A Revelation - Banana Rum Cake

Over the weekend, I had so much free time and space in the kitchen that I went on an absolute cooking binge. A while back, I had made some white chocolate banana ganache with the intent of using it for truffles, but I made it a bit too thin. So, I set it aside to use for a cake glaze.

So, so very good.

A couple of years ago the entire family went to the Cayman Islands on a cruise, and of course we brought back a number of rum cakes and many different flavors of Tortugas rum. Banana isn't a flavor of rum that we drink very often unless we're making a couple of particular drinks, so there was plenty of it. So, late on a Friday evening, in the midst of my cooking spree, I went to town on making a rum-laden bundt cake.

Just after turning out and splashing a little rum on the top.

After I baked the cake, which used some banana pudding mix, a cake mix, and some pecans, I splashed it with a bit of rum and left a cup of rum in the middle, then covered the cake overnight. The next day, I made a glaze with sugar, rum, and butter and doused the entire thing with that. After letting that glaze soak in for a day, I topped it off with the white chocolate banana ganache.

Since we really do try not to keep a ridiculous amount of sweets at the house (though we usually fail), I sent the cake to the lodge with my dad last night, since they eat potluck-style. There were only ten men and a couple other desserts, but only three slices of this stuff made it back. I finally got to have a piece before bed, and WOW.... just wow. It's got just enough rum in it for you to feel the warmth in the back of your mouth when you swallow, but not enough to really taste the rum. You definitely taste the banana flavor, and the chopped pecans add a really nice crunch. There's obviously alcohol still in there (and you can smell it), so you might not want to offer it to a teetotaler. That's okay, though - more for us!

BB was my photography assistant today, and she frequently threatened to devour what little cake was left.

Banana Rum Cake
For the cake:

• 1 package butter recipe cake mix
• 1 package banana cream pudding mix
• 3 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c oil
• 1/2 c + 1 shot banana rum 
• 1 c chopped pecans

Mix together all ingredients except pecans until the batter is well-integrated. Stir in pecans and pour into greased bundt cake pan. Bake at 325 for one hour, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then flip out onto rack to complete cooling for another hour. Splash shot of rum on the cake, especially around the interior ring. Cover and allow to set overnight before glazing.

For the glaze:

• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1/2 c banana rum
• 1/2 c water

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat, then stir in sugar and rum. Once well-integrated, increase heat slightly and add just enough water for sugar to dissolve into syrup. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly, then spoon and brush over cake while still warm, taking care to cover the entire exterior of the cake. Allow glaze to soak in overnight for best results. Top with white chocolate banana ganache if desired.

White Chocolate Banana Ganache

• 1/3 cup heavy cream or half and half
• 12 oz bag white chocolate morsels
• 2 tbsp banana extract
• 1/4 tsp coconut extract

Heat cream and extracts in a double boiler until hot. Gradually add white chocolate, stirring until chocolate is completely melted and integrated. For thicker ganache suitable for truffles, decrease cream or increase chocolate until it reaches the desired consistency.  Allow to cool to room temperature, then use immediately or cover and store in refrigerator.

Total prep/cook time: 3 days, but only about 90 minutes of work.

Happiness rating: 10/10 - this thing disappeared fast!

52 weeks of baking, Week 8: The Easter Basket Cupcake

As usual with decorating challenges, this was really a challenge. That said, after seeing the kit-kat basket cake posted, I decided that I needed to make an easter basket cake. We already had jellybeans on hand, and I thought I'd grab something to use as basket weave. Twizzlers taste nasty in my opinion, but when I found the filled twizzlers at the store the other day, I decided to give them a shot. In the end, it turned out very cute, but when you consider the fact that I spent 45 minutes on icing, decorating, etc., that's a lot of time for a single cupcake. I likely won't do it again.

As much LOTR as I've been watching lately, this really is 'one cupcake to rule them all'.

Since it's just me for the weekend and I had no desire to decorate an insane number of cupcakes right now, I ended up using this recipe - which made seven small cupcakes, of which I crumb coated three (after peeling off the paper) and used just one. Incidentally, I haven't tasted the cupcakes yet, but they seemed a little dense to be white cupcakes, and I probably won't use that recipe again. I'd pulled out my copy of Ratio earlier before googling, and I'll likely just make a white sponge in the future if I need a small batch.

Cupcakes and supplies. It really was a quick and dirty job, despite the time involved.

To decorate, I made a half batch of the icing I used in this post and crumb coated, with a generous amount on top. I split the filled Twizzlers down the middle, and let the filling aid in gluing the basket weave portion onto the cupcake. I carved out a little hole on either side of the cupcake and filled it with icing, and used that to glue in the red Twizzler handle. Jelly Belly jellybeans topped the whole thing off.

Mid-decoration. Bifurcating filled Twizzlers isn't as simple as it sounds. Those things are gummy.

Total prep/cook time: 2 hours
Happiness rating: Meh. Too pretty to eat.

52 weeks of baking, Week 6: Strawberries, Chocolate Mousse, and Nutella-filled Tuiles

So this week's theme for the baking challenge was 'elegant', and I had to think long and hard for something that might qualify. I'm not a great decorator by any stretch of the idea, I have little artsy talent and NO photography skills, so it took me the full four weeks of advance notice to come up with an idea for this week. BB's been asking for chocolate whipped cream, and KB loves pirouline cookies with hazelnut filling as well as strawberries, so I decided to go for a combination of it all. The results were nowhere near as elegant as I would've liked, but still kinda pretty, and very tasty.

You can't see it, but that tuile is filled with hazlenutty goodness.

Last night, I cut up strawberries and gave them a good coat in sugar, and made some very thin ganache with milk chocolate and a small bit of dark chocolate. This afternoon, BB and I whipped in a little more cream, added some gelatin (though not enough, but she dumped the packet instead of sprinkled, so there were complications), and put the mousse in the fridge until they and my mom could get through the rest of their bake sale cooking. When I finally got a chance, I made up my batter - two batches, actually. The first stick of butter I grabbed from the basement fridge was from my old house and had acquired a bit of fridge funk. It was my first Betty Botter moment, and it made me feel kinda stupid, considering that I'd had that rhyme stuck in my head for a few weeks now.

I used egg molds instead of flatter forms, but wish I had used a plate or cardboard, as these turned out a bit thick.

Once they came out of the oven, I used the handles of wooden spoons to roll them up, and of course burned my fingertips a little. It was a real pain to try and get them to hold a round shape - partially because they were too thick, and partially because they're just a pain to work with. Nonetheless, I did achieve some semi-roundness, and some burnt fingertips.

The picture doesn't really show the heat well. Owie.

Once they'd cooled, I thought I'd fill them with nutella using my berliner tip, normally reserved for doughnuts. Protip: nutella is too thick to use with a berliner tip. I ended up switching to a 230 tip, which is for filling cupcakes and such and which worked much, much better. Still, nutella and piping don't get along well.

The cute jar mocks my attempts to tame it with a berliner tip.

So, all worked out well in the end. I was able to get the nutella in the tuiles, and put it all into the dish with nice layering, etc etc. When you dipped your spoon all the way down to the bottom and got some strawberry with the chocolate, or a bite of strawberry with the nutella tuile, it was awesome. So, even if it wasn't too elegant in its presentation, at least it was elegant in its flavors.

Vanilla Tuile Cookies

• 1/2 stick softened butter
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup soft wheat all-purpose flour or cake flour

Cream butter until smooth, add sugar, eggs, and vanilla and mix until well integrated. Add flour and mix until incorporated, then transfer batter into the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes. Spread over a thin form onto a silpat mat, and bake at 325 for about 10 minutes, or until the edges of cookies are slightly brown. Quickly roll up or press onto forms and allow to cool. Makes 8 cookies.

Total prep/cook time: 90 minutes, including all the time put into the strawberries, ganache, and tuiles.
Family happiness rating: 8/10

52 weeks of cooking, Week 5: A booze-infused meal for the ages

I've just finished eating dessert, and all I can say is -wow-. I am absolutely stuffed, and everything tonight was fantastic.

Unspeakably delicious. 

Just for a quick run-down of the menu, here's what I served:

• Salad with a viniagrette made from red wine my parents bottled in 1998 (it's long since peaked, sadly)
• Beer bread with Sam Adams Cherry Wheat
• Abita Amber onions
• Shrimp Scampi using a riesling (on hand from the frog leg dinner)
• T-bone steaks
• Baked potatoes
• Bananas Foster made with Tortugas Banana rum

I would post recipes, but honestly, nothing that I made is that counter-intuitive. Viniagrette is just some vinegary wine and olive oil, plus some spices. Beer bread is 3 cups of flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 c sugar, and a beer. Scampi is just white wine, butter, garlic, and parsley on shrimp, and can be either baked or sauteed. Bananas foster is just butter, brown sugar, bananas, and rum poured over tea cakes (I halved Paula Deen's recipe and made very large ones).

I'm too food-drunk to post more pictures, or to post the amazing results of this week's baking challenge. Oof.

This was the last picture I managed to get before my camera faceplanted itself in that whipped cream. I don't blame it, it was pretty tasty.

Besides, I have to go clean all the whipped cream off the lens of my camera now.

Om nom nom.

Total prep/cook time: 3 hours, with everything from scratch.

Family happiness rating: This one goes up to eleven!

52 weeks of baking, Week 4: Flower cupcakes, plus banana and blueberry fillings!

BB is having a tea party tomorrow. She's been excited about it for weeks, and has gone to a great deal of trouble to make up invitations for her friend who lives a few doors down from here. A couple of weeks ago, I found a flower-shaped cupcake pan at Hobby Lobby, which I'd intended to use for this tea party. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to hide it before BB showed up at the house, so the surprise was ruined, and she's been asking me about the flower cupcakes every single day since.

The pan itself is a neat thing - you put cupcake liners into it, fill the liners all the way up, and bake for five minutes. After the five minutes is up, you add another big spoonful or so of batter in, and make sure it gets into the corners of the mold. Once they're done, you let them cool for a minute, and out come super-cute flower-ish cupcakes!

Why didn't they have fun shapes for cupcakes when I was a kid?!

Of course, I couldn't -just- do cupcakes, since this is frosting/filling week. BB's favorite fruit is banana, and her friend's favorite fruit is blueberry, so I decided to make filling for their cupcakes (the adults get plain ones, because they're fuddy-duddies). It really wasn't difficult at all - fruit, a little liquid, a little sugar, and some xanthan gum to thicken them up to be the right consistency for filling.

Xanthan gum: a true victory of food science

For the cake itself, I used this recipe, which turned out to be delightful. A petal from one of the cupcakes was a bit cracked, and my sister grabbed it. I managed to get a few bites, and was very impressed - this recipe is a keeper! For the icing, I took my mom's advice and used a mixture of cream cheese and shortening, plus over a pound of powdered sugar and some almond and butter flavoring. The result was a good consistency, and the almond and butter flavorings definitely helped balance out the flavor. It tastes like buttercream, but with a little something more.

Now, as a disclaimer, I have to say that this is my first time actually decorating a cake. Icing a cake, in my experience, has involved slathering cream cheese or caramel-coconut-pecan icing all over a couple of layers and hoping that they aren't too lopsided once I'm done. Sometimes I might sprinkle nuts across the top, but that's about it. The only time I've ever used a piping bag has been to fill doughnuts. So, around 7:30 PM I decided that the cupcakes were cool enough, and was ready to settle down and practice my icing techniques.

Except that isn't what happened. What did happen was my mother and I coming to the realization that her decorating kit, tips, couplers, colors, and all, had mysteriously vanished, most likely to my sister's house. So, I found myself on a last-minute run to Wal-mart, where I managed to pick up the tips, colors, and bags that I needed. Finally, around 9:00 PM, I was finally able to get started on my very first cupcake. It turned out well, I think, and so I kept on going. There are still a few more plain ones to ice in the morning, but I managed to get enough finished for the tea party even if I oversleep. Not too shabby, I say.

The pink flower is plain, the yellow has banana filling, and the purple has blueberry. I'm sure you guessed that already.

Banana Cupcake and Doughnut Filling

• 1 very ripe banana
• 1 splash (about 2 tbsp) half and half
• 3/8 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp banana extract
• 1 tsp sugar

Using small food processor, puree bananas, add half and half. Add small amounts of xanthan gum at a time (about 1/8 tsp), pulsing until the filling obtains desired thickness. If filling becomes too thick after setting, stir or whisk in additional half and half.

Blueberry Cupcake and Doughnut Filling

• 1 c frozen blueberries, rinsed
• 1/2 c water
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Simmer blueberries over low heat until soft. Stir in sugar and continue to simmer another 15 minutes. Puree mixture and process through a food mill, allowing to cool to room temperature. If filling becomes too thick after setting, stir or whisk in additional water.

Decorator's Icing

• 1 8oz brick cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 lb, 3 ozs powdered sugar
• 1 cup white shortening
• 1 1/2 tsp clear butter flavoring
• 1 tsp almond extract

Cream all ingredients together in mixer, adding powdered sugar until at the desired consistency. Separate into individual bowls and add coloring, then pipe onto cakes as desired.

Total prep/cook time: 3ish hours, including decorating

Family happiness rating: 9/10. Mom thought the banana filling tasted too ripe, but BB was over the moon about it, and that's what matters.

See the full album here.

52 weeks of baking, Week 3: White chocolate covered fruit biscotti and white chocolate banana cocoa

I've been wanting to make biscotti for some time, and this week's challenge seemed like a great excuse. I looked at a few different biscotti recipes, and took the difference of them all and decided to make my own, based of what fruits I had available and what I thought would go well with the white chocolate.

I only had just shy of an ounce of dried cranberries on hand, but I also had a secret weapon - freeze dried strawberries and bananas! BB loves the freeze dried apples that come in a big pack from Costco, but it also comes with mixed strawberries and bananas. She doesn't like strawberries for some unfathomable reason, so I decided to put them into action by adding in 2 bags (about an ounce), plus a couple of ounces of sliced almonds. I added them all in to the mix, and the flavors turned out amazing.

One thing I should note is that I doubted my intuition against the baking times on other recipes, and ended up very disappointed in what turned out, because the first bake didn't turn out as firm as I'd expected. I chalked that up to my inexperience with biscotti and ended up spending a lot more oven time on the second bake - lesson learned!

Once it was all, done, I dipped them in white chocolate, since that's the theme of the week, after all. I'd also come across a few recipes for white chocolate cocoa, and over the holidays my banana pudding white chocolate truffles had been a huge hit. So, I melted a few more white chocolate chips with what was left from the biscotti dipping, and tempered in some half and half and milk in the microwave (lazy, I know, but I didn't really want to get any more pots dirty tonight). I added in what was probably a teaspoon of banana extract, then warmed it a bit more - but not too much - and sprinkled some nilla wafer crumbs on the top.

I could have this every. single. night.

Let me tell you, this was a divine way to end a busy day of cooking and being with family. The cocoa was like a liquid dessert, and the crunchiness and fruity flavors from the biscotti I dunked in the cocoa really topped it all off.

I can go to sleep a happy girl now.

Fruit and Almond Biscotti

• 1/2 stick butter
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 c AP flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 oz dried cranberries
• 1 oz freeze-dried strawberries and bananas (I used 2 individual packs from the Costco multipack of freeze dried fruit)
• 2 oz sliced almonds
• 1 egg white, beaten

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream sugar, butter, and extract in a mixer. Add egg, then flour, baking powder, and salt, then fruit and nuts. Add a few teaspoons of water if necessary to cause the dough to form up.

Shape dough into a log and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with egg white and bake 40-50 minutes, or until center is set, and allow to cool completely.

When cool, slice into wide slices. Place on the cookie sheet again, with the slices on their sides, and bake 10 minutes at 350. Flip and bake another 10 minutes. Continue baking 5-10 minutes per side until the cookies are dry and browned. Allow to cool completely.

Eat as is, or dip in melted white chocolate.

Total prep/cook time: 2 hours, 10 minutes: 15 mins prep/mix, 45 mins first bake, 30 mins rest, 40 mins second bake
Family happiness rating: unknown (they haven't tried it), but this is a 9.5/10 on my personal scale!

See the full album here.