How am I supposed to put frosting over a face like this?
For the first time ever, I made one of my mom’s recipes less healthy rather than more. This is even a recipe I previously adapted to be healthier. And I’ll probably go back to my healthier version (and share it with you) next time. But that doesn’t make this experiment less of a success.
To understand this recipe, you have to know one thing about me: I eat cheddar cheese on top of my banana bread. Yes, I know I’m weird. Chris has told me so several times. My mom has conveniently forgotten that this is the way we ate it the entire time I was growing up. I know this because one of the times that Chris told me I was weird, I tried to get her to back me up about it being the way we always did it, and she denied it. That was how we ate our Swedish raisin rye bread, but our banana bread? No cheese ever touched it, if you ask her now.
Whatever. I know the truth. And even if the meeting of toasted banana bread and melted cheddar is a figment of my imagination, I’m glad to have it in my cheese-addled mind. This bread and my brioche buns are usually my go to for breakfast. Continue reading
If you hadn’t noticed yet, Chris is a big fan of King Arthur Flour’s products and recipes. I am, too–I used to drool over their catalogs back before I went to pastry school, and I loyally buy their flour–but not quite to the extent that he is. One of their website’s cool features that he’s drawn my attention to lately is their guaranteed recipes. If the recipe doesn’t turn out how they promise it will, you can call them and they’ll walk you through the recipe, and if that fails they’ll send you a five-dollar gift certificate. They’re willing to put their money where your mouth is, pretty much literally.
Chris tried out their gingerbread recipe a couple months ago. We were split on our opinion of it. He loved it, and I thought it was good, but not as good as the one I’d made from The Joy of Cooking. To be fair, I prefer the darker, more intense sort of gingerbread, and when I made mine I made it to my tastes. Still, I liked the idea of a guaranteed recipe. It strikes some sort of chord in the place where I feel food rather than think about it. Continue reading