Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'bananas'
Banana Cake
I made the banana cake of my dreams this weekend, a banana cake so good I had to give half of it away because I knew I would eat it all. What made it so good? It was a homey, cozy, PTA bake sale kind of cake; there was nothing fussy about it, no caramelized bananas between the layers or Marzipan bananas dancing across the top. You just mix a bunch of wet stuff, add a bunch of dry stuff, put it in a pan, bake it, cool it, top it with frosting and you're done. And the resulting cake is every bit as satisfying as a more elaborate banana cake; perhaps even more satisfying because the flavors are so pure and comforting....
Brown Butter Banana Bread
Inspiration strikes me more as a writer, than a cook. "Write a play about a parrot that saves a family from genocide," says inspiration. "Thanks inspiration," I say and go on to win five Tonys. But as a cook? I'm pretty uninspired, I'd have to say. Don't get me wrong: I'm a happy cook, a passionate cook, I care about the food I make. But am I inspired to tweak that which I am cooking? Rarely, very rarely. Which is why, when making the banana bread from Molly's "Homemade Life" for the second time (I didn't blog about it the first time, but it's a great banana bread made with butter instead of oil that has candied ginger and chocolate chips), I was surprised to hear a voice in my head whisper, like the voice in "Field of Dreams," "brown the butter." Brown the butter? You're supposed to melt the butter, not brown the butter. "Brown the butter," the voice persisted. I can't! That's not what you're supposed to do. "BROWN THE FRIGGIN' BUTTER, MORON!" All right! All right! I'll brown the butter. And brown the butter I did....
Flambé Story
When Craig's parents stayed with us last year for Craig's graduation, they were very amused to come home one day to find me in the kitchen candying orange peel for no reason. "Do you just do that?" asked Julee, Craig's mom. "Decide to make something just for the heck of it?" Pretty much! And that's precisely what happened last week when Craig left to rehearse a friend's screenplay reading (a reading that actually features one of my READERS who introduced herself to Craig at the rehearsal; hi Meg!) and I decided to make bananas flambé....
