TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread and Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

Oh holy cow! Am I a slacker or what? Please bear with me, it's getting to the make-or-break part of summer... the part where I question whether I am truly cut out for motherhood. Or at least summer break.

Yea, yea, enough whining, you say. We're all in the same boat here, right? So let's get on with it... last week for Tuesdays with Dorie, Natalie of Oven Love selected Oatmeal Breakfast Bread.

The week before, Katrina of Baking and Boys picked Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream.


Both recipes were fantastic! Thanks so much to Natalie and Katrina for the excellent picks.

You want to hear what a knucklehead I am? I actually left the oatmeal out of the the Oatmeal Breakfast Bread. Derrrrrr! Totally spaced it out... as in, I didn't even measure it out and forget it on the counter this time... I totally missed it as a component of this recipe.

Somehow it still came out awesome... moist and spicy and totally addictive.

And the chocolate ice cream... so tasty! The caramel and mini M&M's made for a serious sugar rush.

OK, that's it for now. I'm going to try to get some pics posted next week of our vacation to Northern Ohio and (according to my kids) the most awesome amusement park EVER!



Please visit the awesome ladies' websites for the recipes, or find yourself a copy of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

There are some weeks at Tuesday's with Dorie that feel like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders. Where one bad decision could upset the balance of nature. Like this week, where TWD bakers the world over wrestled with the age-old question, "do chocolate and bananas really go together?"

One look at this deep, dark, chocolatey bread and I can hear you saying "what bananas?"


Oh, they're there all right... exactly as dictated by this week's TWD recipe, Cocoa-Nana Bread, chosen by Steph of Obsessed with Baking.

Yep, I decided to defer the decision and potentially life-altering results by baking the recipe exactly as written.

Thank goodness.

I thought this bread was fantastic, very chocolatey with just the right hint of banana flavor. Moist too. (You should try it toasted, with butter... oy vay!)

Here's the one thing I did change up... I down-sized my loaf pan and made half batch. (I thought I was very clever, until I remembered that I stole this idea from Audax Artifex, a Daring Baker.)

Anyway, check this out, it's cool...

I took a piece of cardboard and cut it down to the same size as a cross-section of my pan (or just a tiny bit larger, so it will stay put), then wrapped it in foil.


I wedged it into the pan so it made two equal sized sections.


Then I lined the pan with parchment so the batter wouldn't leak underneath the wall.


I scooped my half-batch of batter into one side, and then wedged something in the other side to keep my cardboard wall from scooting over under the weight of the batter (a small cake pan, in this case).


Then I baked as normal. It seemed to take as much time as a full size loaf would have.

And voila! A perfect little cube of cocoa-nana bread!


OK, you'll have to excuse me while I go pour a big glass of cold milk and pop a thick slice of this cocoa-licious bread into the toaster.

Until next week... you can find the recipe at Steph's blog or Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking: From my Home to Yours".

TWD: Black and White Banana Loaf

I wanted to title this post “Only My Body is Getting Older”.

I can almost hear you asking “what the devil does that have to do with this week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe?” (This week's recipe is Black and White Banana Loaf, chosen by Ashlee of "A Year in the Kitchen".)


You see, I was going to write about the fact that I recently rejoined the work force after a 7 year stint as “chief-cook-and-bottle-washer” (i.e. professional mom). And how I finally got to take sweets in to *my* work. And how I got to act all humble and say “aw shucks, it was nuthin” when everyone oohed and aahed about how scrumptious the banana loaf was.


But then I got to thinking about how long I’d been away from work and how long I'd worked before that and I made a startling revelation. Startling, I tell you! I don’t know how this happened...

I started my career 20 YEARS AGO!!!

20. Years. Ago.


If you’re young enough to have never made this type of declaration, let me clue you in… the next thought immediately following is something along the lines of “When did I get OLD?!??!” Years of denial came to a screeching halt. old, Old, OLD… NESS... at my doorstep.

Sigh.


My grandma once said, when she was near the end of her life, that she always felt the same age inside. Now I understand what she was talking about. I think my mind’s age is 30-something. Not 20-something, because much of that decade seemed a time of growth and change (or turmoil and struggle, depending on how you look at it).


OK, OK, enough of the drama queen bit. I’m actually OK with being 40-something. I finally feel comfortable and at ease with myself. I’m not really that upset that I’m not a gorgeous young babe anymore (BWA, HA, HA, slapping hand on table).

Anyway, I don’t even remember what my point was… oh yes… banana loaf.


You can see the pictures I took as I layered the plain and chocolate banana cake batter, above. I didn’t run my knife through the batter afterwards because I wanted to see what it would look like without.

I could see baking batch after batch of this, just to see how the patterns turn out!


Quite a few of my fellow bakers said that their batter was runny and that layering was difficult. My experience was the opposite... I thought the batter was thick. I can only guess that batter consistency depended on the size of bananas used. Maybe?

I followed the directions to a T, even though I kept stopping as I went… “bananas… chocolate… rum?... nut-MEG? LEMON!? Together!?!” But I stuck with it. In the end, I'm not sure I would classify this as banana dessert. To me, the rum was the most prominent flavor, with the nutmeg and chocolate following close behind. I thought it tasted good... kind of a chocolate goes tropical kind of flavor.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what my work mates thought of the banana bread… I forgot to bring it in. (30-something year-old mind, my butt! It’s probably closer to 100! LOL)

So that's that!

Up next week is Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. Until then, please stop by Tuesdays with Dorie to find out how the other bakers fared with their banana loaf.