Gluten Free & Dairy Free Banana Bread

This day has been a long time coming. It has intimated me for 2 months but tonight I did it.

I baked gluten-free.

And it was weird.

I used a pre-mixed flour blend (from Planet Organic - thanks Kate!) and gluten free baking powder. All of the other ingredients are pretty standard which is exactly what I was looking for. My shelves are not yet stocked with the strange and wonderful potions from the gluten-free world. This bread is not only gluten-free, it's dairy free. My lactose free readers better try this one *wink wink*!

The recipe I used was from this website. Here it is:

Ingredients

2 cups white rice flour or your favorite simple gluten-free flour blend
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder (Celiacs - double check your baking powder. Not all is gluten free!)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed, ripe bananas (about 5)
1 cup vanilla infused sugar (leave vanilla bean in sugar overnight and then remove bean) (I used 1/2cup white sugar + 1/2cup brown sugar +1tsp pure vanilla)
1/2 cup canola oil 

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray medium bread pan with nonstick cooking spray or grease with margarine and reserve. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and then make a well in the center. Add eggs, banana, sugar, and oil to the center and combine them before folding into the rest of the dry ingredients. Pour or spoon batter into your bread pan. Bake for an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before removing from pan, and then cool on a wire rack until you can’t stand it any longer.

MY REVIEW: So lets start with the smell - it was all good and normal. The final appearance resembled gluten-filled loaves I've made in the past as well. The taste ... it was decent - kind of soggy because I may have added too many bananas. The texture was weird but I will admit, I gobbled it up as I haven't had anything fresh baked from the oven in a long time. I don't really know what to say about this. I know it will get eaten. At least it wasn't a TOTAL flop because I probably would have given up baking gluten-free on the spot. I can work with this result.

JASON'S REVIEW: It was grainy and had a weird texture but it tasted good.

Too contagious for work? Bake muffins!

This morning I woke up to a horribly sore throat. Apparently it's a viral throat infection that randomly manifested over night. I'm not tired, I don't have a fever, no coughing and sneezing... just an infected throat. The doctor suggested I stay away from work/people until this disappears so I'm stuck at home with my patchy throat.

Perhaps it wasn't the BEST thing to do, but I baked muffins. Lots of muffins. I used this highly acclaimed recipe:

Banana Muffins (makes 12 muffins)
*The notes made on this recipe came from the original author.. not me!
 

3 or 4 Large bananas, mashed (the more bananas the moister, so I use 4) (i freeze bananas when they go brown in case you were wondering how I had 12 brown bananas sitting on the counter)
1/2 cup white sugar (original recipe calls for 1 cup, but I don’t like them too sweet)
1 slightly beaten egg
1/3 cup melted margarine or butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and margarine together. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together! Pour into greased muffin tins, and bake in 350 degrees F oven for approximately 20 minutes. Enjoy!

I made 3 batches and 3 different versions:

Dark chocolate (added about 1/2cup of dark chocolate chips)
Milk Chocolate & Walnut (added about 1/2cup of both chopped walnuts and milk chocolate chips)
Peanut Butter (added about 1/2cup of reeces peanut butter chips)

I made 3 tupperware containers of assorted muffins that I was going to put in the freezer but Jason told me not to bother... he'd take care of them.

MY REVIEW: These turned out great! Mine weren't done after 20 minutes... more like 25 but you have to watch them. They are super moist and the ingredients take no time at all to throw together. After peeling 12 frozen brown bananas, I figured out the secret. You need to cut a slit lengthwise down the banana and peel it around sort of vertically instead of pulling it down like you would a fresh banana that you were going to eat. Those inside stringy bits freeze to the banana if you peel it that way and it's annoying to get it all off.

JASON'S REVIEW: They were magically delicious.

Some Sweet Treats

I've got a few sweet recipes from the past few days to share today. First off - a baked banana with coconut:

 

For those who can't stomach the strong flavor of banana - look away now (mom). I found tonnes of recipes for this method on the internet. Some included marshmallows, chocolate or even peanut butter. From all the different recipes, I took what interested me and made my own baked banana. All mine had on it was some melted margarine, lemon juice and coconut. It was simply baked in the oven @ 375 for about 15 minutes (until soft and coconut browned). I did not wrap mine in tinfoil but some websites suggested that as well. Jason drizzled some chocolate sauce for the finishing touch. 

 

I could tell this was not really a hit as Jason kept repeating "I'm eating a hot banana" and "this is a hot banana" the entire time he ate it. It was definitely a bizarre flavor and I can't say I'm eager to make it again. It was kind of baby food meets ear infection medicine - in a bad way. 

Now onto something a little more successful: Bomb-Chelle Brownies! The recipe comes from my good friend Rachelle - hence the "Bomb-Chelle". It's a long story, but I had been presented with the challenge of making brownies that were more magnificent than the Daytona 500 for my dad. He has yet to taste them, but with the help of Rachelle, I'd say I owned this challenge:

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, melted
3 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 eggs (make sure you have 4 before starting or you might have to run to the store in the middle of this recipe! that would suck... i imagine...)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish. (I made mine in individual silicone mini-hearts)
2. Combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each, until thoroughly blended.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate morsels. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish (or plop into your mini-muffin tin/cups)

4. Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove, and cool pan on wire rack before cutting. (I found that about 15 minutes did the trick for mini-brownies)

These brownies were very good - Jason and his sister ate the broken ones and gave them 2 thumbs up. The true test will come tomorrow though when we find out how they stack up against the Daytona 500. 

Now speaking of Jason's sister, she came by and delivered these Valentines cupcakes for us today:

 

So cute! Thanks Kate - we're saving them for dessert tonight. 

In other news, I'm drinking this interesting beverage as I type:

It's beer mixed with cherry juice. I can see this tasting very good on a hot summer day! 

Also - a question for Edmontonians. Have you ever seen individual sized bread bowls anywhere? I made chili for this evening and really wanted to serve it in some cute bread bowls! I could not find any so I settled for some longish crusty buns.

Banana Bread, Raspberry Crisp & Stirfry

I did some more baking today... 1 big and 1 mini version of the raspberry lemon loaf I made last week and one loaf of banana bread. I liked how relaxed this recipe looked! It felt like I could not fail. Here it is:

• 1/2 cup shortening or canola oil, or butter etc. (I sometimes leavemost of it out and use 1/3c applesauce) (i used margarine)
  
• 1 cup white sugar (you can cut this back too- I often use a scant 3/4 cup)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour ( have mixed this with WW, white WW and spelt with good results)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 very ripe mashed bananas (I use all different sizes and amounts- about 1 1/2c)
• 1-2 teaspoons pure vanilla
• chocolate chips (didn't have any!)
  

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan. (This can be made in any size pan or muffin tins just adjust the baking time)
2. In a large bowl, cream the shortening and sugar and add vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking soda and salt. Blend in the mashed bananas. Stir in the chocplate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until it tests done with a toothpick.

Note: The banana bread is going straight in the freezer so no reviews for now. From the outside, it looks like a good loaf though!

Then I made some simple raspberry crisp! The color was just as rich as the picture makes it out to be. Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

4 cups fresh raspberries or frozen, thawed
Brown sugar to taste, if needed to sweeten berries (i didn't sweeten the berries at all)

Topping
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
3/5 cup uncooked quick-cooking oats (weird. i used 3/4cup)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Taste a berry: if it’s too tart or sour, add brown sugar to taste, tossing the berries gently with the sugar to combine.

2. Lightly oil a 8 x 8-inch baking dish. Place berries evenly in the dish. (i made 1 small and one large dish of this)

3. In a medium bowl, combine topping ingredients and sprinkle over berries.

4. Bake until topping is golden-brown and berries are bubbling, about 25 minutes.

After all my baking, it was time for supper. I made a stirfry with the leftover corn from last night, snap peas, carrots, orange pepper, zucchini, tomato and chicken. For the sauce I just did my usual splash of soy sauce and squirt of fat free Catalina dressing. I usually add some peanut butter which I forgot this time around but it would have been a nice addition.

JASON'S REVIEW: Stirfry hit the spot and the raspberry crisp was the perfect mix of sweet and sour.

MY REVIEW: I am relieved to have the over-ripened banana situation AND raspberry situation under control with no epic baking failures. If you have raspberries, you should make the crisp just for the color alone. The flavor was great... but the color was spectacular!

Berry Muffins & Banana Bread

I did some low-fat baking yesterday.
The muffin recipe was from this book:

1 1/2cups whole wheat flour
1cup all purpose flour
2/3cup sugar
2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp baking soda
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp salt
1 1/2cup fat free buttermilk (I used low-fat as I couldn't find fat free)
2 large eggs, slightly beaten
1/4cup melted butter (margarine)
2cups frozen mixed berries
1tsp grated lemon zest (didn't have a lemon so I mixed a bit of lemon juice in with the berries)

Combine whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Combine the buttermilk, eggs, and butter in another bowl. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture; stir just until blended. Gently fold the berries and zest into the batter.

Spoon the batter into muffin cups sprayed with non-stick spray (I made exactly 18 muffins). Baking at 400F until golden brown.

The banana loaf came from RecipeZaar but I changed a few things around after reading the reviews:

1 1/4 cups sugar (i used brown sugar)
1/4 cup applesauce (doubled this)
1/4 cup margarine or butter (removed this)
1/2 cup egg substitute (i used 2 egg whites)
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 3-4 medium)
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1 teaspoon maple extract or vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour (half brown/white)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) (did not use)

1. Set oven to 350 degrees (set oven rack to second-lowest position).

2. Grease bottoms only of two 8 x 4-inch loaf pans (if desired you can line the bottoms only of the pans with parchment paper, although baking time will need to be increased). (i was only able to make 1 large and 1 mini loaf)

3. In a large bowl using an electric mixer at medium speed mix together the sugar, applesauce, egg substitute, margarine or butter and maple extract until well blended.

4. Add in the mashed bananas and buttermilk; beat until smooth.

5. In a small bowl mix together flour with baking soda and salt; add to the creamed mixture; stir with a wooden spoon until JUST blended (do not over mix!).

6. Add/mix in nuts (if using).

7. Divide the mixture between the two pans.

8. Place both pans directly in the MIDDLE of the oven on the oven rack leaving a couple inches between the pans.

9. Bake for about 1 hour or until the loaves test done.

10.Cool 10 minutes in pan then loosen the sides of loaves and remove from pans.

11. Cool completely before slicing.

JASON'S REVIEW: Your muffins were the best thing since sliced bread. The loaf was very good considering it's low fat.

MY REVIEW: Both were good... not greasy but still moist thanks to the buttermilk and applesauce. Would make again.

Really Good Banana Muffins

We had 4 old bananas in the fruit bowl so I found this easy easy muffin recipe:

3 or 4 Large bananas, mashed (the more bananas the moister, so I use 4) (i used 4 too!)
1/2 cup white sugar (original recipe calls for 1 cup, but I don’t like them too sweet)
1 slightly beaten egg (i discovered we had no eggs so i used 1/4cup unsweetened applesauce)
1/3 cup melted margarine or butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and margarine together. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together, being careful not to over-stir! Pour into greased muffin tins, and bake in 350 degrees oven for approximately 20 minutes.

MY REVIEW: This made 12 perfect lovely muffins. They were very moist. Perhaps it was the applesauce? I'd do it again without the egg!

JASONS REVIEW: They tasted different than when made with eggs but still good. Very moist.

Ok so looks like what I liked in the muffins is what Jason didn't like. Regardless, they were good! Could add walnuts or chocolate chips next time too.