Banana Marble Cake

In the process of baking a Banana Marble Cake. I couldn't find a recipe ANYWHERE so I used this one I found on a blog. The girl seems kinda stupid though...the recipe calls for 3-4 tbs of milk but it was never used...? I just omitted it, hopefully it doesn't change it too much. Putting it all together was simple enough. Creaming sugar and butter, sifted, basic mixing, blah blah. She also didn't explain how to make the cake marble...which is pretty much what makes this cake different from a regular pound cake...idiot.

I digress, I should stop calling her names.

Cake is still baking. Hoooopefully, it'll come out nicely. I REEALLYYY loved the cake I had on Saturday at Local. If it doesn't come out well, I'll just go back and beg them for the recipe.

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Time to beg!! Pretty disappointed with the finish product, even though it is pretty tasty. Let's go through the checklist..texture wise, pretty good. Dense but still fluffy and airy. It didn't have a bread-pudding density, but it wasn't light and airy like a cake. Very good balance. Flavor wise, I didn't get alot of the chocolate but everyone's favorite culinary critic (Andrew) said the choco "overpowered the banana." Basically, it was part banana bread/cake and part choco banana bread/cake. I could definitely taste the banana, which I think might be enhanced if I added more sugar. I'm not 100% on this recipe because the one I got from Local was just amazing. Completely decadent and rich and made you feel so smooth and buttery after. And fat. But content fat. Not sad fat.

Anyway, here's the girl's recipe. I realized she doesn't have very good English, which is why I thought she was kinda stupid, so I felt bad. But then why would you blog in English? Do you seem me blogging in Tagalog?

Note to self...don't over incorporate the choco part and use less chocolate (in the event I make this again.)

Banana Marble Cake
- 250 gr soft butter200 gr sugar
- 4 eggs
- 250 gr self-raising flour; sifted
- 3-4 tablespoons milk (which don't get used, so I dunno, drink it with the damn cake)
- 3 overripe banana, mashed
- 1 tablespoon cacao powder

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375F)
2. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.
3. Mix the eggs together, then add to the butter mixture. Then add the mashed bananas.
4. Add the flour, mix well. Pour into a 20x20 cm pan. Leave some to be added with cacao powder to make the marble textures. (WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???)
5. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes in the preheated oven.

Lemon Rice Pudding

Another weekend cooped up at home...today, it's my cough. If this continues, I'm gonna go insane because all I do is bake when I'm stuck here. Boooo...

So todays experiment was lemon rice pudding! Got the recipe online and it seemed simple enough. Time consuming as it may be (2.5 hours in the oven), it came out well.

So since the recipe's not from a book, I'll write it out at the end. First, my thoughts. Subtle lemon flavor, not overly citrusy. Texture wise, quite nice if not too dry. Flavor wise...very homey and warm, comforting food really. I added a little bit of agave nectar to mine to sweeten it up a little bit more, but all in all, I liked it. Recipe calls for lemon peel but it gets annoying to take out once you've put it in your mouth (...that's what she said), soo I think next time, I'm not gonna put in lemon peel and instead make a simple syrup with lemon juice to bring the acid. Aaaand lessen the cooking time 1/2 an hour so its less dry (it clumps up too easily). But all in all, for my first attempt at rice pudding, well done! Thumbs up!

Lemon Rice Pudding
- 2 lemons
- 1/2 cup basmati or jasmine rice (I used jasmine)
- 2 pints (4 c) 1/2 and 1/2
- 3 tbs sugar
- 2 tbs rum (optional)

Peel the lemon with vegetable peeler into fine strips. Mix the peel, rice, sugar, 1/2 and 1/2, and rum in a small ovenproof dish. Put it in the oven and cook uncovered for 2.5 hours, stirring every 45 minutes or so.

And Helloooo Diana, care to post...?

Choco Muffins and Herb Loaf

Spent the weekend cooped up at home, recuperating from the flu. I decided to bake twice because they were essentially the same thing, slight difference in the components. Both recipes came from the Alton book (I'm Just Here...), both used the muffin method.

Chocolate Muffins

I wanted to make these as a breakfast muffin to serve with maybe some yogurt on the side. I think that chocolate muffins are a good one that can be served year round because there are no seasonal fruits to be used. Plus it was pretty darn straightforward.

I actually like chocolate muffins and these came out very good. Moist inside, not too dense like a brownie, not light and airy like a cupcake. The tops weren't too hard and crusty, but they broke on top as they should have. They taste like chocolate too, as the recipe calls for cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli). They also didn't come out too sweet, which I think is important for a breakfast muffin.

I did make a boo boo and didn't mix well enough. There were some random sugar crystals in the mix that I didn't thoroughly mix into the wet batter. Next time, must mix that more. I wouldn't call that a mistake. I call it...a surprise for whoever is eating it. A gift from me to you. All in all, these were a success.

Herb Loaf

*NOTE to self: buy a loaf pan.

Since I don't have a loaf pan, the recipe said you could use a muffin tin, so I did. Depending on what you want, you can use different herbs. It was either chives and dill or rosemary and thyme. I opted for rosemary and thyme. These muffins would do well as a dinner roll, something to serve warm in a basket for people to start with. Again, they're not dense, but not fluffy...but something was off.

It smelled reeeeally good, but I wasn't a big fan. It pretty much tasted like olive oil, which I'm not down with, couldn't really taste any of the tasty herbs. Also, I'm an idiot and forgot to add salt. Hello hi, salt girl forgot salt. I think it would have helped a lot, but the overwhelming taste of olive oil weirded me out. It called for a cup, which I think needs to be taken down a little, if not a lot. It also might have been that I didn't make this into a loaf. I think I might have overmixed, but these were not a hit with me. I might try them again with some slight changes in the future...these changes being: no overmixing, SALT, and less olive oil. Or I might scrap this recipe entirely and find something else. Sorry AB, you let me down! :(


Sooo here's the rundown...
Choco Muffins: thumbs up.
Herb Loaf: thumbs down. Needs more tweaking.

Pardon the poor quality of the pictures, I used my Bberry camera :)