Nanner Nanner Nanner Bread

When it comes to baking, I don't have a lot of my "own" recipes.. most of them I've found on the internet, or gotten from a friend or family member. I might make a few changes or substitutions to suit my tastebuds, but generally I don't have many recipes that I can call my own.  This recipe, however, is all mine.

I played around with a lot of different banana bread recipes and took the parts of each that I liked to put them all together into the PERFECT banana bread. Mine is moist, full of banana flavor, and chock full of  crunchy walnuts.
And to make it even better, mine has no oil or butter, and you can use white whole wheat flour if you choose for added fiber content. (I do and you cannot tell the difference.)

The key is unsweetened applesauce. Actually, I use applesauce a lot, whether I'm baking or making baby food - it's really a great ingredient. It easily replaces oil or butter in just about any baking recipe, and you really cannot taste the difference. Plus it tends to add a nice moisture to baked goods.


Jane's Nanner Nanner Nanner Bread
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
1/4 c. milk
1 c. white flour & 2/3 c. whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
3 ripe bananas (or more)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
Optional - 1/4 tsp. almond extract

Preheat 350 degree oven. Grease a loaf pan.
Beat sugars and applesauce until well-blended. Add eggs, milk, bananas, & vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients until just moistened. Bake for 45-60 minutes. I tend to go more towards 45.

Hope you enjoy!
Also.. if you have anything specific that you would like to see me make, feel free to make suggestions! I'm always open to new ideas.

Food Porn Friday

I promised a little food porn every Friday, so here we are.

 A fully homemade strawberry shortcake. No I did not buy those little cakes at the grocery store. I made this shortcake from scratch, as well as the whipped cream. Mid-way through making said shortcake, I was cursing myself for being the type of person who can't go to the store and just buy the damn cake. That's because not only was the recipe kind of a pain in the ass, it really didn't turn out that great. Maybe I'm just bitter because as I was scooping the dough-balls onto the pan.. this happened.

That was my 1/3 measuring cup.. broken. Awesome.
Anyway, eventually I'll detail the shortcake recipe, once I find one that I really enjoy. Until then, stare at this one and pretend it tasted amazing.
Also... check me out on Monday cause I'll be making my very own banana bread recipe, which happens to contain no oil or butter, and is full of fiber.

Bringing up a baby foodie

I never thought I'd be the kind of mom who makes their own baby food. Even a few months ago, I thought, Eh.. the stuff in the jar is just as good. But.. I think, would I eat that?? Usually, the answer is no. It looks kinda nasty. I also realized, I can make my own that tastes just as good, for a lot less cost and less waste (I know, it's kinda granola, blame my Colorado roots.)

So, once a week I'm going to try and feature a yummy baby food combo that you moms out there can easily make yourselves. Today, I am making a spinach, pear, apple puree that G absolutely adores. It doesn't take much, just a food processor and 3 ingredients:

 1/2 pear + 1/3 bag spinach sauteed in a little olive oil until wilted + 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce =

 I won't lie.. it doesn't look very appetizing. But it actually tastes pretty good, and G likes it. (Not that this is surprising. You don't get those thighs by skipping meals.)

There's a difference between health-y and health-ier

These delicious Triple Chocolate Chunk cookies - are the latter. As a relatively healthy eater with a severe sweet tooth, I do everything I can to try and make my treats a tiny bit better for you. That's not to say that nutrition trumps taste. No.. if that were the case, I'd be making spinach cookies that no one wanted to eat. But if you can save even a few calories here and there without sacrificing taste, then I'm all for it.

I first saw this recipe on the now-defunct Food Network show Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger. Of course, that's not on anymore because she couldn't compete with Paula Deen and her 13 sticks of butter. And, to be honest, I made a few of her recipes and they were pretty.. eh. But these cookies are a standout.

Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1/4 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. canola oil
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 c. coarsely chopped dark chocolate (3 oz.)
1/3 c. coarsely chopped milk chocolate (I use chocolate chips)
2/3 c. coarsely chopped pecans (I like to use walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350.
In large bowl, mash butter and sugars with a fork. Add oil & egg, beat til creamy. Add vanilla.
In medium bowl, whisk together flours, cocoa, salt. I like to use 1 cup of white whole-wheat flour, rather than 1/2 c. of white and 1/2 of wheat. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well.

For my dark chocolate, I like to use a bar of 70% cacao.

In lieu of milk chocolate, I just chop up some semi-sweet chocolate chips. And lastly, mix in the nuts, whatever kind you like (I prefer walnuts and they are great for you.)

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 12 minutes.. and there you have it, a healthier cookie that's super rich and chocolate-y. They don't spread a whole lot, so you just kind of have to go by feel as to when they are done.

Now you can eat your dessert, AND feel good about it. :-)

Food Porn Friday

I hereby declare today, and every Friday henceforth, "Food Porn Friday"!

Food porn is a provocative term variously applied to a spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media, foods boasting a high fat and calorie content, exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or the glorification of food ...

Last week, my amateur chef of a husband cooked up this delight. A juicy grilled filet mignon, oven-roasted rosemary potato crisps, and baked spaghetti squash with olive oil and parmesan. It was quite tasty, in case you were wondering.
Also, in case you have nothing else to look forward to this weekend...

 I'll be showing you how to make these not only delicious, but heart-healthy triple chocolate chunk cookies. :-)

Strawberry cupcakes forever...

Nothing says summer quite like a ripe, juicy red strawberry. You know the kind that are red alllll the way through and deliciously sweet without anything on them? Well luckily, here in LA you can find strawberries like that practically all year long.

Great, right? It almost makes up for the traffic. (I said almost.)
So, speaking of traffic, we were invited to a friend's house in Malibu for dinner last Sunday. I have a love-hate relationship with Malibu. Sure it's gorgeous and all that, but the traffic to get there always puts me in such a sucky mood that it's really hard to like such a place. Do the celebrities who live there helicopter in? Is that why they like it??

Anyway, so I offered to bring dessert (don't I always?) and since I had these gorgeous strawberries on hand, decided to make strawberry-vanilla cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese frosting. Everything tastes better with cream cheese frosting, trust me on this.

The recipe was adapted from Sprinkles cupcakes, which is kinda like the cadillac of cupcakeries.

2/3 c. fresh strawberries, pureed
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 c. whole milk (I used 1%)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg, room temp
2 egg whites, room temp

Sift dry ingredients and whisk.
In small bowl, mix milk, vanilla, and about 1/3 c. strawberry puree. (You'll have a bit left over.)
Cream butter on med. high speed til light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and beat til fluffy. Reduce speed to medium & slowly add egg & egg whites until just blended.

With mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add milk mixture. Slowly add remaining flour mixture. I stirred in a few fresh chopped strawberries for fun.

Bake 22-25 minutes at 350 degrees or until they feel just done to the touch.

Once cooled, you can add the cream cheese strawberry frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, cold
5 tbsp butter, room temp
2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 c. powdered sugar
2 tbsp. fresh strawberry puree

Beat top 3 ingredients together until well combined. Gradually add sugar as you continue beating. Lastly, stir in vanilla & strawberry puree.

These were a HIT at the dinner party. There were none left. The cake is rather dense, but I enjoy it that way. It's all a matter of taste, I guess. Enjoy!

Would you believe they are magic..?

I love a good cupcake. It's the perfect self-contained dessert - no cutting, no figuring out how much of it you should eat - it just comes in one heavenly little package. I like to consider myself a bit of a cupcake connoisseur. I mean, I TiVo Cupcake Wars.. that's enough, right? I wish I could understand that middle judge, but whatever, that's another story.

Anyway, so as I was surfing other cupcake blogs, I came across the Cupcake Queen. She has some fabulous recipes on her site. I found myself drooling over these. MAGIC CUPCAKES! Basically, if you're familiar with magic cookie bars, kind of the same deal, but in cupcake form. Graham cracker crust, melted chocolate, and toasted coconut.. how can you go wrong?

So, although my trusty baking assistant was napping in his crib, I set out to make these so-called "magical" cupcakes. First, melt 1 stick of butter with 1-1/4 cup crushed graham crackers. Easy enough.

Line your cupcake tin with muffin liners and spray with a good coating of Pam. Press a little bit into each muffin liner, until it's all gone (this should make 12 cupcakes).

Pour one 14 oz can of condensed milk over your crumbs, dividing it equally among the 12.

 
Now it's time for the chocolate. Sprinkle 12 oz of chocolate chips (1-1/2 cups) next, divided equally.

Lastly, top them with 1-1/3 cup of coconut flakes, and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.

They should come out gorgeous and crispy on top. 

Downright magical. They are delicious right out of the oven, however, they do take about 24 hours to set properly. So they don't come out of the wrapper very well on day 1. Hope you enjoy!
Stay tuned for some more deliciousness later this week... I got a little something yummy I'm cooking up!

My partner in crime

I know I said this blog was going to be about MY culinary adventures, but since this is my blog and I can do what I want with it, I'm going to expand it to include my favorite chef, my husband. Okay so he's not really a chef but he cooks like one, I swear. I do all the baking, but how hard is that? I pretty much just find a good recipe and follow it, maybe making a few substitutions.

But my husband - he can make something he's never made before, with no recipe, and it will be amazing. No matter how much I might doubt, he (almost) always pulls it off. Like last night.. just your average Tuesday night. Here's what I sat down to:

What do you do with leftovers from your weekend fiesta? You make homemade salmon tacos, of course. Authentic corn tortillas from the farmer's market, fresh grilled salmon, top it with homemade guacamole, a homemade corn & tomato salsa, a little red cabbage, cilantro, and of course you can't have fish tacos without a delicious white sauce, HOMEMADE thank you very much. Do you think my husband needs a recipe for all this? Nope.. he just threw together a little sour cream, jalapeno, cumin, and cayenne and voila! A creamy complement to an amazing fish taco. And this was just a typical Tuesday night. I love a man who can cook. :-)

Is this thing on?

I'm not really sure who will be reading this blog, or even if I'll share it with friends, but anyhow, if you've made it here well then.. welcome to Jane's Dough. I loooove to bake. And even more than baking.. I love to eat. I love to see the looks on my friends' faces when I share my treats with them and they love them just as much as I do. So here I'll be sharing my adventures in dough, with all of you!

Yesterday, we had some friends over to celebrate the first week in our new house. We chose a Mexican Fiesta theme, so of course I wanted to make some sort of Latin dessert. My husband suggested churros, but I really wasn't interested in deep frying anything, so I started searching for the perfect oven-baked churro. Thank god for the internet, because you can find just about ANYTHING.

So here it is.. the recipe was relatively easy. Maybe half an hour of actual work, but a signifcant amount of baking time (worth it, promise):
http://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/99419/baked-churro-munchies/


They turned out AMAZING - no deep fryer required. And paired with a creamy, delicious chocolate sauce - watch out!

Needless to say, they went over well. Maybe cause they were delightful, or possibly because we consumed numerous margaritas. Either way, they come highly recommended. Stay tuned - the culinary adventures are just beginning..