Cranapanana Bread

I am not a baker.  Not at all.  I've never been very good at it, and to complicate matters I now live at ~5,300' elevation.  But I had a bunch of super ripe bananas that I needed to use, so I baked up a storm last weekend (more recipes from banana baking storm to follow).  This bread was so fantastic that one of my dogs ate half of it fresh out of the oven (note:  I wanted to throttle said dog).  I combined a couple different recipes I found online to come up with what I decided to call Cranapanana Bread.  Note:  Step #5 is critical.

Ingredients:

3 large ripe bananas
3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cup flour *
1 tsp salt 

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 Granny Smith apples, chopped into small pieces

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Cinnamon Topping:

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp softened butter
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, softened butter and cinnamon.

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Lightly grease a 9 x 5" inch loaf pan; set aside.

2) In a large bowl mash bananas.  Beat in sugars, followed by egg and butter.

3) In another bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg; add to banana mixture and stir just until all flour is moistened.

4) Add cranberries, apples and nuts; stir just until well mixed.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Sprinkle cinnamon topping evenly over batter.  Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.

5) To cool, place away from edge of counter where tall dogs can reach it.

* I always use a 50/50 mixture of unbleached flour and wheat flour.  Until I moved out west, I used all wheat flour by itself, but I quickly discovered that only made baking at elevation that much more of a challenge for me.

enjoy!

~ j

yummy muffins!

7/4/11 -- I baked some cranapanana muffins tonight, and they turned out great!  I baked them for 45 minutes.  But I did use 4 bananas (rather than 3) making them more moist, so I'm not sure how that might have affected the baking time.  Here's a pic...


enjoy!
 ~ j

Spiced Cranberry Sauce

I LOVE cranberry sauce.  I've combined a few different recipes to come up with the mixture I always make.  One of the challenges for me of posting my recipes online will be measurements, I don't measure anything (except when I bake).  So feel free to tweak measurements any way you please.  I usually go heavier on the spices myself.  I also like my cranberry sauce thick and more jellied, so I mash the heck outta' those berries!

Look!  There's my cranberry sauce!

Ingredients:

1/2 c water

1/2 c orange juice

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ginger

1 orange, zested

1 (12-oz) package cranberries

Instructions: 

1) In a medium saucepan, combine water, orange juice, sugars, spices and orange zest (everything but the cranberries).   Heat on low, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

2) Add the cranberries and bring to a boil.  Cook over medium heat until the berries pop, about 10 minutes.  Mash the berries with a spoon (or fork or masher) to pop any unpopped berries.  The more you berries you pop, the thicker the sauce will be.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer up to 10 more minutes (the longer you simmer, the thicker it gets).

3) Remove from heat, pour sauce into a bowl and chill until serving time.  The sauce will thicken more as it cools.

enjoy!
 ~ j