Banana Bread with a Twist ... of Cinnamon!

My ALL TIME favorite Banana Bread recipe is one I found a year or so ago. It's Emeril Lagase's. It's super banana-y and has a richness from both butter and sour cream. (I saved a few calories using light sour cream!) But trust me when I say you have not had banana bread until you have had this banana bread. The original recipe called for walnuts and I used them but I'm really not a nut person so I left them out of this batch. And I was putting all the ingredients into the mixing bowl, I realized that, gasp, I was out of vanilla. So I decided to add some cinnamon in swirl form to compensate. It was fantastic! 

Ingredients
8 tablespoons/1 stick of butter
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream (Plain or Greek yogurt works too)
2 large eggs
1/4 cinnamon sugar, you won't use all by any means

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Lightly grease a loaf pan with butter or a non-stick spray

Beat the bananas, sour cream, eggs, butter and sugar in an electric mixer.
Add the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and mix well. 

Pour approx 1/3 of the mixture into the loaf pan, and coat well with cinnamon sugar. Repeat in 2 more layers, adding cinnamon sugar each time.
Bake until lightly browned and bread bounces back to the touch, about 55 minutes. 

Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Apple Pie Pancakes

Ingredients:
Serves 4

3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, seeded
4 tbs granulated  sugar or brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Juice from 1 lemon
1 box of your favorite pancake mix or your favorite pancake recipe

Pancakes are a family favorite here. I make batches and serve them up and freeze them up. Truth be told I prefer the boxed variety (Aunt Jemima) over the home made. I really can't taste the difference. And they're a bit easier to make. (Everything's in the box. If the recipe calls for milk I'll make buttermilk.) My toppings can range from sliced bananas or strawberries or fresh, plump blueberries. Sometimes I cook the fruit inside. Sometimes I cook it and toss it on top. These baked apple like pancakes are a favorite of ours.

To serve 4 people, to generously cover 6 - 8 nicely sized pancakes, you'll need 3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, seeded and cored, thinly sliced as though you are making an apple pie.

Place apple slices in a large bowl or dish and cover with about 4 tbs of brown or granulated sugar and 1 tsp of cinnamon. Cover dish with plastic wrap and shake so that the mixture covers the apples well. Pour the lemon juice over the apples and let sit a few minutes.

In a non-stick pan add your apple mixture and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes. Turn heat off or to low and keep on the burner.

Meanwhile in another pan prepare your pancakes.
When the pancakes are ready, place on warm plates. (I like to place plates in oven to warm prior to serving.) Place a generous amount of the cooked apples on top and then drizzle syrup lightly over the top, careful not to add too much. You really need just a small amount.

A bite of heaven, right?!

Cinnamon Doughnut Muffins

My 5 year old has named these for me. I adapted the recipe from here. She adapted it from Smitten Kitchen.
They sounded good. So good that I had to leap out of bed and try them. Ok, well I didn't leap. I have a slipped or bulging disc so I hobbled. But they were well worth it. I am sure they are disappearing as I type this.

Preheat the oven to 350
Makes 12 regular (not large) muffins

Ingredients:
1 egg
3/4 C sugar
1/3 C canola oil
3/4 C milk
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 C flour

In a large mixing bowl toss in your egg and sugar and beat well. Add in oil, beat, then milk - streaming it in slowly and beat well. Add your baking soda, cinnamon and flour. When all is well blended scoop into a well greased muffin tin. (I use Pam for all my baking. Or generic)

Place the muffins in the middle of your 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

When the muffins come out, let cool.
Meanwhile melt about 1/4 C of butter. (You will most likely have extra)
Place about 1/4 cup (approx) *cinnamon sugar mixture in a flat bowl or plate.

When the muffins have cooled slightly roll the tops in the melted butter and then roll them again in the cinnamon sugar. (If you need more use more.) Set on a plate. Repeat until all the muffins have been dipped and resemble the tops of cinnamon donuts.

Serve while warm and enjoy!

*To make cinnamon sugar mixture use 1/8 cup of cinnamon to 1/2 cup of granulated sugar. You can add more or less cinnamon to the sugar depending on your taste. I tend to keep this on hand in a glass jar to use on toast or sprinkled over slices of Granny Smith apples.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins... hot out of the oven!

Nothing says fall like apples. Nothing speaks to me like apples cooking... It's my all-time favorite scent. Warm apples... cinnamon... brown sugar.... If I'd had enough apples I would have baked a pie... or an apple crisp... or cobbler. But I only had three. And truth be told they were almost past their prime. So I decided to cut them up, let them sit in a little brown sugar and cinnamon and toss them in to some muffin batter. The best part of these muffins was that the work was done at night. I simply took the batter and placed it in the refrigerator overnight. All I had to do this morning was scoop them out into muffin tins and bake them! These apple cinnamony delights were gobbled up in no time!

Ingredients:

3 apples, peeled, cored and cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup, plus 1 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs butter
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup lowfat milk
2 1/2 cups of unbleached flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375

In a medium sized bowl add cut up apples and 1 tbs of brown sugar and cinnamon, set aside.
In a large bowl add butter, oil and brown 1/2 cup brown sugar, mix well.
Add eggs, vanilla and mix well.
Add baking powder
Add alternating, 1/2 the flour, milk, 1/2 of the flour and combine well.
Fold in apples and all the cinnamon and brown sugar.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap overnight or scoop into muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.
If left in fridge over night, take out batter about 15 minutes prior to baking to bring to room temperature.


let cool before serving and enjoy!

Quick Sour Cream Pound Cake with Cinnamon Swirl

A friend is coming over this morning to help me organize some of our auction goodies for the school. The bigger items and the big ticket items are pretty much all taken care of. But we have some smaller baskets such as Father's Day, Father/Son Day Out, Kid's Day Out, Mother's Day, Mother/Daughter Day as well as some restaurant and food baskets to put together. Most of the donations are in but new ones arrive daily. It astounds me how generous people can be in this economy. Their generosity is truly appreciated and is neither going unnoticed or taken lightly. My friend Mary Jean was instrumental in the acquisitions area of the school's auction. She's coming over shortly with a few more items. And then we will get to work. But I cannot work on an empty stomach. I cannot have someone at the house (expected) without offering a beverage and a bite to eat. So we'll have some lovely warm, frothy cappuccinos (perfect on this cool and drizzly day) with my warm cake.

I cheated. I was short on time so I used a boxed cake mix, Duncan Hines Yellow to be precise. What I did took mere minutes to do and made the cake seem a bit richer than a regular yellow cake. The sour cream also cut down the sweetness a bit making this a lovely accompaniment to a warm cup or tea or coffee.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Ingredients:

1 package Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
1 cup of sour cream (I always use the lighter versions)

1/3 cup of canola oil
4 eggs

1 tbs cinnamon
3 tbs sugar

Combine all ingredients except for the sugar and the cinnamon and mix well.

In a small bowl mix together the cinnamon and the sugar.

Pour half of cake mixture in a well greased oaf pan then spread half the cinnamon mixture. Add the remaining cake batter and the remaining cinnamon mixture.

Bake in oven for 1 hour.

Cool for about 10 minutes, remove from loaf pan and cool another 5 minutes or so before slicing.