Lemon Banana Bread

Lemon makes everything better. Well, almost everything and the right amount of it anyway. I was skeptical about adding lemon to banana bread. But it made these muffins feel so light and taste so good that I have to give it a try.







It was good. To quote the boyfriend, this is the best thing to happen to over ripe old bananas.



Adapted from Cooking Light's Basic Banana Bread. I skipped the glaze, upped the bananas, reduced the sugar and replaced all the spice with juice and zest from a large lemon. I also made this dairy free by using oil instead of melted butter and used lemon juice + soy milk instead of yogurt and milk.



Here's what I got:

Ingredients

• 5 medium very ripe bananas - mashed



• 1/3 cup soy milk mix with juice from 1 lemon (It will thicken and curdle.)



• 1/4 cup light tasting olive oil



• 2 eggs



• 3/4 cup sugar



• Juice and zest from one lemon
  
• 1 1/2 cup flour



• 1/4 cup ground flax seed



• 1 teaspoon baking soda



• 1/2 tea salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.



2. In a large bowl, whisk bananas, curdled soy milk, oil, eggs, sugar and lemon together.



3. Combine flour, flax, baking soda and salt in a clean bowl. Pour into the egg mixture and stir until just combined.



4. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning into a cooling rack.

Plantain Peanut Bread

I'm slowly getting over my not-so-great baking experience two weekends ago. I even felt adventurous and tried something new. Well, not really. I substituted plantains for bananas and peanuts for walnuts in this banana bread recipe. To reduce the risk, I baked half a recipe in two small remekins.



Why all these substitutions? The same reasons as everybody else'. I had these ingredients and not the one listed in the original recipe. And these said ingredients needed to be consumed ASAP or they would have been wasted.

The bread came out not bad at all. The plantain gave it sort of banana flavor but more on the nutty side. And peanuts - you know - are awesome whenever and wherever.



Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter (1 oz.) - melted


• 2 generous tablespoons brown sugar (1 oz.)


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 generous tablespoon honey (1 oz.)


• 1 large ripe plantain


• 1 egg


• A pinch of salt


• 1 cup whole wheat flour (4 1/2 oz.)


• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/4 cup peanuts (1 oz.)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. In a clean bowl, whisk melted butter and brown sugar together. Add vanilla extract, honey, plantain and egg. Whisk until combined and the plantain breaks down into tiny pieces.


3. Add flour, salt and baking soda. Stir until just combined. Fold in peanuts.


4. Divide the batter into two remekins. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. It's delicious warm and even tastier cold the next day.

Banana Oat Muffins

I made a lot of muffins in the past couple of weeks. My friends and I have been driving upstate every weekend to help fix up a few buildings on the site for the new USA Shaolin Temple. Muffins are easy to transport and kind of healthy. What?! You disagree?!? Muffins are way better for you than lots of things people eat while in a car. These ones contained whole wheat flour, rolled oats, and 3 bananas! And just a tiny bit of sugar.



The original recipe was from AllRecipe.com. The only change I made was using brown sugar and replaced a cup of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.



The muffins came out a bit chewy from the oats. I guess these organic oats that I have are a little thicker and need to be cooked longer than the normal kind. Other than that the muffins came out great - a little dense with strong banana flavor and just sweet enough.

Banana Coffee Cake

This has to be the best banana cake ever. I never thought the words banana and light would fit in the same sentence. But this is it. This banana cake is light and tender. It's super moist (especially the next day) and just sweet enough.

Here's the original recipe: Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel in which the amount of sugar I wasn't super excited about.



So I changed a few things. I reduced the sugar in the cake to 1/2 cup. Omitted the chocolate chips. And made simple topping out of ground cinnamon, raw sugar, flour and butter.



Ingredients

• 1 stick butter at room temperature


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1 egg


• 3 very ripe bananas


• 3 tablespoons pain yogurt


• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour


• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder


• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For topping

• 1/4 cup raw sugar


• 1/4 cup all purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 2 tablespoons chilled butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.


2. With an electric mixer, beat a stick of butter with 1/2 cup of sugar until fluffy. Add an egg. Beat until well combined. Add bananas and yogurt.


3. In a clean bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir into the wet mixture. Pour into the prepared pan.


4. To make the topping, cut butter into the other ingredients. Rub with fingertips. Sprinkle over the batter. Bake for 45 minutes.

Blackberry Banana Ice Cream

I used corn syrup to make ice cream for the first time last month. Now I'm hooked. I'll save the Agave nectar for yogurt ice cream. For ice cream with real cream, I'll use corn syrup from now on.



This is just a slight variation from the banana ice cream. I just added about a cup of frozen blackberries to the food processor and used 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean.


Perfect Summer dessert

Banana Ice Cream

Want to eat 5 bananas in one sitting? Make this banana ice cream. I almost did. I will have to buy more bananas and fight with fruit flies to make more of it. It's too delicious.



The picture doesn't do justice. But I couldn't do it. If it's in my face, I have to eat it. So I couldn't take my time trying to get nice pictures.

I made a few modifications to the recipe and ended up with

• 5 bananas


• Juice from 1 lime


• 1/2 cup corn syrup


• 1/2 cup heavy cream


• 1 vanilla bean

I watched this Alton Brown episode and he explained why we need to freeze the bananas and let them thaw before pureeing them with the other ingredients. It had something to do with tearing up cell walls with ice particles. It made sense to me at the time. I just can't explain it. He also explained why we should chill the processed ingredients before transferring into an ice cream maker. He said the colder (not frozen) the mixture is, the smaller ice crystal will be and that makes smoother ice cream.


I froze the ice cream in small individual jars so that I don't eat the whole batch in one sitting and if I have leftover I won't have to re-freeze the ice cream.

Banana Bread Cupcakes

So I was told not to eat bananas, ice cream, seafood and peanut for a few days as part of a knee-injury treatment. Well, I had 5 very ripe bananas in my house. I wasn't going to throw them away. I decided to make banana bread. But not just banana bread - that wouldn't be worth giving away - banana bread cupcakes with two kinds of frosting: cream cheese and chocolate ganache.


Beautifully frosted banana bread cupcakes

I got the banana bread recipe from here. I mixed the bananas into the batter instead of laying on top. I say this recipe needs at least 1/2 cup of butter instead of just 3 tablespoon as the cake came out a little dry.



Cream cheese frosting was 1 package of cream cheese, 5 tablespoons of butter at room temperature (the same stick I used for the cake) and 1 cup of confectioner sugar. Chocolate ganache from Alton Brown. I halved the recipe - using 8oz. of Giradelli semi sweet chocolate chips - and still have plenty left over.

I was told the cupcakes were good but not my best. And that the ganache was pretty awesome!

Gluten-Free Banana Black Raspberry Muffins

In an unsuccessful attempt to reduce wheat in my diet, I bought rice flour and chick pea flour and made these muffins.



I substituted 1 1/2 cups rice flour and and 1/2 cup chick pea flour for wheat flour in this recipe with 2 very ripe bananas and a cup of frozen black raspberries from Trader Joe's.

The result was very dry muffins that tasted like beans (and banana and raspberry.) I guess you can't have everything. You can't be gluten-free and low fat. Or maybe you can but I still can't figure it out.

Nevertheless, I ate all the muffins in a week - can't let food go to waste.

Wholewheat Blackberry Banana Bread

You are wondering why I only baked wholewheat things in the past few weeks. Truth is I secretly want to eat healthy despite all the temptation around me.

This quick bread is based on pineapple banana bread recipe. I substituted fresh blackberries for canned pineapple. Fresh blackberries in the winter? I know. Eating fruits out of their season is not planet friendly. I don't have excuses. I saw them in Chinatown and I bought them.

I have a lot of success with wholewheat baked goods lately. Maybe my baking karma level is exceptionally high this month. The bread came out moist, not too dense and just sweet enough to pass as breakfast.



Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup wholewheat flour


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 3 bananas


• 2 eggs


• 1/4 cup extra light tasting olive oil


• 1/4 cup Agave nectar


• 1 1/2 cups fresh blackberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a tube pan or a loaf pan with non-stick spray.


2. In a large bowl, combine all purpose flour, wholewheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.


3. In a separate bowl, mash 3 bananas and whisk with eggs, oil and Agave nectar.


4. Pour the wet ingredients over dry ingredients and mix until just wet. Fold in blackberries. Do not over mix.


5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes in a tube pan or 40 minutes in a loaf pan. Let cool 5 to 10 minutes in the pan. Invert onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Wholewheat Banana Blueberry Muffins

I have been baking so many cookies. I also ate so many cookies. What does a person do when there are 500 cookies lying around the house? I eat them. To offset the cookie guilt, I made these wholewheat fruit-filled muffins. They are not as good as them cookies but they are high in fiber and nutrients and low in fat...



Ingredients

• 2 cups wholewheat flour


• 2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 egg whites and 1 whole egg


• 3 large banana - mashed


• 1/4 cup Agave Nectar


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup frozen blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with liners (or grease the pan but these muffins hardly have any fat. They are very sticky.)


2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.


3. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk egg whites, and egg together. Add banana, vanilla and Agave nectar and whisk until well combined.


4. Pour the wet ingredients into flour mixture and stir until just wet. Fold in frozen blueberries.


5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 18 minutes. The muffins get better and more moist the next day and the day after.

Banana Pecan Granola Bars

I have been buying a lot of energy bars on my way walking from work to train Kungfu. Since I already make my own granola, I thought it shouldn't be that hard to shape it into bars. I would just add honey and something wet to hold everything together.



My bars came out not bad. But I wouldn't say they are as good as those Cliff or Luna bars from stores. Maybe I need to add more fat and sugar. That always makes food taste and look better.



Ingredients

• 2 cups quick cooking oatmeal


• 1/4 cup unsweetened dry coconut


• 1/4 cup sesame seeds


• 1/4 cup oat bran


• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds


• 1/2 cup raisins


• 1 cup chopped pecan


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1/4 cup extra tasting olive oil


• 1/2 cup honey


• 1/4 cup Agave nectar


• 1 large banana - mashed


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lin a 9x13 baking pan with parchment paper.


2. Whisk oatmeal, coconut, sesame seeds, oat bran, flax, raisins, pecan and cinnamon togehter in a large bowl.


3. In a small bowl, whisk oil, honey, Agave nectar, banana and vanilla.


4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients. Thoroughly mix everything together and press into the prepared pan.


5. Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool completely and cut into bars.

Pineapple Banana Squares

I didn't think this would taste so good. It came out looking a little dense. I brought a few pieces to the park on Saturday and wished I had brought the whole cake. Maybe we were just hungry rolling around in the grass all day. The cake came out really moist and sweet although I used only a quarter cup of Agave nectar. It's probably the pineapple juice.



I made this in a bread pan once with all kinds of modifications including (accidentally) skipping oil altogether. This time I pretty much followed the original recipe from "Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too" by Susan G. Purdy except that I used two whole eggs instead of 1 whole eggs plus two eggwhites, and 1/4 cup Agave nectar instead of 3/4 cup sugar.



These squares are delicious and I think healthy enough to qualify as breakfast. I might try to make it in a muffin pan the next time.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups wholewheat flour


• 3/4 cup all purpose flour


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1/4 cup extra light tasting olive oil


• 2 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1/4 cup agave nectar


• 1 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple in its own juice


• 2 large banana - mashed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of an 8x8 cake pan (I used 2.2 Qt. rectangular Pyrex pan) with parchment paper.


2. Whisk flour, flax seed, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together.


3. In a separate bowl, manually whisk oil, eggs, vanilla extract, agave nectar until well blended. Add pineapple and banana. Whisk until well combined.


4. Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and gently mix until all the flour is wet.


5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.


6. Let cool in the pan. Run a knife around the pan and cut into squares.

Coffee Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I went out for lunch with a group of friends last weekend at a place with a prospect of 2 hours wait. I was told it's the best pizza in NY called Di Fara. So we took a train almost all the way to Coney Island. Got there. Fought the crowd. Placed our order of 3 pies. And waited.... and waited... and waited....

Good thing I came prepared with these jumbo and hearty muffins.



Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oil


• 1/2 cup apple sauce


• 1 egg


• 1 cup sugar


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 3 ripe bananas - mashed


• 1 tablespoon instant espresso


• 1 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup wholewheat flour


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a muffin pan with a nonstick spray.


2. Combine all purpose flour, wholewheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.


3. Whisk oil, apple sauce, egg, sugar, vanilla extract, coffee and mashed bananas together until well blended.


4. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.


5. Fold in chocolate chips.


6. Drop the batter into greased muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes. Let cool int the pan.

Quinoa Pudding with Banana

New food. Some grains called Quinoa. It supposedly is very high in protein and fiber. It must be good for me. I must try. The box's instructions suggested using it instead of rice. So I'm making rice pudding - but with Quinoa.

Rice pudding.

With all the eggs and cream, that would defeat the health benefit of any super grains, wouldn't it? I wanted to make something that I can have for breakfast - not for dessert. So I must substitute. I started from this rice pudding recipe from Simple Recipes which already sounded five times healthier than most of the recipes I found on the Internet.

And I got this - my new favourite breakfast:



Ingredients

• 1/3 cup cleaned Quinoa


• 1 cup water


• 1 cup soy milk


• 1 egg


• 3 tablespoons Agave nectar


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1 banana

Directions

1. Boil Quinoa in a cup of water in a saucepan for about 10 minutes or until the grains are almost cooked and water reduces.


2. Reduce heat to low and add soy milk. Cook for about 10 minutes more. Stir occasionally.


3. In a small bowl, beat egg with Agave nectar and vanilla extract and add to the saucepan. Stir vigorously until all the ingredients combined. Cook for a few minutes more.


4. Sprinkle ground cinnamon over the pudding and stir to combined.


5. Cut the banana into small pieces and stir into the pudding. Make 2 - 3 servings.

Very Low Fat Pineapple Banana Bread

Or oooops! I forgot to put oil in my bread. I was intending to make Pineapple Banana Cake from the book Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too by Susan G. Purdy but ended up changing a lot of things in the recipe. And then I forgot to add 1/4 cup of oil into the batter.

Although I didn't get a cake, I got a very nice - moist - not too sweet - and hearty bread. The fact that it's very very low in fat (from 1 egg) and has no sugar added (sweetness from pineapple and its juice and agave nectar) makes it the yummiest and healthiest cake I have ever baked. I'm going to keep this recipe and make it many many more times.



Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups wholewheat flour


• 1/4 cup ground flax seed


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1 egg and 2 egg whites


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1/3 cup agave nectar


• 1 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple in its own juice


• 1 large banana - mashed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a loaf pan with parchment paper.


2. Whisk flour, flax seed, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together.


3. In a separate bowl, whisk an egg and two egg whites, vanilla extract, agave nectar until well blended.


4. Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and gently mix. Fold in pineapple and banana.


5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.


6. Let cool in the pan. Run a knife around the bread and pop out.

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Banana Cinnamon Muffin

Now that I feel a leeeetle bit healthier. I need to bake. These very very brown bananas need to be baked. So I looked for banana muffin recipes and decided to bake these Banana Crumb Muffins from AllRecipes.com. According to all kinds of reviews on the site - these muffins are supposedly amazing. The problem is that - of course - I altered the recipe. I also misread the recipe - putting 1/8 cup of cinnamon in the crumb part instead of 1/8 teaspoon..... :P My goddamn oven also heat to 400 degrees when I set it to 375 degrees....

So here I have banana cinnamon muffins... that look almost inedible...



Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour


• 1/4 cup oat bran


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/3 cup vegetable oil


• 1 egg


• 3 bananas - mashed


• 1/3 cup brown sugar


• 2 tablespoon cinnamon - ummm supposed to use only 1/8 teaspoon


• 2 tablespoon all purpose flour


• 2 tablespoon butter - supposed to be 1 tablespoon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin pan with 9 muffin liners.


2. combine all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl.


3. Beat oil, egg and banana together in a small bowl until well combined.


4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.


5. Drop the batter into muffin pan.


6. In a clean small bowl, combine brown sugar, cinnamon and all purpose flour. Cut in butter. Crumble by hands. Sprinkle on top of muffin batter.


7. Bake for 20 minutes.

I'll see tomorrow how they come out....

Banana Blueberry Muffins

These muffins don't look pretty - they didn't dome like normal muffin recipes - and they are supposed to be healthy - the original recipe at Epicurious.com calls them Healthy Blueberry and Banana Muffins. They turned out not bad. Very moist - not too sweet - not too rubbery like the usual low-fat recipes. Plus I don't feel too guilty eating them because they are "healthy"....



Ingredients
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup wholewheat flour
1/4 cup oat bran
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil to increase its health factor - maybe this is why the muffins sink?)
1 egg
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries - defrosted
zest and juice from 1 lemon

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line muffin pan with liners.
1. Whisk dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Mix bananas, soy milk, oil, egg and lemon together in a separate bowl.
3. Stir the second bowl into the first. Fold in blueberries.
4. Bake for 20 minutes and let cool.

Black and White Banana Bread

This banana bread is awesome. I whipped it up - stuck it into the oven - went out to dinner - came back to this wonderful smell of baked banana and cocoa and perfectly baked cake/bread. I would name this recipe out-for-dinner-marble-banana-bread.



Got recipe from Culinary in the Desert. Just didn't put nutmeg because I don't like nutmeg. Didn't put lemon zest and juice because I was too lazy to grate a lemon.... I was going to just pour the batter half and half and let them mix because I was too lazy to spoon. Fortunately, my wonderful neighbor (also my dinner companion that night) didn't let me and helped me spoon the batter into baking pan. She's the only reason the cake came out wonderfully marble-y...