Pirate’s Punch

September 7, 2012 3 Comments

There are similar versions of this drink around. Similar, but not nearly as good. You may have heard them called a Bahama Mama, Rum Runner or The Bucket. It’s famous in my family as “that thing Lizzy makes that’s sooooo good and totally full of alcohol”. Lizzy is my baby sister Elizabeth. She’s a bartender and she made up this drink. She loves pirates, mostly the Johnny Depp variety. Especially when he says “Elizabeth”. So, she named it Pirate’s Punch. It’ll make you walk and talk just like Depp’s “Jack Sparrow“. Ahem. Sorry. Captain Jack Sparrow.

[Read more…]

Hot Monkey

July 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Holy strong drink Batman. I gave this baby a whirl the other night and the next thing I knew I was in a banana tinged daze. No idea where the name comes from aside from the obvious fact that you will act like a monkey after drinking one. And I do mean one. Good luck to you my friend!

Hot Monkey

2 oz. 99 Bananas Schnapps
1 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. Vodka

Instructions

Shake all ingredients with ice. Pour into an old fashioned glass. Go bananas!

Filed Under: Drinks Tagged With: Banana, Cointreau, Drinks, Vodka

Banana Cream Cupcakes

June 26, 2012 2 Comments

Sometimes I feel like my house is swimming in bananas. They are always around for my kids and every year I forget how quickly they get ripe for baking (aka dark brown freckly) once the weather turns a smidge warmer. I had some to use up this week and decided to mash-up a couple in these delightful cupcakes.

These cupcakes have all the flavor of a good banana bread with a light airy texture. The vanilla mousse “frosting” is perfect on these, totally reminiscent of banana cream pie. It is rich and delicious. A perfect topper. It is very versatile as well. You could swap out any flavor of instant pudding and use it for fillings in cakes. It’s amazing.

I ziploc baggie frosted these. It was early – I didn’t feel like busting out the pastry bag and frosting tip. Then topped mine with a little dried banana chip. Aren’t they cute?

Banana Cream Cupcakes
adapted from Taste of Home

1/2 cup shortening
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk

Vanilla Mousse Frosting

2 cups of heavy whipping cream
1 large package of jello instant vanilla pudding

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in
bananas and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder
and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk,
beating well after each addition.
3. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 375° for
18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes
out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

For mousse frosting: Combine ingredients and mix well until fluffy and light. Thin with a little milk if necessary.

Filed Under: Baking, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Banana, Cream, Cupcakes, Dessert, Pie

Monkey Bites

April 25, 2012 2 Comments

No monkeys were harmed in the making of this dessert. I guess it’s called monkey bites because it has bananas in it, but really it should be called moist-delicious-awesomeness-banana-bites. Yeah, I guess Monkey Bites rolls off the tongue a little easier. I prefer my baked goods as ladies, not gentlemen. As in, no nuts. But if you dig a little crunch in your sweet soft bread, feel free to add some walnuts to these babies.

Gorgeous bite sized squares have all the goodness of warm banana bread, topped with a layer of brown butter frosting. Oh yeah. I said brown butter. You can’t go wrong there.

Since these made in a jelly roll pan, be sure you’ve got somewhere to bring them/ other people to help you devour them. Otherwise, I guarantee you’ll take down the pan yourself…and then you’ll be mad at me. We can’t have that.

I originally cut these into bars, but then cut the bars in half because they were so delightfully soft and delicate that they needed to be a bit smaller. Perfect for a little nosh.

These morsels of banana heaven were amazing warm out of the oven, and equally good after they’d cooled. I’ll admit…the bite size made me feel a lot less guilty about having one every time I passed by the pan.

Print Recipe for Monkey Bites

Monkey Bites
adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10×15 jelly roll pan. Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Blend in bananas and vanilla one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool and frost with Browned Butter Frosting (recipe below).

Banana bread option: instead of spreading into jelly roll pan, this recipe will make about two regular loaves of banana bread, or about four small loaves. Regular loaves bake about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Small loaves will bake about 25 minutes on 350.

Browned Butter Frosting

½ cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it boiling, and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it’s on the warm bread.

Filed Under: Baking, Bread, Desserts Tagged With: baking, Banana, Bars, Bread, Brown Butter, Dessert, Frosting

Banana Cupcakes

May 3, 2011 3 Comments

Do not confuse this recipe with banana bread. They are not the same. These cupcakes are light and sweet with major banana flavor. Banana bread (delicious too) is much more dense and not nearly the sweet factor of these. I love the vanilla buttercream on these cupcakes because you get the flecks of dark in the cupcake from the banana and then the flecks of vanilla bean in the frosting. Delightful! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Baking, Cake, Desserts, Snacks Tagged With: baking, Banana, Cupcakes, Desserts, Food, Recipes, Snacks

Banana Bites

March 16, 2011 5 Comments

Banana bread is delicious. Most of the time I can polish off half a loaf by myself easily. However, on rare occasions, I just want a little nibble of it. These mini banana bites are perfect for satisfying my hankerin’ for just a smackerel of something. They are packed with big banana flavor in a sweet perfect mouthful. These make a great take along snack too since no utensils are needed!

[Read more…]