start out with three ingredients and gradually increase as time goes on. I chose to try one a bit closer to our time period, one from Laura Bush. To be honest, a coworker baked them and brought them into work. They were so good that I had to bake some for myself. I opted to make them smaller rather than putting 1/4 cup of dough into each cookie. I also omitted the coconut, because I can always do without that. These cookies would be easy to sub some ingredients into depending on your liking.. Just take out one and replace with another! Try them for yourself!

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups sweetened flake coconut

2 cups chopped pecans (8 ounces)

Directions

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Bake Time: 17 to 29 minutes
Yield: About 3 dozen cookies (see note below)

1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in bowl.
3. In 8-quart bowl, beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 1 minute. Gradually beat in sugars; beat to combine, 2 minutes.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla.
5. Stir in flour mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans.
6. For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.
7. Bake in 350 F oven 17 to 29 minutes, until edges are lightly browned; rotate sheets halfway through. Remove cookies from rack to cool.

Note: For 6 dozen small cookies, use 2 tablespoons dough for each. Bake at 350 F for 15 to 18 minutes.