Tag Archives: bread

Sour Cream Banana Bread

2 Jul Banana Bread

Banana BreadI like bananas to be ripe, which means yellow with brown sugar spots on them. In warm-weather months like this, bananas go from green to ripe in just a few days, and then they’ve only got another few days to go until they’re over-ripe and too mushy to enjoy.  But there’s no need to fret when that happens — it’s a perfect excuse to make banana bread!

For a long time we relied on The Joy of Cooking’s Quick Banana Bread recipe. It’s a good recipe so I don’t want to denigrate it. But one day I had some sour cream that needed to be used, as well as over-ripe bananas, so I searched the Web for another recipe. This recipe is adapted from one I found on food.com. It’s very moist and rich-tasting but not too sweet, and it’s excellent with cream cheese.

Ingredients:

½ cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 cup mashed bananas (2-3 bananas)
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
½ cup sour cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a large loaf pan. (If you cut parchment paper to shape and put it on the bottom, you can be sure it won’t stick.)

Cream the butter or margarine and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Mix the dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture alternately with the bananas. Stir in the sour cream and the nuts and mix well. Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

Makes about 12 slices

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Cheese Souffle

14 May

Cheese SouffleTonight starts the Jewish festival of Shavuot (Weeks). It’s customary to eat dairy foods. You may ask why. You won’t get an answer here. There’s no definitive answer. There’s a lot of speculation, too detailed and esoteric for me to get into now. My answer must echo Tevye: “Tradition!”

Here’s a nice recipe for a delicious dairy supper. It isn’t a true souffle, which would involve starting with a white sauce, adding cheese and egg yolks and then folding in beaten egg whites. This is a lot easier because you start with stale bread cubes. It’s actually more of a savory bread pudding, but what comes out of the oven looks and tastes a lot like a souffle, so go ahead, call it a souffle!

I always turn bread that’s past its prime into bread cubes. I keep them in a large bowl on the counter to dry out, tossing them occasionally. If there’s a big holiday coming up that calls for a turkey, I’ll use it for stuffing. Otherwise, when I get enough I make a bread pudding of some sort. The dry bread cubes will keep for weeks as long as they don’t get wet!

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. butter (optional)
1 cup sliced mushrooms (optional)
4 scallions, chopped (optional)
2 Tbs. white wine (optional)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 to 6 slices stale white bread, crust trimmed and cut into cubes
4 eggs
2 cups milk
¼ tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. dry mustard
dash of Worcestershire sauce or cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions:

If you plan to use the mushrooms, scallions and wine, melt the butter in a skillet, add the mushrooms, scallions and wine and cook until the mushrooms are soft and the liquid is evaporated.

Trim the crusts from the stale bread and cut it into cubes. Grease a casserole or soufflé dish and place the bread cubes in it. Add the mushroom-scallion mixture and the cheese. Beat the eggs well. Add the milk, thyme and mustard, and the Worcestershire sauce or cayenne pepper if you use it. Pour over the bread cubes and mix lightly to be sure all the cubes are coated with the egg-milk mixture. Wait at least 10 minutes, preferably a little longer, for the egg-milk mixture to be absorbed into the bread. (You can leave it to soak as long as overnight, but cover it and put it in the fridge if you are going to wait more than an hour or two, and then bring the dish back to room temperature before baking.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake the soufflé for 35 to 45 minutes until it is puffed and golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. It will sink a little as it cools.

Serves 4

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Cranberry Nut Bread

14 Mar

ImageI’ve been getting requests for Passover recipes. This isn’t one. The problem is I like to include photos with my recipes, and I won’t be making any Passover recipes for another 10 days when my kitchen is ready for the holiday! I’ll look for year-round recipes that also work for Passover to post soon, and once my prep is complete, I’ll post some of my fave Passover dishes.

Meanwhile, look in your freezer — maybe, like I did, you have a package of fresh cranberries stashed there. This would be a great way to use them up before the holiday!

This recipe came from one of our neighbors – I can’t remember which one –  in the graduate student apartments at Temple University where we lived from 1972 to 1976. I’ve tried other cranberry nut breads, but none has been as good as this one! Try it for breakfast with cream cheese.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups fresh cranberries, cut in half or coarsely chopped (a food processor is a good idea!)
¼ cup vegetable shortening
¾ cup orange juice
1 Tbs. grated orange zest
1 egg, well beaten
½ cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together the dry ingredients. Cut in the shortening until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. Combine the orange juice, orange zest and egg. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour the orange juice mixture in. Stir lightly to combine. Stir in the cranberries and nuts. Spoon into a greased loaf pan and pull the batter away from the center to the four corners (this will keep it from getting too high in the center). Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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