Another Banana Recipe

Who doesn't need a simple and delicious banana bread recipe in their arsenal, right? This one from The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook lives up to its name. It comes together quickly and what you end up with is a classic loaf of banana bread. It's important to use bananas that are as ripe as possible  for the best flavor and not to overbake it. I baked it as a large loaf and also as mini-loaves which is what's shown here in the pictures. The original recipe uses yogurt, but I happened to have sour cream on hand, so that's what I used. I also omitted the walnuts because I like my banana bread nut-free, but add in whatever you like. The recipe originally called for 1 1/4 cups of walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped.

Classic Banana Bread
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen
Makes one 9 inch loaf

2 cups(10 oz) all purpose flour
3/4 cup(5 1/4 oz) granulated sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 large overripe bananas, mashed(about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup plain yogurt/sour cream
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 tbsp unsalted butter(3/4 stick), melted/cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add ins:

Nuts, Chocolate Chips, Shredded Coconut, etc.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Prepare a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan, grease and flour or line with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt or sour cream, eggs, butter, and vanilla extract together in another bowl. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a spatula until just combined. Fold in any add-ins.

Scrape into loaf pan and bake about 55 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

A Good Ol' Coffee Cake

When I think of coffee cake, I think of that Seinfeld episode where everyone's loving Drake's Coffee Cake. I don't believe I've ever really been a fan of coffee cake and may only have eaten it on the rare occasion that someone gifted it to my family. It's not something that I grew up on nor is it something that I would choose to go along with my occasional sleep-deprived early college morning lattes. I usually went with a muffin(often a bran muffin because I like to eat healthy or at least think that I do) or a croissant because they just seemed less messy by not having to deal with a crumbly topping.

One day a few months ago, my sister mentioned that she was in the mood for some sort of a crumb cake type dessert. So when a dinner occasion came up that called for or rather left open room for dessert since dessert is not typical in my household, I decided to make a coffee cake. My sister helped me make the topping and it came together very quickly.

The recipe is a downsized version of a coffee cake from the America's Test Kitchen Cookbook and to me, it seems like the dictionary definition of coffee cake. It's not too sweet, very cinnamony, moist, and as its name suggests, goes perfectly with coffee or tea. Since we were unfamiliar with coffee cake, the amount of topping/filling seemed like too much to us and so, we didn't put it all in, but it really isn't. It bakes nicely into the cake and gives you the cinnamon swirl you want running through your cake.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen
Makes One 8-inch Cake

Streusel
3/8 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/8 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tbsp unsalted better

In a food processor, process flour, sugar, 1/8 cup of the brown sugar, and the cinnamon until combined. Take out 1/2 + 1/8 cup of the mixture, set aside in a small bowl, and stir in the remaining 1/8 cup of brown sugar. Add the pecans and butter to the remaining mixture in the food processor and pulse until it comes together in small pieces.

Cake
6 tbsp softened unsalted butter, diced, plus more for greasing pan
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/8 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 + 1/8 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch cake pan with butter and line with parchment. Whisk 1/2 cup of the sour cream together with the eggs and vanilla in a small bowl.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on low speed until combined. Then, add the butter and the remaining 1/4 cup sour cream and mix on low speed for about a minute and a half. Increase to medium speed for 10 seconds before adding egg mixture slowly as you mix. Scrape down the sides with a spatula if necessary. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for another minute until the batter is light and fluffy.

Add about a cup of the batter to the pan, sprinkle with half of the filling without nuts/butter. Add another cup of batter on top and sprinkle with the remaining filling without nuts/butter. Add the remaining batter on top and sprinkle with the topping with nuts and butter.

Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan for 30 minutes before inverting, removing the parchment, and serving. The cake may be served warm or at room temp. Wrap in foil and store at room temp for up to 5 days.

Coconut Jello

 

This recipe really could not be any simpler or quicker for a great tasting light dessert. Coconut jello is my favorite dessert at chinese restaurants, but I stopped ordering it just because I felt like it was something I should easily be able to make at home at a much lower cost. It was also a hit or miss ordering it in restaurants because it never tasted quite rich or coconutty enough to me, like they were trying to skimp on the coconut milk. Well, after my recent foray into jelly desserts with the Osmanthus jelly, I thought I would give coconut jello a go as well.

After scouring the available recipes for coconut jello, I settled on this one from HI Cookery and it was fantastic. It's rich with coconut flavor and sooo easy to make. If you include some of the possible add-ins, it takes a little bit longer, but it's still really easy.

Coconut Jello molded in mini muffin cups

Coconut Jello
Recipe from HI Cookery

1 can unsweetened coconut milk(13.5 oz)(I like Chaokoh brand)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 cup milk(whole or reduced fat milk)

In a sauce pan over low heat, mix the coconut milk and sugar until dissolved. Measure the 1/2 cup water in a measuring cup and sprinkle the gelatin over the water. Let sit for a few minutes. Stir the gelatin mixture into the coconut milk. Turn off the stove and mix in the milk.

Pour mixture into an 8 by 8 inch pan or a 9 inch pie dish to set. You can pour the mixture through a sieve if there seems to be any bits of undissolved gelatin. At this point, you can mix in your add-ins. They tend to sink to the bottom, but as the jello cools and begins to set up, you can stir it up to redistribute everything.

Let the mixture come to room temp before chilling it in the fridge for at least a few hours until completely set. Cut into squares and serve.

Add-ins:
Cooked Adzuki beans, mung beans, cooked and rinsed tapioca pearls, shredded coconut, etc.

Add as much of the add ins as you'd like, but not so much that it's hard for the coconut mixture to come together. I've found that the tapioca makes the jello a bit firmer. I boiled about an 1/8 of a cup of dried tapioca pearls until translucent, drained, and rinsed them and found it to be plenty.

Osmanthus Flower and Goji Berry Jelly (桂花糕)

I quite enjoyed the flavor of osmanthus jelly when I had it at a restaurant during dim sum and declared to my other dining companions that I could easily recreate it at home. Those who know me know that I say this a lot and nothing ever really materializes from these declarations. However, a year later when I came across a packet of dried osmanthus flowers in the grocery store (more accurately my local Chinese market, because honestly you probably wouldn't find osmanthus flowers in your local grocery store), I bought it in preparation for a future attempt at making osmanthus jelly. The osmanthus jelly was once again back on my radar. That was about two months ago. It probably would have been at least another six months had my mom not suggested that we make some for Thanksgiving recently. I also made the pumpkin roulade already posted here, chocolate chip and almond cookies, and a french apple tart, but more on that in an upcoming post.

Anyway, after about a year and a half, one of the many declarations I made was finally realized. I looked up recipes for osmanthus jelly and decided to go with one from Christine's Recipes since her recipes haven't failed me in the past and I already had all the basic ingredients. This dessert really could not be simpler since you're just making jello from an osmanthus flower flavored syrup. If you don't have a chinese market near you, you can probably find dried osmanthus flowers in a specialty tea shop or purchase it online. The same method can be used for other dried flowers and teas as well. Try this for a light, easy, make ahead dessert.

Osmanthus Jelly
Adapted from Christine's Recipes
Makes one 8 by 8 inch pan

1L water
300 g rock sugar (you can use whatever granulated sugar as well, add it to your taste)
3 tbsp dried osmanthus flowers
3 tbsp + 2.5 tsp unflavored gelatin, (about 5 envelopes, although the packets aren't always consistent)
                                                           Use 5.5 envelopes/+ 1 tsp gelatin for a firmer, moldable jelly
2 tbsp dried goji berries, rehydrated in water for a few minutes and drained

Put 1 cup of the water aside in a small bowl. Heat the remaining water to a gentle boil, add sugar and dried osmanthus flowers, gently simmer until sugar is dissolved. Adjust to your taste. Strain syrup to remove the osmanthus flowers. You can also put the flowers in a tea bag or a cheesecloth bundle for easier removal.

In the 1 cup of water set aside, sprinkle in the gelatin and let sit for a minute. Add the bloomed gelatin to the sugar syrup and stir until dissolved. Mix in the drained goji berries if using and pour into molds or an 8 by 8 inch pan to set. Sprinkle some dried osmanthus flowers over the top for decoration if you'd like. Once the jelly reaches room temp, you can place it in the fridge to set completely. Once completely set, unmold or cut into squares and serve.

Blueberry Pancakes

I have to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of pancakes. For those of you who love pancakes, this probably makes no sense. I do enjoy a nice fluffy pancake now and then, but until now, I haven't found a recipe that produces results as good as those you'd find in a restaurant. This recipe for pancakes from America's Test Kitchen is darn good, even for an occasional pancake-eater like myself.

I've found that buttermilk is crucial, for me anyways, in producing a tender pancake. Although the recipe suggests using milk and lemon juice if you don't have buttermilk, it doesn't produce the same exact results in my experience. The basic recipe here can be varied in many ways by adding nuts, other fruits, and spices to the batter. It can also be drizzled with chocolate sauce, coconut syrup, honey, etc. rather than the more traditional maple syrup. The picture here isn't as pretty as the original pic, but it's just as delicious.

Blueberry Pancakes
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen

2 cups buttermilk
2 cups(10 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted/cooled
vegetable oil for pan
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, rinsed/dried

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. Whisk the egg and butter into the buttermilk. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Do not overmix.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a tsp of the oil to the pan and swirl to coat the pan. Drop 1/4 cup of the batter into the pan for each pancake, sprinkle blueberries over the top of each. Cook until large bubbles form, then flip the pancake and cook until golden brown.

Note: If you don't have buttermilk, you can use 2 cups of whole milk mixed with 1 tbsp of lemon juice as the original recipe suggests. However, I've never really found that this substitute gives you exactly the same results, so I would recommend buttermilk if possible.

Flour Bakery Tarts, Fruit + Pastry Cream and Chocolate

I not so recently made these tarts for a family dinner. It's been a few years, I think, since I've made a fruit tart, but I was quite pleased with these. There's nothing wrong with a beautiful platter of fresh fruit, but this just makes it a bit more special. The recipe is made up of components from a few of Joanne Chang's recipes. I had first heard about Joanne Chang's Chocolate Truffle Tart from another blogger who mentioned it in one of her posts and a search turned up the following recipe on Baking with Lisa. I decided to take the same tart shell and make fruit tarts by using a pastry cream from another one of Joanne's recipes.

The tart shell sounded very promising because according to other bakers, the fact that there is no water in the tart shell means less shrinkage(Seinfeld, anyone?) in the oven. Surprisingly, even without pie weights, these tart shells did not shrink significantly and came out very nicely. I decided to make individual tarts because they're easier to share and fruit tarts can be difficult to cut nicely. The tart dough was easy to make and although it was a bit crumbly out of the fridge, it's easier to work with when you warm it up slightly with your hand. You can also just patch up holes if you need to as the dough is very forgiving. I did poke the bottoms of the tart shells with a fork to allow steam to escape, but that may not be necessary if you're using a tart ring as suggested in the recipe since steam may be able to escape from underneath.

The baked chocolate truffle filling is rich, but pleasingly so and is exactly like the texture of a truffle, go figure. I topped the chocolate tarts with raspberries simply because I had them around and I like raspberries, but feel free to leave as is and dust with cocoa. As for the mixed fruit tarts, I've made pastry cream many times, but was excited to try this one as it uses cake flour instead of cornstarch. It came out great and while it's hard to tell the difference, this one seems a bit softer than pastry creams made with cornstarch. Both are good and Joanne also seems to use both cake flour and cornstarch in her recipes, so it depends on whatever you feel like or have in your kitchen.

Since the pastry cream comes from an eclair recipe, I used a bit more whipped cream to lighten the pastry cream than what is listed in the recipe below. I think the pastry cream filling for a tart should be a bit lighter, so start with what is listed below and whip up some more cream if you would like it lighter. Top the fruit tarts with whatever is in season and looks good from your market.

Chocolate Truffle Tart and Mixed Fruit Tart
Recipe from Joanne Chang via Baking with Lisa and Food and Wine

Pate Sucree(Tart Shell)
1 stick unsalted butter(4 oz), room temp
1/4 cup(50 g) granulated sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt or 1/4 tsp fine salt
1 cup(140 g) all purpose flour
1 large egg yolk

Cream butter, salt, and sugar in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer for 2-3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Add the flour and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Add the egg yolk and mix on low speed until it just comes together. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough with a rolling pin to a 1/4 inch thick. Fit into a 10 inch tart ring and trim off excess. Poke the bottom of the shell with a fork so steam can escape. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Bake tart shell for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack. (I made individual tart shells with about 50 g of dough for each tart shell and baked them for about 15-20 minutes. I got 20 small tart shells from 3x the recipe above.)

Chocolate Filling for Chocolate Truffle Tart
Makes enough filling for 1 10-inch tart shell or 12 individual tarts

8 oz(228 g) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup(180 g) heavy cream
1/2 cup(120 g) milk
2 large egg yolks
2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 tsp kosher salt, half the amount of fine salt

Preheat oven to 350 deg F.  Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, heat cream and milk over medium heat until almost simmering. Pour the milk and cream over the chocolate and let sit for a little bit before whisking. Whisk until chocolate is melted, add egg yolks one at a time, then the butter and salt, and whisk until incorporated.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the prebaked tart shell. Bake about 15 minutes or until the edge starts to set and the center is still wiggly. Let cool for a few hours on a wire rack. Dust with cocoa before serving or top with raspberries about an hour into cooling like I did. Best served the day it's made at room temp.

Pastry Cream for Mixed Fruit Tart
Probably makes enough filling for 1 large tart or 12 individual ones, slightly adapted

2 cups whole milk
1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
1/2 cup granulated sugar + 2 tbsp
5 tbsp cake flour
pinch of salt
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp heavy cream
Mixed Fruit(Figs, berries, plums, nectarines, peaches, grapes, etc.)
Heated Apricot Preserves or Currant Jelly for glazing fruit

In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, vanilla bean, and seeds until almost simmering. Whisk the sugar, cake flour, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the egg and egg yolks. Slowly add the hot milk mixture a little at a time, whisking constantly.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Continue to boil while whisking until the pastry cream thickens. Strain pastry cream through a sieve into a medium bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, let cool a bit, then refrigerate at least an hour until cool.

Whip the cream by hand with a large whisk or with a mixer until soft peaks. Whisk the pastry cream and fold whipped cream into the pastry cream until blended.

Spoon lightened pastry cream into tart shell and top with mixed fruit. Lightly brush fruit with melted apricot preserves or currant jelly. Serve the day it's made. If not serving right away, refrigerate until serving.