Going Bananas!

A couple weeks ago, I had eight black bananas sitting on my counter. The obvious choice would have been to make banana bread, but it's not my favorite thing to eat and if I'm going to consume the calories it better be something I want! When I have a couple ripe bananas to use, I usually make Strawberry Jello Salad that my husband loves so much. But I had 8. EIGHT. That's a lot of black bananas. So I turned to my peeps on Facebook (I finally joined FB- yay!) and my friends came through for me with these two recipes. 

First off, I have to tell you why I had so many dang bananas. My husband likes to eat a bowl of frozen fruit at night and he likes to add a banana to it to break up the cold. Well he was out of cherries so he quit eating the bananas. They started to turn brownish and he didn't want them anymore so he bought fresh green ones. I used up a couple in smoothies, then a couple more in peanut butter banana sandwiches, then the new bananas that he bought started to get speckles on them and he quit eating those too! At this point I was staring at bananas on the counter that got darker by the day and they started to smell. They needed to be used and I'm not a fan of freezing them. 

Chocolate Chip Banana Coffee Cake- Go HERE for the recipe. 

Allie from Eat at Allie's suggested I make muffins but that's not what I was craving at the time. I wanted something a little more indulgent so I called my banana loving friend Ingrid from 3B's. Without hesitation, she recommended a banana coffee cake with a chocolate chip streusel. Funny thing about that recipe, is that I recommended it to her over two years ago! The recipe came full circle and I made it. Danelle from Let's Dish made it too! The house smelled heavenly and it was delicious. A couple mornings later, I made Allie's banana crumb muffins to take to a friend. I saved a few for us to have for breakfast and they were equally good and simple to make. All that to say that, I now have two  new banana recipes and you do too! Enjoy my friends. 

Banana Crumb Muffins adapted from Eat at Allie's

Printer Friendly Version 

For The Topping: 

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

For The Muffins: 

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cups*.

Make the topping: In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon.

Use a fork to cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Place in refrigerator until ready to use. 

Make the muffins: In large bowl, mix the mashed bananas with the sugar, egg, vanilla and melted butter. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until just combined. 

Use an ice cream scoop to evenly disperse the batter into prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

*Makes 12-14 muffins. 

If you have any great recipes to use up ripe bananas, please let me know!

Sweet Love Child

At the start of the new year, many of you will vow to cut out sweets from your life, go on diets and jump on the treadmill, desperately trying to drop a few holiday pounds. I get very lonely when that happens :-) Since I have a couple more days before 2013 gets here, I thought I'd share one last recipe in 2012 that's full of buttery, sugary goodness. Can I tempt any of you with Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Coffee Cake? There are oats and raisins in it, so don't feel so guilty. 

My very own photo/blog assistant!

I saw this recipe and had to make it, because I love me a good oatmeal raisin cookie. It's such a simple cookie, but it delivers every time- chewy raisins and oats, crunchy and buttery edges...oh, so good! There are oats in the cake batter, in the filling and the top cookie crumble. It's got raisins scattered throughout with spicy cinnamon and nutmeg perfuming the whole thing. It's practically health food. If coffee cake and cookies got together and had a love child, this would be it. And what a sweet love child it would be. While there is no coffee in this cake, a warm cuppa is the perfect accompaniment. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Coffee Cake adapted from Baking Bites

Printer Friendly Version

For The Cake:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup quick cooking oats
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For The Cookie Crumble:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 2/3 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup quick cooking oats

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

To make the cookie crumble: In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour mixture until well combined and the mixture is coarse and sandy. Stir in raisins and oats until mixed throughout. Set aside while you make the cake batter.

To make the cake: In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Blend in half of the flour mixture until just combined. Add all of the buttermilk and the vanilla and stir until  well mixed, then blend in the remaining flour mixture and mix until just combined, but do not overbeat.

To Assemble: Pour half of the batter into prepared pan. Top with half of the cookie crumble. Pour remaining batter on top and spread carefully to the sides of the pan. Sprinkle the remaining crumble evenly over the batter.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow cake to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, before running a knife around the edge and carefully removing the springform ring. Allow to cool completely before serving. 

Store cake in an airtight container.

Thank you for the support and encouragement you all have shown me here at Lick The Bowl Good. I couldn't do this without each and every one of you. I hope to bring you many new and delicious creations in the upcoming year. Please be safe as you ring in 2013. Cheers!

~Monica H

Simplicity At It's Best

I did not intend to blog about this coffee cake. I was wanting to make Belgian waffles from my Williams-Sonoma Breakfast cookbook and noticed this recipe. The original version included dried cranberries and chocolate chips. In typical fashion, I wanted to use fresh cranberries and leave out the chocolate while Mr. H only wanted chocolate and no cranberries. We both compromised and left it plain, and I'm so glad we did. This coffee cake was perfectly delicious without any additions.

We may have left the coffee cake plain, but it was anything but. It's simple in that it doesn't call for any special ingredients to gussy it up- no nuts, no oats in the streusel, no brown sugar, not even vanilla extract (though I added that anyway, because old habits die hard). It does include sour cream, but other than that, it's just butter, sugar, flour, eggs and leaveners. One unique thing about this recipe is that it has you combine the sour cream with the baking soda prior to adding it to the batter, which makes it really light and airy. I've never seen or heard of that technique before, but it worked brilliantly.

The end result was a cake, so light and spongy, but buttery and rich at the same time. There's nothing dense or heavy about this breakfast cake and it'll keep you wanting more. I took a bite when it was still piping hot from the oven and couldn't stop picking at it. Before I knew it, I had eaten a quarter of the cake myself- it was just that good! Don't feel compelled to add anything to it, just try it as it is and enjoy it, in all it's simple glory. As I mentioned above, I didn't intend to blog about this recipe so there aren't any photos of the baking process, but it was just too good not to share. If you try it, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake adapted from Breakfast

Printer Friendly Version

For The Streusel:

• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

For The Cake:

• 1 1/4 cups sour cream
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter.

For the Streusel Topping: In a chilled bowl, combine the butter, sugar and flour. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut the butter into dry ingredients until the mixture is the consistency of fine, moist crumbs. Work the mixture with your hands until it will hold together when compressed, then squeeze it between your hands into several firm pieces. Cover and refrigerate until the cake is ready to go into the oven. (I did this the night before and had it ready to go the following morning).

For the Cake: Place the sour cream in a bowl and sift the baking soda and salt into it. Stir to blend evenly and set aside. As the sour cream mixture sits, it will get airy and fluffy.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed or a wooden spoon, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Sift the flour and baking powder over the top and mix in, then beat in the sour cream mixture. Scoop the batter into the prepared dish and smooth the surface. Scatter the streusel mixture evenly over the top, breaking it up into large crouton-sized pieces (some of the streusel mixture may be small crumbs).

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center on the cake comes out clean but not completely dry, 40-45 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares.

And for those of you who are hooked on Hayden, here are a couple pics of my bright-eyed little man. For Christmas, he wore this penguin sweater, but we didn't get any pictures of him wearing it. So last week before I took the Christmas tree down, I got him dressed up and snapped a few pictures. I put him on the ottoman and slid it in front of the tree. That's his handprint in the background. I couldn't find a "baby's 1st Christmas" ornament that I liked so we just made one with stuff I had around the house- a glass ornament, glue and glitter.

This one is my absolute favorites and will find it's way into a frame, I'm sure. I might be a little biased but I think he's just so beautiful and perfect. Y'all, I'm in love!

Have a great rest of the week!

No Clever Title Just Good Coffee Cake

This wonderfully aromatic coffee cake comes from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. This is the new book that was chosen by The Cake Slice Bakers to bake from throughout the following year. I'm really looking forward to simpler pound cakes and home style confections. Don't get me wrong, I'll always have a special place in my heart for statuesque triple layer beauties.

This cinnamon pecan coffee cake was really tasty. The streusel was buttery and cinnamony and the cake itself was dense and light at the same time. When I saw the picture of this coffee cake, I thought the little black pieces were chocolate chips, which only made me want to make it all the quicker. But as I started to read the recipe, I realized they were raisins. I like raisins, but not in coffee cake, so I left those out and added extra pecans for more crunch. It also had a pronounced cinnamon flavor since I used Red Ape Cinnamon again. I've been adding it to all my cinnamon dishes and Mr. H says we're going to turn into apes!

This recipe makes an entire 9x13 pan of coffee cake so I halved the recipe and baked it into an 8x8 in Pyrex (it baked for the same amount of time). It was excellent hot, right out of the oven with a cup of coffee and some salty bacon. But it was also good the next day heated slightly and topped off with a pat of butta love. This would be a nice alternative to cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning!

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake from Southern Cakes

Printable Version

For the Cake:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs

For the Cinnamon Raisin Filling:

• 1½ cups light brown sugar
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp cinnamon
• 1½ cups raisins
• 1½ cups coarsely chopped pecans
• ¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, melted

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 13 by 9 inch pan.

To make the filling, combine the light brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl and stir with a fork to mix everything well. Combine the raisins and pecans in another bowl and toss to mix them. Place the cinnamon mixture, nut mixture and melted butter by the baking pan to use later.

To make the cake batter, combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir the vanilla into the milk. In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer on high speed until pale yellow and evenly mixed, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl to ensure a good mix. Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl now and then, until the mixture is smooth and light.

Use a large spoon or spatula to add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir only until the flour disappears. Add a third of the milk and mix in. Repeat twice more until all the flour and milk mixtures have been incorporated. Stir just enough to keep the batter smooth.

Spread half the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture over the batter followed by half the melted butter. Scatter half the raisins and nuts over the top. Spread the remaining batter carefully over the filling, using a spatula to smooth the batter all the way to the edges of the pan. Top with the leftover cinnamon, butter and nut mixture, covering the cake evenly.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the cake is golden brown, fragrant and beginning to pull away from the edges of the pan. Place the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes before serving in squares right from the pan. The cake is delicious hot, warm or at room temperature.

Click here to visit the new line up of Cake Slice Bakers!

A Craving & The Winners!

This recipe was inspired by a craving for all things cinnamon sugar. I couldn't decide if I wanted to make cinnamon sugar donut muffins, or snickerdoodle muffins, or french breakfast puffs. But then I started to feel guilty about eating such decadent things so early in the day so I decided to adapt my favorite coffee cake recipe from Ina and add my version of cinnamon sugar in two ways.

These were very decadent. I don't know what I was thinking, but I certainly didn't lighten anything up :-) The muffin itself is wonderful , light and moist and best the day they're made. It's a perfect basic muffin to eat plain or with other add-ins like Ina's blueberry coffee cake muffin version I made last year. We had two each (one with sugared tops and the other plain) with breakfast sausage and a tall cuppa. It made a nice leisurely weekend breakfast.

Cinnamon Sugar Coffee Cake Muffins

adapted from Ina

~makes 10 muffins

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 4 ounces (about 1/2 cup) sour cream
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Filling

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cinnamon Sugar Topping (optional)

• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place 10 paper liners in muffin pans or spray muffin pans with non stick spray.

In a small bowl combine your brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix and set aside. In another small bowl combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Mix and set aside. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed.

Scoop a tablespoon of the batter into the prepared muffin pans. Evenly spoon the brown sugar mixture into the muffin cups, being sure to keep the sugar in the center of the batter and not touching the sides of the pan. (This will help them release from the pans, but if you use paper liners, it's not much of an issue.)

Spoon the remaining batter over the brown sugar mixture, filling each cup just to the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean. Melt the butter in a small dish and set aside.

Allow the muffins to cool a bit before removing them from the pan. Dip the muffin tops in the melted butter and roll them in the cinnamon sugar, or sprinkle them generously with the granulated sugar blend. Enjoy with a cuppa hot coffee.

Dawn, this cinnamon coffee cake sausage muffin, is just for you!

And the winners of the baking liners are...

Congratulations Kathy of Three On Food and Ingrid of 3 B's- Baseball, Baking and Books! I hope you'll share your baking with us. Save a cupcake for me!

Ladies email me with your addresses so I can get these out to you in time for Mother's Day!

Thank you all for participating. I hope you'll come back and visit me even though I don't always have giveaways. For those interested in purchasing the baking liners, they can be found at Hobby Lobby in their party planning aisle.

Butter Makes Everything Better

I have been making this for years! The minute I saw Paula make this on her show, I jotted down the recipe on scratch paper and made it. I've made this at home on lazy weekends, and while on vacation. It's so quick and easy and everyone loves it.

For some reason, I don't remember there being rolled oats in this recipe. I have never made this coffee cake with oatmeal and it's been perfectly delicious. I make everything exactly according to the recipe, just minus the oats and I also don't put sugar on the blueberries. So basically, I don't follow this recipe at all, and I have been making what I *thought* was her recipe- whatever! I've made it with brown sugar and granulated sugar and both are really good. Here is Paula's version. My version is below.

Blueberry Coffee Cake adapted from Paula Deen

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1- 12 ounce can Grand's buttermilk biscuits
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup packed light brown or granulated sugar
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease a 9-inch square baking dish and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine brown or granulated sugar and cinnamon and mix well with a fork. Separate biscuit dough into 10 biscuits. Cut each biscuit into quarters, and dip each piece in melted butter and coat with cinnamon sugar mixture. Arrange in a single layer in baking dish.

Pour blueberries over biscuits. Drizzle melted butter on top of blueberries and biscuits. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake is golden brown and center is done. Cool slightly before serving.