Practice, practice, practice....

  Look what happens when you get help from a pro! This weekend my very talented friend and co worker gave me a cookie decorating lesson. She was full of great advice and information. Plus I learned how to make polka dots, hearts and flowers using the wet on wet icing technique! So the coolest thing about using royal icing (in my humble opinion) is it allows you to make multicolor designs that blend into each other to make one smooth surface. As you can see, I am now a huge fan of polka dots!!
  In other news...  I have had the whole weekend off. So that means lots of baking time. I made two loaves of bread, decorated cookies. I plan to make apple crisp later on today. And I made chocolate chip banana bread this morning.
  I talked to my mother this morning. I mentioned I was making chocolate chip banana bread. She was appalled. She said adding chocolate chips to banana bread was a bastardization. Well frankly, I don't care because it is super yummy!! And as you can probably tell, I love chocolate. And I am willing to add chocolate to any baked good. I mean come on...It's good stuff!
  Here is the recipe. This began as a Joy the Baker recipe before I made several adjustments. It's a sickness, but I have a difficult time not changing recipes to make them my own. But thanks Joy the Baker, you know what you are doing!!

The Ingredients:

4 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 and 1/2  tsp vanilla
1 and 3/4 cup AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

preheat oven to 350F

In a large bowl mash bananas.  Add the melted and cooled butter, the eggs and the vanilla. Mix together these until everything is incorporated. Add flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Mix together until just incorporated. At this point, fold in chocolate chips. Spoon mixture into a prepared loaf pan. Bake at 350F for 55-60 minutes. Make sure to do the toothpick test. If the toothpick comes out clean you are good to go!

Let the bread cool in the loaf pan for a bit before turning it out.

This is a dense, yummilicious bread. Great for breakfasts in a hurry. Or really, great for any old time!!

Ugly Cookies

  Just a short post to instruct those of you who may be interested in the art of decorating ugly cookies!    Actually, what I attempted was icing sugar cookies with royal icing. In my defense, this was the first time I had every used royal icing. So here's hoping the next go round looks a bit less scary.
  I 'm sure several of you are asking the burning question, "What is royal icing?" Well, I'll tell you. Royal icing is made from powdered sugar, egg whites or meringue powder, water and extracts. It is the kind of icing that sets up hard and smooth. I have always used butter cream in the past. I thought it would be an adventure.  Oh boy, what an adventure!
  It all started because I taught a kid's cookie class at Williams's Sonoma. So I was in the mood for making sugar cookies. And, I found these adorable owl and squirrel cookie cutters. They were just screaming.... Must make cookies! Must make cookies!!
  I managed to get some great advice from a fellow WS employee about using royal icing. So, I decided to use  the pipe and flood method. Which is pretty much how it sounds. First you pipe icing around the edge of the cookie. Then you flood the middle with icing. Great in theory. But, the actual process is quite tricky. And you must certainly have a steady hand. I need more practice.
  This making royal icing and using royal icing is complicated. There are all different ways to ice the cookie. You can pipe and flood. You can use a wet on dry method to layer icing (which is what I attempted with the eyes). You can use wet on wet method which is beyond me. right now. You can go mad trying to make absolutely perfect cookies.
  What I've learned is you must be patient. And you must plan ahead. And I have learned that I need a whole lot more practice. I mean a lot. So, If you want a slightly off, funky colored sugar cookie, I'm your gal!
  Believe me, I will try again. Because, I also purchased cat, pumpkin and bat cookie cutters. It's going to be a frustrating Halloween season. I can feel it!

Let's just be clear.... Those are squirrels...not dinosaurs.