[My] Life on Sprinkles

I love banana nut bread. In fact, my whole family loves it too, and I’m pretty sure that makes it one of the few foods we all agree on.

There is only one recipe I use for the base (the amount of banana, flour, eggs, baking soda, baking powder), but I’m always changing the rest up a bit. Adding some brown sugar or cinnamon (like I did for this recipe) or even adding chocolate chips or (melted chocolate swirled through).

Trust me on this, you should try it. The first recipe below is the recipe for the bread I have pictured; the second is the original recipe.

Cinnamon Banana Nut

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas  (about three large bananas)
3/4 cup apple sauce (or vegetable oil)
2 tsp. cinnamon (or a little more if you love it like I do)
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts (only if you want them)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and grease a loaf pan (9x5x3 is good)

Mix sugars, bananas, apple sauce, eggs, and cinnamon in a large bowl until smooth(ish). The bananas may stay a little chunky, but that’s okay, this is banana bread afterall.

Stir in the remaining ingredients (flour, nuts, baking soda, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt), and mix until combined.

Pour the batter into the pre-greased pan.

Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

 

Basic No-Frills Banana (Nut) Bread

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I still use apple sauce)
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts (only if you want them)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and grease a loaf pan (9x5x3 is good)

Mix sugar, bananas, apple sauce, and eggs in a large bowl until smooth(ish). The bananas may stay a little chunky, but that’s okay, this is banana bread afterall.

Stir in the remaining ingredients (flour, nuts, baking soda, vanilla extract, baking powder, and salt), and mix until combined.

Pour the batter into the pre-greased pan.

Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Do you watch food and/or travel shows? Do you even watch tv? I hope so. It’s pleasant and relaxing.

You get to see things like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You get to watch them being made start to time-lapsed finish. It’s pretty amazing.

You can also pretend to be places like this:

I pretend at least. We’ve had some gross weather up here in New England lately.  It helps. Sort of. Okay really it just makes me want to be there even more. (Where has the sun gone?)

I love food shows.

I love travel shows.

And my favorite? My favorite are… crime shows!

Oh yeah, and traveling food shows. I’m a big fan of those too. With their travel and food and interesting people and lovely places.

(I really do like crime shows, though. NCIS, Hawaii Five-O, Criminal Minds. I like them all and more. Oh and real-life crime, like Forensic Files on TruTV. Just not right before bed.)

Alright, moving on to the scones.

These scones:

I know that’s why you’re really here anyway. It’s fine. I accept that. Thank you for listening to my “what are marketing reps thinking?” blurb.

These scones are special. They have a secret. Not a bad “I did something wrong secret.” No. No no no. This is a good secret. Really it’s more of a surprise. A deliciously tasty surprise.

Let me tell you the secret to these scones. They’re gluten free.

Wait! Don’t leave! I promise they are delicious and no one will know! Unless of course you tell them, but you don’t have to tell them. We can keep this just between us. Pinky swear.

The real secret to these scones is coconut flour. I first heard about it from Joy the Baker.

Do you read Joy? You should. She’s pretty great. And by “pretty great,” I mean, she is great. I adapted her Orange and Dark Chocolate Buttermilk Scones recipe to make these.

Coconut flour is, as I said before, gluten free, but it’s also super absorbent and delicious. It smells like cookies. Really it does! I love it!

You can find coconut flour in almost any grocery store. I found it at our local Market Basket, but you can also buy it here.

Because it’s so absorbent, you don’t need nearly as much of it as you do all purpose flour.

Try it.
Love it.
You will.
Trust me.

I had some raspberries and blueberries leftover from a mixed berry crumble I made the other night, so I threw those into the mix, but you could use anything you have really. Lemon, honey, chocolate chips, blackberries, cinnamon and sugar, apples, pears, or just have them plain. With butter. Butter is yummy.

Here’s the recipe. Go, make it, share it with someone. They will love you more than they already do.  I promise.

 

Blueberry/Raspberry Scones

adapted from Joy the Baker

3/4 cups coconut flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into little chunks

1 large egg yolk

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold buttermilk

1/2 cup blueberries or raspberries (or both if you really want, but then it would be 1/4 cup each)

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and put a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda together. No. Really sift it. It makes a difference and it doesn’t take long.

Throw in the butter chunks and cut it in to the flour mixture. You can use your fancy pastry cutter, or your easy-to-clean hands. It’s up to you, but either way, cut the butter in until the whole mix feels and looks a little like sand.

Whisk the egg yolk into the buttermilk and add that to the flour-butter mix. Mix these until it all mostly sticks together. Then pour out onto a clean surface and knead a few times. Once it’s really holding together break it up a bit and add the berries (or whatever it is you are adding) and put it back together again.

Press the dough into an inch-thick disk and cut into four or six scones.

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until they are slightly browned.

When they’re done, eat them right away. Just don’t burn yourself, please. Thank you!