Category Archives: Just Sweet

This didn’t really work out. And I cut one of my fingers for the first time in years. But at least I experimented… : )

So wait, what is this crazy looking thing? Well, I am amazed by all things dreamy and magical, and French. It was time to try an upside down, caramelized fruity circle of goodness. (You can read the interesting, conflicting stories here about the Tarte Tatin.) Once I cut my finger though, I didn’t finish slicing the pears and ended up just throwing it all together to see what would happen. Plus the dough? It was so sticky I couldn’t really roll it. This was pretty much a failure but still tasted good – it was flaky and sweet, but there was too much caramel action. I added too much sugar for the small amount of pear slices that I had (I guess). Or I let it sit for too long.

The recipe can be found here at the lovely TasteFood blog. Will be trying again later, and cutting the pears differently so it looks more like a tarte and not a pizza.

But see, here’s the proof that it did taste good (we ate it).

I had three spotty organic bananas in the kitchen. Normally we eat bananas really quickly but last week those little guys were left behind. I decided to make my first banana bread. Using a simple recipe for basic banana bread, I spiced things up with white chocolate chips, honey, raisins and rum.

You’ll need:

3-4 mashed bananas (very ripe)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp honey
2 tbsp rum (I used 10 Cane Rum)
handful of raisins
handful of white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a loaf pan or other small dish with butter.

Mash the bananas in a bowl. In a larger separate bowl, mix sugar, oil and eggs until well blended.

Add the bananas to the large bowl and mix well.

Lastly, add all other ingredients (flour, vanilla, salt, baking powder, chocolate chips, raisins, rum, honey, salt). Mix until nice and thick.

Pour batter into your baking dish and bake for one hour. My bread cracked on the top and that is when I knew it was ready. But you should probably take it out before that happens to you. : )

I feel like a lot of the chocolate flavor and most all of the raisins were at the bottom of the bread. I don’t mind that but I wonder how to fix it. Next time I guess I could melt the chocolate first, then mix it in. But that still leaves the raisin issue..

P.S. Yes, it’s November 1st and I put up our Christmas tree. Woohoo!

Crepe Batter Recipe:

6 tablespoons butter
3 cups milk
6 whole eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
7 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
vegetable oil

Cook butter in a saucepan until browned, and set aside.

In a medium pot, heat the milk until steaming. Let cool for 10 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, completely stir eggs, flour, sugar and salt together. Slowly add the milk and butter. Refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight. The batter will be runny, and that’s fine. When ready to cook the crepes, use a crepe pan and keep it swabbed with a bit of vegetable oil. You’ll put about 3 tablespoons of crepe batter, swirl it around in the pan, and wait for the edges to become very brown. Peel the crepe up with your fingers and flip it over. Cook for about a minute on the other side until done.