A Tale of Two Banana Nut Breads

I'm an absolutely horrible blogger, the posts coming in fits and spells.  I'd thought about doing a histiocytosis awareness post back in September when it was Histiocytosis Awareness Month.  I thought about doing another dental visit post similar to the last one.  I also thought about doing a combined post, championing histio awareness and dentistry, considering most of us adults with the disease (even in remission) seem to have a host of dental difficulties.  A recipe post on the fresh apple cake was almost written but, at the last moment, it was decided that posting it straight to the notes in FB would be a lot easier. I'd even considered writing a post on how I've gotten over food, previously my best friend, and lost 60 pounds this spring/summer/fall.   Days and weeks came and went.  Words didn't gel together.  Those five posts didn't get written.

And so it goes.  There's nothing much to tell these days, no amusing stories coming forth from Mama, no misadventures beyond taking a wrong interstate and driving completely around Birmingham, Alabama.

And it isn't that there's less free time to be a better blogger.  Free time exists.  Life gets complicated; minds get tired of thinking.  At the end of the day, I'd rather open a book and disappear into it than think another thought. Unless the book is thought provoking.  I like thought-provoking books...

Annnnyways.  I'm using a lot of words to apologize for not keeping to my own set standard of a post a week (on average).  I'll try to do better.  I will.

To kick off getting on the proverbial bandwagon, I've two recipes for Banana Nut Bread.  TWO.  Both of them start with a cake mix.  I'd been to the Pig earlier in the week and spotted a big bag of bananas in the reduced-for-quick-sale produce cart.  There must've been five pounds of bananas in the bag for a dollar.  A dollar!  Even after sharing half with Mama, there was still a huge bunch of bananas to do something with.

 Holidays are quickly approaching.  What better time to get a headstart on holiday baking?  Banana nut bread freezes very well, you know...

Except there were other cakes to be made and icing to be whipped and cardboard to be cut and covered.  I needed a recipe that wouldn't require a lot of preparation.  I googled recipes for banana nut breads and combined a couple of them to come up with two very tasty, quick and easy recipes beginning with butter cake mixes:  Pumpkin Spice Pudding Banana Nut Bread aka The One with Pudding In It, and Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread.  I didn't photograph for tutorials;  just the ingredients and finished breads.

So, without another moment's procrastination, here are the ingredients for
Pumpkin Spice Banana Nut Bread

One butter golden cake mix
Four eggs
One half cup oil
Two to three bananas - mashed
Three fourths cup of buttermilk
One box of Jello brand instant pumpkin spice pudding mix
One teaspoon vanilla
One cup nuts

Despite all the directions to combine all the wet ingredients first and then add all the dry ingredients, I absolutely dumped everything but the pecans together in the KitchenAid bowl and let it do the work all at once.  Life is easier if you plow around the stumps.  It worked a charm.  Try, yourself, and see if it doesn't.  Stir in the pecans when it's all mixed well.

Pour into two greased and floured loaf pans or a small bundt pan.

Bake at 350 for an hour or so until it's done.
                                     

Maybe I should've rechopped Mama's chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread

Five bananas - smashed

Three eggs

One butter cake mix

Eight ounces cream cheese - room temperature

One tablespoon vanilla

One cup chopped pecans

Seriously.  Just dump everything together and mix well, stirring in the pecans before pouring into two greased and floured loaf pans.

These are larger sized loaf pans 8 x 4 x 2 1/2.  If you've smaller

loaf pans, best to grease and flour one more.

Bake at 350 and hour or so until done.

At the point this was photographed, I was already well

into an insulin response over having consumed a slice of the

first banana nut bread.  It's a fuzzy photo.  My body was

feeling fuzzy and warm, too!

Both recipes yield a less bread-like i.e. dense loaf of tasty bread.  The pudding recipe, with oil in it, not to mention buttermilk, definitely is the moister of the two.  And the flavor the pumpkin spice pudding gives it is out of this world.  BUT, the cream cheese and banana-ness of the second recipe???  It's difficult to decide which recipe is the better one.

I've only found pumpkin spice pudding at WalMart.  Other food bloggers had been ranting and raving over it and I had to have it also.  It's worth tracking down, but you can use whatever pudding tickles your taste buds.  The original recipe had, of all things, instant banana pudding in it!

There.  It's a two-fer:  Two recipes for banana nut bread in one blog post after a month's slacking...

Y'all enjoy!

Exactly what IS the Blog on Fire Award???

I'm sorry.  I've not actually procrastinated getting a post done on who to pass the Blog on Fire Award to.  I know who my favorite bloggers are.  It's taken a little bit of time to look at what the award actually means and how it's transferred (or more like snowballed) forward.  It's a cool looking photo award and as quick as I can figure out how to get it on the blog and FB fan page, I'll sure stick it on there:

My friend, Chris, passed the award to me, along with nine other foodies here:   http://cookingwithkick.blogspot.com/2011/07/mud-pie-aka-chocolate-cobbler-and-award.html.  I was tickled!  It was a first.  At my age, a first anything is cause for celebration.

I went looking for Blog on Fire rules.   A google search revealed several thousand hits for the research.   Is it just a foodie award?  Is there an official award clearing house?  Are there other stipulations that go with receiving it?  It seems to be a Facebook Award folks, the excitement of receiving it from a peer (a Southern gurl like me, too!) as great as if I had received it from the President.  Or the pope.  Or even Walter Cronkite.

Some of the google search results showed a revealing "seven things:"  seven previously undisclosed bits of information about the recipient.  Some of those bloggers' information was in question and answer form.  I thought that was a bit odd as I read through them.  I kept expecting to hear Alex Trebek saying "Personal Trivia for 1,000 Mayree."  I also thought the seven things was fun, too, so here are seven little-known facts and photos about yours truly and then I'll pass on the Blog on Fire Awards:

1.  I have a dog.  He's a Labradoodle, five years old now, and his name is Beaudeux.  He's quite a clown and loves having his picture taken.

2.  Green is my favorite color.  I love it.

3.  I play the piano.  I began taking lessons when I was six years old and continued through three years of college.  I canNOT play worth a flip by ear but put a piece of music in front of me and I'll make a pretty decent show of playing/faking/getting to the end of it.

4.  I play the piano for Sunday Morning Worship Service at the church that's been a part of my life ever since I was born.  Yep.  You read right, was BORN:  Leakesville Presbyterian Church PCA.

5.  I'm an NRA certified pistol instructor (this is not a pistol, by the way). The Fellows and I participated in sport shooting for many years through the 4H Field and Stream program.  This was many years ago. I'm VERY good.  Not just for a woman, either.  This was enjoyable stuff, being able to compete in a historically male sport and best them at it.  It comes from growing up with those four brothers and doing (almost) everything they did.

6.  Most of the cheek bone and upper mandible in the left side of my face is missing, a result of the removal of several lesions caused by the rare orphan disease called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis.  When I tell you I'm warped I'm serious.  I am.  Literally...

7.  One of my favorite sounds in the whole wide world is the rain coming down on the tin roof of this old house.  I don't like rain for days and days on end the way it is in the spring but I love these afternoon summer showers.. 

Blog on Fire Awards.  I've not checked to see if these folks have been tagged with it yet or not.  If you don't know these bloggers, they're all very different from each other and entirely enjoyable in their own right.  Y'all go check them out:

Ohhhh yeah!  It's Sue Ann Gleason's Chocolate for Breakfast blog.  Are you surprised?  You shouldn't have been.  Ohhhh my!  The photos she posts!  The recipes!!!  And I actually read the articles, too!    http://www.chocolateforbreakfast.com/madeleines-au-chocolat/

Picky Palate.  I can't remember what recipe I first found on her blog, using a google search but I bookmarked the blog and keep going back to it.  This is a favorite recipe of hers that I like:

http://picky-palate.com/2011/05/16/simple-cinna-bun-butter-cakes-in-a-jar/

Rich and Sweet.  When I started the FB fan page hers was one of the first I visited.  I fell in love with the elegant but simple packaging of her food stuffs and the recipes???  She's a gourmet cook but makes it easy for even a Southern gurl like me to make, bake, and enjoy:

http://www.biasrichandsweetkitchen.com/search/label/chocolate

She's not a food blogger, but neither am I and I love her just the same.  Some of the things she gets into makes me feel like she might be a long lost twin. Go check out the often misadventures of Chris at the MN Farm Woman:

http://themnfarmwoman.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/barney/

Krysta cracks me up ALL the time.  I pulled an awesome recipe off her site a couple of years ago.  I can't remember if it was the miniature oreo cookie cheesecakes or the chocolate chip cookie dough dip but it was one of those two.  

http://www.evilchefmom.com/

If you went here you might not know her:

http://www.mynew30.com/

But if you try Deep South dish, you'd recognize the 'nother Mary of the REAL Mississippi Gulf Coast (not the  almost Gulf Coast, like me).  Her blog about being 50 and more is amusing and fun, especially when her neighbors are burning leaves, but her FOOD blog is all Mississippi all the time -- even when the Cajun's influence comes in like THIS recipe, which is one of my favorites from her:

http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2008/12/natchitoches-meat-pies.html

Christy Jordan doesn't need my Blog on Fire Award, won't know I was in the first two dozen 'likes' on Facebook, or even remember I brought her fried pickles when she was in Mobile signing her cookbook.  I'm proud of her and the way she's representing the South.  Along with the Deep South Dish, hers was the ONLY food blog I followed for several years.  This IS my all-time favorite of hers (and it's her mom's!):

http://www.southernplate.com/2008/07/how-to-make-chocolate-cobbler.html

You'll love Aimee at Shugary Sweets. I think she gets in the kitchen like I do lots of times, sees ALMOST all the stuff to make a single dish with but not ALL of it -- and comes up with something entirely different and tasty every day.  I've not made this yet but I know it's going to be awesome when I do:

http://www.shugarysweets.com/2011/07/oreo-peanut-butter-dip.html

I'm enjoying living and eating vicariously with Chef in Disguise.  Who knew an orthodontist could cook so frazzling well?  

http://thefooddoctor.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/my-signature-dip/

ANNNND lastly, but certainly not the least, Syrup and Biscuits, another Southern gurl that doesn't need another award for kitchen skills passed down from one generation of good cooks to another.  But I do love her and when she comes home for a visit, I hope she'll give a call and we'll get together in person.  

http://www.facebook.com/notes/syrup-and-biscuits/chocolate-pound-cake-with-chocolate-fudge-icing/164747096915063%22%22

I can't help that most of the recipes here tonight are chocolate, that's just the way it is.  Peruse their websites, check out the recipes and stories.  I know you're going to enjoy them!

Chocolate Curls: When nothing but awesome will do.

Chocolate is the ultimate flavor.  Have I ever mentioned I love chocolate?  Maybe once or twice?  Yep.  I even like cocoa powder.  Mama will tell you, I'll get a smidge of cocoa powder on a teaspoon and let the small amount rest on my tongue, the flavors migrating to every taste bud individually to collectively create an entire mouthful of taste. 

Years ago, when the fellows were young I had external radiation treatments where the left maxillary sinus was, after-surgery treatment for the nasty disease called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (woohoo!!! 9 years into remission).  Radiation treatment to the face that close to the ole' schnozzola entirely messes up your smelling which entirely messes up your tasting.  I spent a miserable couple of months, missing the taste of chocolate.  Forget the fatigue, migraines, and weakness from the surgery and treatments, my very soul craved to be whole again with the delightfully-earthy completely-satisfying oral sensation that chocolate is.

It only follows, since chocolate is my favorite, that the chocolate cakes made here are the absolute prettiest and best-est tasting ever. Oh, all the cakes are moist and flavorful, with made-from-scratch fillings and icings, but that chocolate one? Well.  It takes the cake, although the butter cake with lemon curd filling and cream cheese icing runs a pretty close second.  It's also the prettiest, with a layer of dark chocolate ganache and topped with as many milk chocolate curls as won't fall off.

I use milk chocolate chips for the curls.  Dark and semi-sweet chocolates don't have enough fat in them to curl very well.  They'll make tiny tight curlicues that are fine for miniature desserts but not nearly large enough to use on a proper sized cake.  You'd be shaving for forEV-ER (<--insert kid's narrative of The Beast from the movie The Sandlot here).   You can do the whole melting-chocolate-on-the-cookie-sheet for dark chocolate curls but it's a lot of work.

Chocolate is temperamental.   If it gets a drop of water in it the whole batch will seize, turning into a delicious tasting cornmeal-consistency blob of difficulty.  Your options are to try to work shortening or butter back into it and use it for something else or **ahem** disappear it right out of the measuring cup with a spoon.  To date, no one has ever seen seized chocolate in this kitchen.  Heaven forbid it gets too hot either, the muddy looking dull mess is only fit for dolloping on a scrap of cake to be offered to the first youngster to come through the kitchen. 

I like to use Nestle Milk Chocolate Chips for the curls.  For sheer consumption, Nestle is not even close to a favorite brand of milk chocolate, but it does make the prettiest curls.   I've tried every brand of chocolate chip available at WalMart and Piggly Wiggly.  Please don't suggest I try something that's not found locally.   I do the absolute possible best with what's available; if the chocolate isn't at one of those two places, it's not getting bought.  Nestle Milk Chocolate chips are put into the smallest loaf pan.

See those egg shells in the pan on the back burner? I'll use four or five dozen eggs during the course of baking any given weekend.  I rinse them and put them in the warm oven overnight and then give them a whirl in the food processor to use in the garden.  They're an incredible and effective slug killer that doesn't cost a thing.

The big SunFire oven holds at approximately 115 degrees Fahrenheit, a little warm for melting chocolate, but the pan of chips is only in there for 20 minutes.

OOOoooo... Y'all are seeing lots of stuff today.  See my very old-fashioned dripolaters?  They make the best coffee ever.  Forget the French press.  It's the Deep South - I like coffee strong and without an accent, thankyouverymuch.

Twenty minutes later, the chips come out, ready to be stirred smooth.

**giggle** That's my favorite fork, too.  I don't know where it came from, it just appeared before the fellows were born.

Pretty and smooth curls not speckled with holes from air bubbles trapped in the chocolate require a little bit of effort.  It takes a good bit of bumping the pan on a solid surface, the same as cake batter, to have the bubbles rise to the surface.

I put the warm smooth milk chocolate in the butter tray of the refrigerator to cool.  Are you feeling poorly and a little down with life at this point?  Go ahead.  Get a spoon and have a taste of warm milk chocolate.  Bless our female hearts, it IS good for what ails us!  I'm smiling just looking at it.

Pay no attention to the organic bug spray beside the milk.  A steeped concoction of garlic, onion, cayenne pepper, and I forget what other two things are in it, that odoriferous non-toxic-to-kids-and-dogs pesticide will sour in a days time if left on a shelf.  It's nasty!  If you go to the effort to make it, re-purpose a Sunny Delight jug and store it in the refrigerator.

Tadadaaaa!  A very large solid bar of milk chocolate (and a good smattering of dark chocolate ganache in the cup behind it).

This is the smallest loaf pan I have, approximately 3.5 by 7.5 inches, it holds enough chips to top the 10" square cake.  A 9 x 13 inch cake requires another half-bag of chips to adequately cover in curls.

A single solid slam on the counter will release the chocolate from the pan.  Leave it there for five minutes to warm just a bit.  If it's too cold, the chocolate will chip off and not curl.  Now grab a favorite vegetable peeler and begin shaving curls!

Milk chocolate, because of the high fat content, melts at a lower temperature than dark chocolate.  Body heat is more than sufficient to cause melting.  You'll want to continually flip the bar from one side of the chocolate to the other in the curl-shaving process.  And get a messy hand.  I always start out with wax paper around the chocolate and always end up without it.  It hinders and slows the progress.  I can deal with this chocolate-y hand.

I discovered it's difficult to take photos of one hand doing something with the other holding the camera!   There isn't a tripod here and even if there was, it'd take another month of Sundays discovering the settings on the camera to allow for the photos of both hands involved in the chocolate curling process.

The chocolate has been shaved from one side to the other down to the width where several very wide curls can finish decorating the cake.



                                        

 Here is one last messy hand photo and the remnant of the milk chocolate bar that disappeared.  Some things are just better than others - chocolate is one of those things. 

I'm of the opinion that the Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden might have been chocolate covered, chocolate being the biggest temptation since time began.  It makes perfect sense to me.  Why else would Eve have allowed a walking, talking serpent to convince her something she had walked by since Day Six was worth eviction?  That's my spin on it.


Here it is, a chocolate overload cake:  rich chocolate cake, chocolate Bavarian cream filling, chocolate butter cream icing, dark chocolate ganache, and milk chocolate curls.

And one more, just for good measure:

There have been a whole slew of bad weather systems that have torn through the South the past two weeks.  Lives have been lost, homes destroyed, and folks displaced.  If you're a praying sort of person, keep us in your prayers.   We'll 'ppreciate it!