Bananas, Breakfast and all that jazz

Taste & Create, the wonderful event hosted by Nicole of "For the Love of Food" is back and this month my partner is Erin of Skinny Gourmet. A PhD researcher from windy Chicago, Erin has spent a lot of time in Ghana recently. Her well travelled lifesytle shows in her eclectic mix of recipes. And even these recipes are only the front to a rich mix of stories - on her life in Ghana, about her grandmother, other seemingly day-to-day things that become vibrantly alive in her telling.

For this month's challenge, I decided to make her Banana Breakfast Bars. Surprisingly for me, I struck very close to her recipe. In fact, the basic cake dough is absolutely the same as she makes it - cream 20 gms butter with 1/2 cup brown sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix 3/4 cup regular flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and a tsp each of cinammon powder and baking powder. Mix these with butter and sugar. Now add 1/4 cup milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1/2 cup mashed banana. Mix well and spread half the dough in a baking pan lined with waxed paper (I used a square glass dish, and liberally buttered the paper).

Here's where our paths diverge slightly. Erin recommends a filling of figs or apricots but I looking for a spot of color here. I chopped glace cherries and spread them on top of the dough.

Then spread the remaining dough on the filling and even it out. Sprinkle oats to top your dough (I left out the flax seeds that Erin suggested). Following the rule of "glass heats up late, but heats too much", I reduced the oven temparature to 190C and baked it for around 35 minutes. I was testing for doneness around 25 minutes but the toothpick came out clean maybe 10-15 minutes later.

Erin did say they are breakfast bars, but I would personally call my end product banana bread as it was way too soft. I left it to cool and then cut it into squares.

Nicole always asks for a one-liner to go with the entry, and here's mine : An amazing combination - delectably rich and moist, but still good for you.

Comments

I've found my perfect cookie

It's a bite sized cookie, with flavors of a pie, shape of a croissant and a pretty, pretty name. It's Rugelach. I first heard of this cookie when it became the baking pick for Tuesdays with Dorrie a couple of months back. The looks, the concept - everything was fascinating. And I've dreamed of making this cookie ever since. I ditched hundreds of recipes floating around and went straight to the master. It's Dorie Greenspan's recipe that I used, and ain't I glad I got it so perfect the very first time. So what's rugelach? It's cream-cheese pastry dough, rolled then cut into wedges, spread with jam and sugar and fillings of choice, rolled into crescents and baked. First the dough. Dorie did it in her processor, but I just went and did it by hand. Put 100 gms cream cheese and 100 gms butter out of the fridge until they were soft but still cold. Added both to a cup of plain flour (I omitted the salt because I use salted butter). Rubbed the flour and but...

Mystery Fruit

This only happened a few times every year, just when the rainy season kicked in. A street hawker will come by, straw basket on head. He will yell "kaul chapni" and I will run out to buy a bundle of these. Stuck together like flowers, they looked like a bouquet. Every hole contains a little fruit. You break out the package, peel the tiny fruit that pops out and eat it. Done slowly, it can take you an hour to eat an head. Or did, when I was about 12 years old. That was the last time I saw this fruit. I've never seen it again, didn't even know what it was called or where it came from. Three weeks back, Vikram Doctor wrote about a store in Khar that sells Sindhi foods. He described this fruit and I knew it came from my vivid childhood memories. And finally, I knew we were talking about lotus fruit. Now talk about coincidences. Last weekend, I was passing by a lane in Bandra and for the first time in many, many years I saw the straw basket filled with my mytery fru...

Of Brun and Bun Maska

There is more to Bombay's breads than the pao that goes into pao bhaji and vada pao. There's Brun. and there's bun. We will get there. First, you have to get to know the city's Parsis. And Iranis, who are also Zoroastrians, but came to city a little later, in the late 19th or early 20th century. And when they came, they brought with them these little cafes that dot the city. I am no expert on Irani chai cafes. And I can't tell you whether Yazdani Bakery will provide you the best experience or Kyani's. But I can tell you a few things you need to ignore when you get there. Appearances don't matter; so ignore the fact that the marble/glass top tables and the wooden chairs look a bit dilapidated. Also ignore the rundown look the place sports. Instead, get yourself settled. And order a bun muska. This one's familiar to you as a first cousin of the soft hamburger bun. It's similar, but just a tad bit sweeter. Maska, of course, is the generous dollop o...

Bombay Foodie

Search This Blog