Autumn in Pennsylvania is beautiful, I couldn't resist taking a picture of leaves that looked like they were flames in a fireplace. I love it! Some blog news for Bunny's Warm Oven...I put a nifty little tool on the comments that allows you to post a picture of your latest delicious creation. Please use it and show me what you've got!! I love to see them! Carol, Cyndy and I have 3 recipes that we hope you'll enjoy. Carol made Pumpkin Spice Zucchini Bread, Cyndy made a coffee and gelato drink called Affogato, and I made a Banana Cake with Chocolate Frosting.
It's a sugar post and we're knee deep in it! Enjoy!
Banana and chocolate for me, is a match made in heaven. The flavors alone are wonderful... together they make my mouth do a happy dance.
I made the banana cake recipe from Allrecipes.com , and the chocolate frosting came from Hershey Chocolate.
I made this for our weekly family dinner. As I stood watching my brothers, their wives and my mom take their first bites of the cake, I asked if they liked it? With their mouths full, nodding their heads with mmmmm hhmmmmms they gave it a thumbs up. This is indeed an A Number 1 Banana Cake. So, what did they think of the frosting ? They couldn't believe how smooth and soft it was. Thank you, Hershey Chocolate, for another great recipe! This one came off the back of the cocoa can. The butter for the frosting is melted before adding the dry ingredients, which made for a wonderful frosting, I'll be using it again.
As I said, chocolate and banana are a match made in heaven, and these two recipes together are perfect!
A Number 1 Banana Cake
Allrecipes.com
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 2 - 8 inch round pans. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in the bananas. Add flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk to the creamed mixture. Stir in chopped walnuts. Pour batter into the prepared pans.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and place on a damp tea towel to cool.
"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING
Hershey Chocolate
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.
Bunny had sent me a recipe for Affogato quite a while back. I kept it in my files thinking I would make it soon. Don't know why I waited and then forgot all about it The subject came up in a conversation about coffee drinks that were different and unusual. It sounded so good that I was thinking about it most of the day. I had purchased some Coconut Creamer for my morning coffee & I thought it was really good so when I found the Carribean Coconut Gelato at the market I thought it would make a great flavor combination with the espresso. Creamy Coconut and Starbucks Via Bold, I had a taste of the tropics right in my coffee cup!
Now knowing my penchant for twisting, the drink wouldn't be complete with only one little twist so I added another. A nice dose of Trader Vic's Macadamia Nut Liqueur to the whipping cream. Oh was that good. If you're looking for a drink with less calories, this one surely isn't, but it is a nice way to treat yourself to something special after a long hard day.
Affogato
Adapted from: Giada De Laurentiis, Foodnetwork.com
4 servings.
Ingredients
1/3 cup cold whipping cream
1/2 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon espresso powder
1 pint chocolate gelato or ice cream
1 Tbsp. Macadamia Nut Liqueur
Directions
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream in a medium bowl, adding 1 Tbsp. Macadamia Nut liqueur, beating until soft peaks form. Cover and refrigerate the whipped cream.
Whisk the boiling water and espresso powder in a 1 cup glass measuring cup until the powder is dissolved, or use an espresso machine to make 4 shots of espresso. Scoop 1/2 cup of the gelato or ice cream into each of 4 dessert bowls or glasses. Pour 2 tablespoons or 1 shot of hot espresso over each. Top with the whipped cream and serve immediately.
I love pumpkin all year round, but when fall arrives, I really have the urge to bake with it.
I always pick up zucchini when grocery shopping, since we love it cooked so many ways. The Jell-O Pumpkin Spice instant pudding is now on the grocery shelves, so I bought a few of those, thinking along the line of adding it to a cake mix.......that's when a pumpkin zucchini bread idea started rolling around in my brain.
The pumpkin pudding mix tastes more like gingerbread than pumpkin to me, and I knew I wanted the pumpkin flavor to shine through in the bread. I've read that pumpkin is a fat replacer in baking so I thought, why not cut down the amount of oil in the recipe and replace it with pumpkin? It will lighten the bread and give me the flavor I want.
I took one of my favorite zucchini bread recipes, added some new ingredients, subtracted a few others and came up with what Bob declares a WINNER. The bread is moist, tasty, and the addition of the cinnamon chips leave little pockets of melted spicy goodness. It's a "Slice of Fall" for me. Another plus...the bread freezes really well too.
I'm going to be making more of this soon....I bet it would even be wonderful made into muffin.......what a great grab and go breakfast. Hmmmmmmmmm.....here comes some more ideas....now to find the time to get back into my "laboratory"!
Carol
In a medium bowl, beat eggs until light; add sugar and mix well. Whisk in extracts, oil and pumpkin until well mixed; stir in zucchini. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and instant pudding mix; make a well in the center. Add the zucchini mixture along with the pecans and cinnamon chips; stir until dry ingredients are just moistened-do not over mix.
Divide batter between 2 greased 9x5-inch loaf pans or 6 greased 5x3-inch mini loaf pans.
Bake @ 350 degrees 1 hour for regular size loaves, 35-45 minutes for mini loaves, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cool in pans or 20 minutes; run a knife around the edge of each loaf, remove loaves to wire rack and cool completely. Freezes very well.
