Bad Bananas

My mother-in-law and I love bananas. I mean LOVE them. But over the last few years, we have made a very healthy collection of "bad bananas" in our freezer. We always mention banana nut bread, but never follow through with it. That collection of bad bananas in the freezer was starting to become a little too much, so I decided to take care it.

Sadly, I tend to forget ingredients more often than I wish, so the first loaf was missing butter. At first, I was hoping the butter who was MIA wouldn't be such a big deal, but the more I tried to convince myself it would be okay, the less I believed it. So I decdied to make a second loaf - with butter.

The non-butter loaf came out just okay. It wasn't as moist as the second loaf, which came out perfect. Before the second loaf was put into the oven, I sprinkled a good amount of sugar over the dough. This created a candied bread effect, which was crunchy and delicious. The bread itself was very moist and filled with banana flavor; sturdy and not gooey. It was perfect. That loaf was gone in a day, while the other one has been sitting in our kitchen for days. We really only needed to eat one loaf anyway :)

Scone Craving

Thursday night, while the men in our family were having their men’s group in our house, my mother-in-law, Anita, and I went to my Aunt Robin’s home. While we were there, Aunt Robin handed me a magazine from King Arthur Flour. Their bake ware is ah-ma-zing. King Arthur Flour offers a scone pan, and as soon as I saw their photo of this neat pan, I had the strong urge to consume a blueberry scone.

So this morning, I looked at America’s Test Kitchen and found a flakey blueberry scone recipe. Unfortunately, we had a tiny bit of fallen pizza on the bottom of our oven, and mid baking, it began to smoke. The blueberry scones came out perfect, aside from a distinct smoky pizza flavor. I was bummed. Our oven was punished and sentenced to a 4-hour long self-cleaning.

 

Regardless of pizza taste, they came out beautiful. These scones were light and flaky, topped with the right amount of crunchy sugar. I love America's Test Kitchen's recipes, and I would have never known about them if it weren't for my cousin, Sarah Tona. Now that the oven is clean, a do-over is a must.

Redding Distributing Beer Tasting

Hello there J There aren’t enough hours in a day. Much has happened since Matt and I came back from our short & sweet spring break. Together with my amazing mother-in-law, Anita, we made 210 cake pops in 13 hours. I’m not sure how we did it either! The Redding Distributing Beer Tasting event went really well. Of those 210 cake pops, we chose 180 of the best looking treats for the 15 dozen order. These addicting desserts were gone in under 2 hours! Everyone’s flattering comments and kind words about my cake pops were surreal. These compliments were amazing to receive, but nothing could compare what I witnessed. There was a woman sitting with her friends at a table, and as she bite into a cake pop, her eyes shot open really wide while simultaneously nodding to her friends in approval. Seeing that pure and genuine bliss, would have been sufficient enough if no one had said a peep about them J

Yesterday, Matthew and I went to the Small Business Development center here in Redding. We met with a pleasant woman named Mary, who gave us much valuable information on starting a mobile bakery. As I type, my brother, Jason, and I are sitting in front of our house hosting a yard sale. All proceeds are going to a mobile kitchen, and I can’t express enough how excited I am to be able to start this business. Later this year, people will see us at local events and see my yummy treats in local stores. Yay J

If you grabbed my business card at the Beer Tasting event, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog!