Coconut Bananas Foster. In tortillas.
Posted: April 27, 2012 Filed under: Desserts Leave a comment »
A Mexican restaurant around here serves bananas wrapped in a tortilla and deep fried. I though this might be an interesting way to present one of my favorite desserts, bananas foster. But I didn’t have any regular rum. Only coconut rum.
Solution? Coconut bananas foster! In a tortilla!
The coconut in this is fantastic. Coconut and bananas are just right together, but the caramel is just over the top delicious. You are going to want to use a virgin coconut oil for this-it is unprocessed and therefore still tastes like coconut.
This dessert is just so simple and delicious, it’s near the top of my “impressive but totally easy dessert” rotation. With the added bonus of being a vegan dessert(if you leave off the whipped cream) with no artificial ingredients.
I used whole wheat tortillas, you use whatever you prefer 
Recipe:
4tbsp coconut oil
1/2C brown(or raw) sugar
1/4C coconut rum
1/2 tsp coconut flavoring(optional)
1/2 tsp salt
4 flour tortillas
4 bananas
shredded coconut and whipped cream, for garnish
Cut the bananas and the flour tortillas in half, wrap each tortilla half around a banana half, and set aside.
Melt the coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat, and add the tortilla covered bananas. cook until they’re crispy on the bottom and flip over and let them crisp up on the other side. remove them to a plate.
Now make the sauce-add the sugar and salt to the coconut oil remaining in the skillet(still over medium heat) and slowly pour in the rum, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Add the coconut extract, if you’re using it. At this point, you can set everything aside and finish it later, if you want a quick dessert to serve to guests. Just reheat the sauce before moving on.
Now add the bananas back to the pan, until the bananas are heated through. Serve topped with whipped cream, shredded coconut and the coconut caramel sauce.
Serves 4-8.
Dark chocolate cake with Vanilla Bean Heirloom Frosting
Posted: April 9, 2012 Filed under: Baked Goods, Desserts 2 Comments »
You want to try this cake.
Seriously, you really, really want to try this cake. (Despite the awful picture!)
This is everything that is wonderful about cake and everything that is wonderful about dark chocolate turned into one fantastic dessert. All of the subtlety you want out of chocolate cake. And the frosting is really, well, the icing on the cake, in a literal sense. Heirloom frosting is my favorite frosting because it’s not too sweet or rich, but with real vanilla bean in there? Blew my mind.
Best of all, this is a cake of manageable size-a 9×9 square pan. And contains one stick of butter in the cake and frosting combined. Think it can’t get any better? It is simple as can be to throw together.
Yeah, this cake is awesome. Eat it.
Use the best cocoa powder you can for this cake, the darker the better. And don’t be afraid of the coffee-it’s undetectable in the finished cake, it is just there to help round out the chocolate flavor. I hate coffee, and I can’t even tell that it’s there!
Recipe:
The Cake:
4 tbsp(1/2 stick) butter
3/4C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup brewed coffee, or instant coffee dissolved in water
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease a 9×9 square pan. Set aside
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Once it’s melted, stir in the cocoa powder and cook until fragrant, about a minute. Remove the pot from the heat and whisk in the coffee, buttermilk and both sugars until they’re dissolved. Whisk in the egg and vanilla, and slowly stir in the flour mixture.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes(Do not overbake! This is crucial!) Remove it from the oven and let it cool.
The frosting
1/2 C milk
3 tbsp flour
1/3 of a vanilla bean
4 tbsp(1/2 stick) butter
1/2 C granulated sugar
pinch of salt
In a pot, scald the milk. Slice open the vanilla bean and scrape out the insides. Add the pod and scrapings to the milk and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Fish out the pod. Over medium heat, whisk in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is very thick. remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.
Now cream the butter and sugar together til light and fluffy. Add the salt and the room temperature flour mixture(If the flour mixture is at all warm, it will melt the butter and ruin the frosting) and beat until it is fluffy.
Spread the frosting on top of the cooled cake, grab a slice, and enjoy!!
Cranberry Trifle
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: Desserts Leave a comment »Trifles are one of the best things to do with syllabub. Well, trifles are one of the best things to do with anything! They’re a great way to use up leftovers.
I love cranberries-tart and delicious! I freeze them in their bags when they go on sale in fall so I can use them year round. However, if you don’t want to use cranberries, or cannot get them you can substitute any juicy fruit you wish-blueberries, strawberries, oranges, ripe peaches, and so on. Just hold back on the sugar, you don’t want the fruit to be very sweet, it’s going to provide the pop in the finished dish. I’d start with as little as two tablespoons and work your way up from there by taste.
Trifles are infinitely variable. Once you have the hang of the basic formula you can do all kinds of delicious things with whatever you happen to have on hand. It is, I suppose, much like the casserole of the dessert world.
Recipe
1 batch syllabub
3C mild flavored pastry crumbs, whatever you prefer. I used half a pound cake, but also delicious would be shortbread or sugar 
cookies, or anything sweet with a nonassertive flavor
1 12oz bag cranberries
2/3-1 C juice, any variety(I used raspberry apple)
1/3 C sugar(or more, to taste. You’ll want the berry sauce less sweet than you would want it if you were going to eat it by itself-the syllabub and crumbs will add sweetness to the fruit)
First, get your ingredients assembled. You’re going to want to move quickly once you have the cranberry sauce done, so make sure everything is ready to go. You’ll also want a large dish, or several smaller ones, to layer the trifle in. I used a large pyrex bowl.
Once you have everything, make your cranberry sauce. Put your cranberries, 2/3 C juice and sugar in a pot together and simmer them until the berries burst and the sugar is dissolved. You may need to add some more juice if the sauce isn’t loose and pourable.
Now you need to work quickly to get the trifle assembled before the pectin in the cranberries sets up. Layer your ingredients like this: 1/4 of the syllabub, 1/3 of the crumbs, 1/3 of the cranberries, ending with a layer of syllabub. Let the finished trifle rest for a few hours(a day is even better) before serving, to allow it to set and the flavors to meld.
Serves 8-12, but will keep well in the fridge
Syllabub
Posted: March 12, 2012 Filed under: Desserts, Historical Leave a comment »His heart, which (to use your favourite comparison) was as delicate as sweet and as tender as a Whipt-syllabub, could not resist her attractions…
Lesley Castle, Jane Austen, 1792
Yes, I am a Jane Austen fan — I’m not ashamed to admit it. And given my interest in historical food, it’s no surprise my copy of ”The Jane Austen Cookbook” by Maggie Black and Deirdre LeFaye is dog-eared and stained. One of the most interesting historical recipes in it (to me!) is for Whipped Syllabub — a sweetened, white wine spiked whipped cream commonly served at balls and other upper class gatherings.
While delicious in its traditional form, I have been wondering what it would be like with brandy and sherry instead of the traditional white wine. I took the experiment further by using a whipped cream substitute that piqued my interest at the grocery store – its called MimiCreme Healthy Top, a paste of almonds and cashews that you whip like heavy cream. No advertisements, here. It just looked like something interesting to try. It worked out very well, but swallowed the flavor of the alcohol, and I ended up adding more than usual.
Syllabub is perhaps a little rich for modern palates(even back then, port glass size servings were usual), but I’ll be posting a recipe for the trifle I made with syllabub as the cream layer later this week.
Recipe
1 pint of heavy whipping cream with 1/4C sugar OR 1 package of MimiCreme Healthy Top
juice of 1 lemon and 2tsp of the zest
2-4tbsp brandy(more for the MimiCreme, less for the heavy cream)
2-4tbsp sherry(again, more for the MimiCreme, less for the real stuff)
In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice and zest with the sherry and brandy, and set aside. Whip the sugar and cream or the Healthy Top(it’s presweetened) with a mixer or, if you have the fortitude, a wire whisk, until soft peaks form. Fold in the lemon/brandy/sherry mixture, and you’re done!
Serves 6-8
For the record, the MimiCreme was delicious. I’d absolutely use it again. It holds up to storage better than whipped cream, and tastes not at all fake. It has a slightly different texture, though. I don’t think it would ever get to a really stiff whip. At first I was worried about over-whipping the artificial cream, so I used an electric hand mixer instead of my trusty Kitchen-Aid. No problem there, I thought it would be fragile, but it turns out to be sturdier than regular cream!