Banana Oatmeal Bread

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles. 

Banana bread is one of my favorite things to eat. Now, I don't bake it all that often given that I also love bananas and will eat them up well before they'd be ready for banana bread. But for Daring Bakers, I resisted temptation. Ok, ok. Actually I just bought seven bananas at once, definitely more bananas than even I can eat in a week.

This recipe from Joy the Baker came together quickly, not taking much longer than a few minutes before it was in the oven. But, it used three bowls. One for the dry, one for the wet, and one for the egg whites. Growing up, my family was often in the just-throw-it-all-in-one-bowl-and-mix-it-up class of baker. And I have to say, everything seemed to turn out just fine. So I'm wondering if you really need that separate wet ingredient bowl, and next time I try this recipe I may skip it and see.

I would recommend going out of your way to have large bananas or to have an extra banana or two. There was a shortage of bananas at my grocery store when I went and I ended up with a rather petite bunch of organic bananas (so not worth the extra cost, by the way). I had issues with the outside crust getting slightly tough while there was still a slightly gooey center and I wonder if my small bananas had something to do with that. Not enough moisture throughout or something. Though that gooey center? Oh. My. Deliciousness.

White Chocolate Chip Almond Chocolate Biscotti

I don't know what it is about biscotti, but people always seem really impressed when I bring it somewhere. Maybe it's the Italian name, or the twice baked-ness. Whatever it is, biscotti is always greeted with an awed 'ooo' from the crowd.

I found my go-to chocolate biscotti recipe on all-recipes, believe it or not. I've made the Double Chocolate Biscotti numerous times, though in all previous cases I turned up my nose at white chocolate (I mean, it's not even real chocolate!) and subbed in some ridiculously dark bittersweet chocolate instead. This time though, I wanted a change. And with my new found love of almonds, that was the first change I made.

White Chocolate Chip Almond Chocolate Biscotti
makes about 18 pieces

1/2 cup butter - softened
2/3 c sugar
1/4 c cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 c flour
4 oz white chocolate chips
1/2 c slivered almonds

semi sweet chocolate for dipping (I melted a whole bag of chips, but
didn't need nearly that much, probably half a bag would do)
white chocolate for drizzle (I melted... less than a cup of chips)

First off, cream the butter and sugar. 

Once that is all light and fluffy, mix in the cocoa powder and baking powder. 

After that, beat in the eggs one at a time.

Now add in the flour and mix until combined.

The last step in the dough making, mix in the white chocolate chips and almond slivers.

Chill the dough for at least ten minutes, you can let the oven preheat to 375 during this time. The dough will be fairly sticky at this point, so chilling it will help out a lot when you get to the next step.

Once the dough is nice and chilled we will shape the dough into 2 roughly nine inch logs. Space them out evenly on a cookie sheet, and flatten them a bit. They'll expand some but not crazy amounts.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the biscotti cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack where you should let them cool completely, about an hour.

Set the oven to preheat to 325 degrees. While this is going on you'll want to cut the biscotti. Cut slices 3/4 to an inch thick on a diagonal. The farther away from a straight up and down slice, the longer the pieces of biscotti will be. For biscotti beginners I would recommend starting with shorter slices, as it can be a bit crumbly at this stage.

Bake for 9 minutes, flip the biscotti and bake for another 7 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack. 

Melt the semisweet chocolate, I use a double boiler but use whatever method you prefer. Dip one edge of the biscotti in chocolate and let chill in the fridge until the chocolate is hardened.

Melt the white chocolate, again, however you are most comfortable. Drizzle over the biscotti with a spoon. I found white chocolate to be a bit more temperamental than the semisweet so be careful not to overheat. I'd recommend that once about 2/3 is melted, take the chocolate off the heat and stir until the rest is melted in.

Lemon Thyme Potato

A while back I bookmarked this recipe from The Kitchn and I finally got to it a few days ago. I tend to focus in on baked goods so the savory recipes get pushed to the side in favor of chocolate this or peppermint that. Understandable, but so not fair to all the delicious non sweets out there.

I'm not sure how many of you went camping when you were young (or not so young), but this is like a grown up version of a foil pack. Way back when we used to dump all sorts of raw veggies, salt, pepper, and some oil into foil, ball it up and shove it under the coals of a campfire. This took me back.

Lemon Thyme Potato

altered for 1 potato

1 potato - I used russet

1/2 lemon

Garlic

Thyme

Oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

The first thing you'll want to do is slice the potato. You want to make about 1/4 inch slices, and you do not want to slice all the way through. The potato slices should all end up attached to each other at the bottom.

Drizzle oil over the potato, getting some in between the slices. I actually forgot this step, don't tell! The potato turned out fine, I just let it cook for a bit longer than called for.

If you're using fresh herbs, prep those. Slice the garlic thin, and remove the thyme from the stalk. I used dried, not as good, but it works in a pinch. 

Also prep the lemon, slice it as thinly as you can. I got about 6 slices from a half lemon, plus two little end pieces that I didn't use in the potato.

Insert the garlic, thyme, and lemon slices in between the potato slices. The lemon has a tendency to pop out, just push it back in. When you wrap the potato in foil that will help keep things together.

Put the foil wrapped potato in the oven for about 45 minutes, mine took more like an hour. But again, that's probably because I forgot the oil. You can test the potato at 45 minutes with a fork, and if it isn't tender enough just shove it back in the oven for a bit longer.