Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread

I know I haven't blogged in forever, but I still follow all of my favorite blogs in my google reader. Yesterday I came across this recipe on Elizabeth's Edible Experience. I've had 3 bananas over-ripening on my counter for a week (since I bought them to go with my Cheerios, and then suddenly, ran out of Cheerios) and was going to try a different recipe with flax seed in it but haven't gotten around to purchasing it. So when I saw this recipe, I knew I had all of the ingredients on hand, and I went ahead and made this last night.

The first thing I can say about this recipe is that it is now replacing my old standby. If you love the combination of banana and chocolate, you can't go wrong with this one. And it's a healthier version to boot. Second, the cook time for this recipe is too long, by about 15 minutes. My old standby recipe only calls to be baked for 60-65 minutes. When I saw this recipe called for about 1 hour 15 minutes, I pulled out my old recipe card to compare because I thought it seemed like a long time, and I thought Elizabeth's version looked a little on the dry side. I prefer my banana bread super moist. So I decided to set my timer for about 60 minutes and do the wooden pick test then. Sure enough, it seemed perfectly baked at around 65 minutes so I took it out. After cutting into it about an hour later (I just couldn't wait to try it), it was still nice and warm, but super moist. So I would recommend doing the same.



MARBLED CHOCOLATE BANANA BREAD
Source: Elizabeth's Edible Experience (make sure you visit Elizabeth's blog for some great step-by-step photos!)
Adapted from: Cooking Light

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 3 bananas)
2 eggs
1/3 cup low-fat sour cream
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
cooking spray
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1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8 1/2 in. x 4 1/2 in. loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. Beat together the butter and the sugar. Add the mashed banana, eggs and sour cream. Mix well until incorporated.
4. Add flour mixture in about 3 additions and mix well.
5. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips on high heat for about 1-1 1/2 minutes, stirring every 20 seconds. Cool slightly.
6. Add 1 cup of the batter to the chocolate and stir well to combine.
7. Layer the batter with the chocolate batter in your prepared loaf pan.
8. With a knife, stir gently to swirl the batters together.
9. Pop in the oven and check it after about 60 minutes and do the wooden pick test. I personally didn't want mine to come out clean, but with some moist crumb on it. If not done, continue baking and checking at 5 minute intervals.

Homemade Pita

So of course, to go along with my hummus, I needed pita! A few weeks ago Ashlee blogged about making pita and I was intrigued! Never in my life would I have thought to make my own pita. Usually I just buy wheat pitas in the grocery store. I'm one of those people who is scared of yeast. After finding such detailed instructions here, I knew I had to try it, especially since Ashlee supplied my tahini to make hummus.

But then, Ashlee blogged a sort of different recipe using more whole wheat flour and brown sugar. I always need to use the best recipe I know of, so I decided to use Ashlee's recipe with the assistance of The Fresh Loaf's instructions.

In the end, it was sort of simple, but my pita didn't puff up. Still, they taste great and are an awesome compliment to my homemade hummus! I think in the future I'll save making homemade pita for special occassions - my kitchen's a mess!

HOMEMADE PITA

Source: The Fresh Loaf and Ashlee

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (plus more for rolling)

1 packet Rapid Rise yeast

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp packed light brown sugar

1 Tbsp EVOO

1 cup warm water

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1. In your stand mixer bowl, mix the dry ingredients, including your rapid rise yeast.

2. In your stand mixer bowl, add EVOO and warm water to your dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until a ball forms. If all of the flour won't stick, add just a bit more water.

3. Fit your stand mixer with the dough hook. Kneed on low-speed for 10 minutes.

4. Prepare a large bowl by lightly greasing with oil (this is where your handy Misto sprayer comes in).

5. After the dough is done kneeding, transfer your dough ball to the oiled bowl. Roll the dough ball all around until it's lightly greased on all sides. Cover bowl with saran wrap and let rise for 90 minutes.

6. After the dough has risen and doubled in size, punch it down to release the gases.

7. Separate dough into 8 equally sized balls and cover with a clean, damp kitchen towel and let rest for 20 minutes.

8. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees, with your baking stone or inverted baking sheet inside. If using a baking sheet, place a piece of parchment paper on top.

9. After your dough balls have rested, roll out your dough balls onto a floured surface.

10. Bake as many pitas as will fit on your baking surface for 3 minutes. Remove, let cool and enjoy!

Scone? What's a scone?!

No, people, I've never had a scone. In my life. EVER. But alas, the day has come! I had about a half gallon of milk about to go bad. Basically my milk was dated today. I'm sure there are people like me; I hate to use milk past the date on the jug (I don't I've ever used the word 'jug' in my everyday life. Wow, another first!). I've wasted milk before, but I've never been ambitious enough to find a way to use up my kitchen and pantry items before they go bad. I don't know what came over me, but I knew if I asked my friend Katie, she'd have plenty of ideas for me to get rid of my almost-sour milk.

So I emailed Katie, and she came back with a few ideas, and I was like nah, that's not doing it for me, so then she wrote back with "blueberry scones." DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER! I knew I had all of the ingredients on hand at home (that's a first!).

I came straight home after work and immediately starting working on these babies. They turned out great!

BLUEBERRY SCONES

Source: Katie - Good Things Catered

2 c. flour plus 2 Tbsp, plus 1 Tbsp

1 Tbsp baking powder

3 Tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

6 Tbsp butter, plus 1/2 Tbsp, chilled

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 c. half and half, chilled (I used 1% milk with a few spoons of fat free vanilla yogurt)

2/3 c. frozen Maine wild blueberries (store brand frozen berries for me!)

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1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment (I used my silpat sheet).

2. In small bowl combine frozen blueberries and 1 Tbsp flour and toss to combine.

3. Place blueberry mixture back into freezer.

4. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

5. Take butter out of fridge, cut into chunks and add to flour mixture. Cut butter into flour until pea sized or smaller.

6. Add vanilla and half and half and mix in with a spoon until just barely incorporated.

7. Take blueberries out of freezer and knead into mixture until mixture forms a ball of sticky dough.

8. Turn dough out onto floured surface and pat down into rough 9-10 inch circle.

9. Cut into 8 triangles and place triangles onto prepared baking sheet at least an inch apart.

10. Take 1/2 Tbsp butter and cut into 8 small pieces. Place one small piece of butter on top of each scone.

11. Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy. Now as I've said, I've never had a scone before in my life, so I don't have anything to compare mine to, but if I still wanted more after eating one, that must be good!

3 Bananas

I had 3 very ripe bananas. What better to make than a batch of moist banana muffins? Nothing I could think of! So banana muffins it was. I'm sure I found this recipe somewhere on the internet several years ago, because back then, that's how I found all of my recipes. But that was before the days of blogging so I have no idea where it's source is. But anyway, here's my recipe, which is for a standard banana bread, but I halved it based on the amount of mashed banana I had and got 8 perfect sized muffins out of it. For integrity's sake, I'll post the banana bread recipe in it's whole form.

BANANA BANANA BREAD

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

2 1/3 cups mashed banana

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1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Stir together dry ingredients.

3. Cream together butter and sugar.

4. Stir in eggs and bananas.

5. Stir wet mixture into dry mixture just to moisten.

6. Pour into 2 8x4 inch loaf pans

7. Bake 60-65 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Note: As muffins, they took 20 minutes to bake.

I HATE PUMPKIN!

Ok, seriously, I really despise pumpkin flavored food items. BUT... I came across this recipe in a magazine a few years ago. It's a low-fat chocolate chip pumpkin bread. I just liked to bake and figured I would just take it into work for everyone else to enjoy since it was "pumpkin season", but of course, I have to taste everything before I share it with others, so I did, and fell in love with this bread. I have no idea what magazine I ripped this recipe out of, however the article says ...

"While Sarah Brinkley's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread sounded deliciously intriguing, it was the vanilla pudding that really caught our eye. Sarah says this recipe for pumpkin bread is a family favorite.

"Sarah inherited the recipe from a friend but knew she wanted to give it her own twist when she saw the ingredients. 'It had egg yolks and lots of oil,' she says. Her first step was to reduce the amount of oil and substitute egg whites for whole eggs. Then she turned a trick she learned from a banana bread recipe in Cooking Light that used sour cream to make a light, moist loaf. 'I was out of sour cream, so on a whim I used vanilla pudding.'"

Blah blah blah, etc., etc.

Needless to say, I believe Sarah is a genius. This bread is SO moist and, so, without further adieu, here it is!

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CHOCOLATE CHIP PUMPKIN BREAD

no mixer required

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2 cups sugar

2 cups canned pumpkin

1/2 cup canola oil (I'm sure vegetable oil would be fine)

1/2 cup fat-free vanilla pudding (I used Hunt's Snack Pack Fat-Free Vanilla Pudding)

4 large egg whites

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chips)

Cooking spray

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1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Combine first 5 ingredients in large bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, level with a knife. Combine flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, stirring just until moist. Stir in chocolate chips.

3. Spoon batter into 2 (8 x 4 inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 1 hour 15 minutes (mine took 1 hour 25 minutes) or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on wire rack, and remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

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Yield: 32 servings

Calories: 152

Fat: 5g

Protein: 2g

Carb: 26.5g

Fiber: 1.1g