Tag Archives: recipe

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

We had a bunch of leftover bread at work a couple weeks ago… I took it home and froze it. So when I had two almost disgustingly ripe bananas last night — bread pudding! Woo!

Preheat the oven to 350F

Custard mixture:
2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
4 eggs

Bread:
Slice (into 1/2in-ish cubes) enough bread to fill (but not heaping) a 9in pie dish
Toast briefly if your bread came out of the freezer (Since it’s probably a little soggy…)

Chocolate:
3/4 c semi sweet chocolate chips

Assembly:
Dunk all the bread in the custard, then fish pieces out to make one layer in the pie dish. Sprinkle chocolate chips. Slice the bananas and make a layer of banana (use up all the banana). Then another layer of bread (which should finish all the bread), then sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips over and bake!

Bake until set and slightly browned. Or an internal temp of ~160F.
The little pockets of custard near the surface took longer to cook for me, so most of it got to 180F before those hit a food-safe temperature.

Fruit Galette

Here is one very blown out picture of a fruit galette. This is what I get for focusing on the filling, which happens to be very dark.

1 pie crust (I’m lazy and use premade ones)
2 tsp cornstarch
~1/4 c sugar (I usually do more like 3/4ths of the 1/4c, but I’m not very precise…)
splash of vanilla
fruit (I like peaches, berries and even pears, usually approximately 1 peach/pear + 1-2c berries)

Mix up the fruit, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla. Let sit for a few minutes. I like using some sliced fruit, since those release liquid.

Roll out your crust, mound the fruit mix in the center, then fold up the crust.

Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake at 375F until the crust looks done. Usually 35-45 minutes for me.

Buttermilk Pound Cake

My usual buttermilk poundcake recipe calls for shortening, which I didn’t have — so I tried this recipe instead. It was delicious — moist on the inside, and slightly crispy on the outside.

I’m going to have to make both side-by-side one of these days to compare. A war of the buttermilk-pound-cakes!

Slightly Modified Poundcake: (because I’m sloppy and was trying to find a middle ground with the other recipe)
3c flour, sifted
1/4tsp baking soda
1/2tsp salt

1c butter
2.5c white sugar *different from original recipe
6 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
1c buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease your pan well. The recipe lists a 9-10c tube pan, which I think is traditional. I did a loaf pan + 1 6c bundt
2. Mix the dry ingredients together
3. Cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs one by one. Stir in vanila
4. Alternately mix in flour and buttermilk into the butter mixture
5. Bake in preheated oven. Mine took about 70 minutes for both to be done. Likely longer if using a single larger pan.
6. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack

Focaccia Cake

I made a focaccia in a cake tin, thus the focaccia cake title.

I made one batch of Serious Eats pizza dough, refrigerated it overnight, then left it out on the counter all day. Then baked it in the pie tin with a generous helping of olive oil and topped with parmesan, sea salt, crushed chili flakes and other herbs. Baked at 450F for about 15 minutes — and tada! Chewy but crispy focaccia. It is a little thick though.

Ben’s Apple Waffles

2 apples, shredded with skin (Granny Smiths and Red Delicious work well)
1/2c butter (1 stick) melted
2c flour
1tbsp baking powder
2tsp sugar
1tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup of milk
1tsp vanilla

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, with the apples. Then add all the wet ingredients.

Cooked in my waffle iron at heat setting 3, until the iron comes back up to temp.

Carrot Pancakes

Adapted from the Food Network.

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (try this with some portion whole wheat)
4 tablespoons roughly chopped pecans
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch all spice
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup packed brown or granulated sugar
1 cup milk
2 cups finely grated carrots

Mix all the dry things (and carrots), and all the wet things, in different bowls. Then mix them together. Cook in a buttered pan over medium heat, flipping when bubbles appear, pop and don’t close up.

The Food Network version also has a cream cheese frosting. I didn’t make it and instead ate them with maple syrup. I liked them — not light an fluffy like the pancakes I usually make, but flavorful and hearty, with the pecans providing some variations in texture.

Update: These also work in the waffle iron! I added 1/4c more flour and they made great waffles. Might also work without the extra flour…

Also, advice from my dad on how to crisp bacon:

Salt Crusted Fish

1 fish (two small trout in this case) — skin on
lots of salt
1 egg white per cup of salt

Mix the egg white in the salt, put a half an inch layer on the baking sheet, put the fish down, bury in an even crust of salt. Bake for 15 minutes at 450F.

The skin protects the fish from being oversalted. I seasoned the fish with all the normal seasonings, but skipped the salt. The resulting fish was well salted.

raccoon*

adventures of a cosmic procyonid