Challenge No 9 - Good Old Fashioned Banana Bread

Month 9 - September
Blog 9 - The Crafty Blog Stalker http://www.thecraftyblogstalker.com/
Recipe 9- Banana Bread Recipe Grandmas Banana Bread

What to do with a bowl full of over ripe bananas?? What better thing to do then bake them up into something scrumptious! I went delving into the big wide world of the web and found myself a scrumpdiddali-umptcious recipe to trial...

My words of wise and wonderful advise would be to definitely use over ripe (black) bananas and the darkest brown sugar you can find, otherwise you will get a very white and much less appealing cake.

Banana Bread

4 Over-ripe Bananas (I used 5-6)
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Butter - melted
2 Eggs
2 cups Plain (All Purpose) Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda (Powder)
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 cup chopped Walnuts (I only used 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup but feel free to use more)

Preheat your oven to 180 (350) degrees. 

Peel your bananas and add them all into your mixer and mix them up very well, so that they are complete mush!  You can also do this by hand and the first stage of bananas I actually use a fork.

Next add the brown sugar, melted butter and eggs and mix until completely blended or whipped.

Then sift in your flour, baking soda and cinnamon, along with your vanilla for balance (any style of vanilla is fine I use a dark extract from mexico).  Crush your walnuts roughly and stir them by hand into the mixture.

Grease and flour a loaf pan, pour your mixture into the pan.  Sprinkle the top of the wet mixture with some  additional crushed walnuts.

Place into the oven and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean, I was checking it from 45/50 minutes.

Once ready, remove and allow to cool.... if you can... we started eating it within ten minutes and it was soooo delicious!

The Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap 2012 ... continued - My 3 Blogger's Cookies Received

As per my 12th December post on The Great Food Bloggers Cookie Swap 2012, I took part in the Cookie Swap again this year, and I received all 3 dozen of my cookies from 3 absolutely fabulous Bloggers.

They all tasted delicious, which I was thrilled to share with my partner and family over Chrissie, I want to take this opportunity to thank the bakers for their goodies, each one came in a uniquely gorgeous packaging from boxes to tins and made the whole experience really fantastic!

Here is a rundown on what I received this year and the links to the wonderful recipes you can try at home.

1st Cookie Swap Package :

From Manuela Zangara at http://www.manusmenu.com/

Baked me : Chocolate Cookies with an Orange and Mint Glaze

Find her recipe here : http://www.manusmenu.com/chocolate-cookies-with-orange-and-mint-glaze

 

 

 

 

 

 

2nd Cookie Swap Package :

Muppy at http://muppyat.blogspot.com.au/

Baked me : Strawberry & Rhubarb Spiral Shortbread

Find her recipe here : http://muppyat.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/strawberry-and-rhubarb-spiral-shortbread.html



 

3rd Cookie Swap Package :

Catie at http://www.sweetlybakedperth.blogspot.com.au/

Baked me : Espresso Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Find her recipe here : http://www.sweetlybakedperth.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-great-food-blogger-cookie-swap.html

I also received a lovely letter telling me all about Catie, her adventures, ambitions and the cookies.  By the time I finished the letter I felt like we were old friends/penpals.

I hope I have done all your cookies justice in my photo skills, I have definately improved on the photography and editing skills this year.  And Ive been lucky enough to receive a new lens, filter and tripod from my brother for Chrissie so things are going onwards and upwards!  Looking forward to seeing you all in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap of 2013!!!

I sent my Gingerbread Nutcrackers out to the following Food Bloggers :

Julie from http://gourmetgetaways.com.au/2012-great-food-blogger-cookie-swap/

Sara from http://bellyrumbles.com/2012/12/great-food-blogger-cookie-swap-2012-slice-bake-cookie-recipe/

V Vien Lee from http://wedarefood.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-great-food-blogger-cookie-swap-2012.html#comment-form

Turkey Leftovers??

What do you do with your leftover Turkey after Christmas?

I love turkey, I don't know about you but I wait all year for Christmas just for the Turkey, I usually have a pre-christmas feast with my besties and their families just so I can Roast up a whole Turkey!

After Christmas I eat it none stop on sandwiches, and I'm very Australia, smothering it in tomato sauce to boot!

But the other thing I LUURRRRVE to do with leftover Turkey is to make this little number up for finger food.  I did just that last night for New Years Eve to have with cocktails....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What you Need:

• Leftover Turkey meat
• Lavosh or Water Crackers
• Cranberry Sauce (or jelly)
• Brie Cheese
• Alfalfa Sprouts

Using a large platter, layer it up!

Challenge No 8 - Tangled / Rapunzel Cake and Dessert Table

My 3year old's best friend, Miss Lucy turned 3 and after catching sight of one of Marley's birthday cakes we had with my family, she wanted nothing else than a Rapunzel themed birthday party. So I set out to fulfil that wish for her.

Unfortunately her licensed Table cloth, plates, napkins and banner didn't arrive and got lost in the mail, that have resent it but that arrived a month late.... so now I have spares for the next Tangled Party! Any takers?

CAKE

The cake was the most fun to create.  I made it in 3 coloured layers, flavouring each layer to match
Mauve - Grape
Yellow - Lemon
Pink - Raspberry

Put together with double lemon buttercream (in lilac).  And the tower was created using chocolate cupcakes, with 2 skewers holding them together on top of the cake. The piped the mauve buttercream all over to blend them together.  I printed off some edible icing sheets with images that i used such as Rapunzel in the window on the tower.  The roof of the tower was a miniature ice cream cone, and then coated in Candy Melts and covered it in purple Wilton jumbo sprinkles.  I then piped out all of the green with the grass tip. And the name was made from fondant with cutters.

COOKIES

I decided to go with a sun/star shape that resembled the symbol in the movie for the "lost princess", I kept them simple as I was making the entire dessert table contents, so I just covered them in mauve fondant. I printed off two different Tangled images onto edible icing discs and adhered them to the fondant and then sprinkled in gold edible glitter for effect and tied them in cello bags.

JELLY + MARSHMALLOW CUPS

I just made a simple creaming soda flavoured jelly in a 3 litre container/bowl, set it for 6 hours (preferably overnight) and then diced it up and filled some mauve crystal plastic dishes for added princess sparkle.  I topped each dish with a scoop of marshmallow topping and added matching sprinkles.

CUPCAKES

I adapted a recipe from a great blog, called Always With Butter.

RECIPE:
1 1/4 cups Plain (all purpose) Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp All Spice
1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups Castor Sugar
6 Tbsp Butter - melted and cooled
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Pumpkin Puree
1/3 cup Water

Preheat oven to 180 (or 350) degrees. Line cupcake pan with wrappers.

Sift all the dry ingredients into a medium bowl and set aside.  Place butter and sugar in mixing bowl and cream using mixer on medium.  Add in an egg at a time to the mixer, then the vanilla and beat it well.

Add the pumpkin puree (I make my own from fresh pumpkin and boil it in saucepan of water until it is soft enough to put through a food processor and liquefy) and mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients in three parts to wet mixture until just mixed through. Do not over beat.

Spoon mixture into cupcake papers, filling approx  two thirds full.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 12-20 small cupcakes or 12 large (muffin size) cupcakes.