Nov 23
According to the magazine where I found this recipe, avocado, tomato and mint on rye is a classic Aussie cafe staple. I, myself, have never heard of it before, and perhaps that’s because whenever I go to a cafe I tend to order a coffee and cake rather than an actual meal! Read more
Aug 2
When I think about entertaining guests, there is one occasion that pops into my head every time. I really am not sure why, but it is a memory that has really stuck with me. It must have been 1997, soon after I had graduated high school, so I was 17 at this particular time. My mom had invited some of her work friends over for dinner, and I wasn’t looking forward to it – I was your average unsociable teen who would rather be listening to music in her room, surrounded by posters of Nirvana, Green Day, Dr Spock, Superman, etc. When my mom’s friends arrived, I excused myself to wander about outside, waiting to be called in when dinner was ready, when I’d have to put on a happy face.
While outside, I wandered about and ended up standing outside of our neighbor’s house. Our neighbor, who was a lovely, generous lady, had passed away some time earlier and her son was then living there on his own. Every other weekend or so, his 3 sons would come to stay with him. His sons were there on this particular day, and as I hadn’t seen them in a while (we used to play together all the time as children), I thought I’d just quickly stop in to say hi.
The visit with these guys didn’t end up being so quick… we played some Nintendo (I believe it might have been Nintendo 64) – Super Mario Kart – and chatted a bit about what we were up to these days. They had planned on going to see the movie In & Out that night and invited me to come with them. I called my mom from their house and she said it was fine if I wanted to go with them. I was relieved I wouldn’t have to pretend to be all cheerful and polite with my mom’s friends!
May 29
I really love quick breads. I have a collection of many different kinds, but my favorite is always banana bread. We’ll start out this post with a banana bread recipe, but this particular one has two interesting twists, one of which may be new to you.
I’m not sure how I found this recipe, it may have been FoodGawker or TasteSpotting, but as soon as I found it, I bookmarked it. The photos from Food o’ del Mundo look fantastic, like the perfect banana bread.
The bread is spotted with chocolate chips, which isn’t much of a surprise, but it also includes the addition of crystallized ginger, which definitely surprised me! I had never had crystallized ginger before so I made this recipe a high-priority.
Apr 23
If you’re a follower of The Sweetest Kitchen, you may know that I have never baked with yeast because I lack the courage to do so. I want to make a batch of cinnamon rolls using yeast sometime, but because I’m too scared of yeast, I settled for a yeast-free version. Oh, they were very yummy, indeed, but they had a cake-like texture which was far from a real cinnamon roll. This post isn’t about cinnamon rolls, by the way, but I’m working up to that.
Three weeks ago, I faced my fear of making macarons, so I felt brave enough to take on the yeast challenge. I couldn’t find the best recipe, so a friend recommended the basic bread recipe from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. She sent me a link to a video of the authors of this book making the basic recipe and I basically made my decision right then to make it.
It was so easy, I was nearly laughing at myself for having never done this before. Of course I realize that this is a no-knead bread and other types of bread may be a bit more difficult, but this particular recipe is a great introduction to those who may be a little timid around yeast because it is so laughably easy.
Feb 5
When was the first time you heard of Nutella and tasted it for yourself? For me, it was 1995. My foreign language class was planning a “field trip” to Spain and France for spring break of that year. I was one of the lucky few whose parents allowed me to go. A friend of mine told me that I just had to buy some Nutella while I was overseas. I had to ask her what it was and she explained it was a sort of sandwich spread that was made with chocolate and hazelnuts. I told her it sounded great and I would buy some.
While in France I did find some, and purchased it to bring home. The funny thing is, after I tasted it, I didn’t like it! I also thought it was strange to put chocolate on bread. So I don’t think I even finished the small jar of it that I had brought home.
Years later, and I do mean years later, after I moved to Australia, I noticed that Nutella was plentiful in all the grocery stores. I decided to try it again, because it sure did look nice, so maybe my tastes had changed over the years. Luckily for my tastebuds, I loved it! Unlucky for my waistline, however! Nutella has nearly been a staple in our household since then.
I’ve tried plenty of my own Nutella creations in the past, including my popular peanut butter and Nutella swirl cookies, and Nutella-coffee frosting.
This is my second year submitting to World Nutella Day; this year I made a variation of the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.
It’s a fried Nutella and banana sandwich with a cinnamon-sugar crust. This has already had mixed reactions. Some love the idea, some hate the idea and think it’s disgusting. Someone even suggested that instead of frying the bread, to toast it in the toaster.
If I’m going to eat a banana with Nutella, I usually just spread a layer of Nutella on a naked banana, slice it into rounds, then eat it. I’ve even eaten a plain un-fried Nutella and banana sandwich. But, as I thought with the fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, the extra step of frying it brings a new depth to the taste.
Now, I wouldn’t go and make one of these sandwiches every day, but it does make a nice treat once in a while!
The recipe is below, but please note that I just estimated the amounts of what I used. This is a recipe where you can use however much (or less) of anything that you like!
Nutella & Banana Sandwich With Cinnamon-Sugar Crust
serves 1Ingredients
2 slices wholemeal bread, or bread of your choice
Approximately 1/2 teaspoon butter
Cinnamon-sugar, you can buy this at the store or make it yourself
1 ripe banana
Approximately 1 tablespoon Nutella, or similarDirections
Heat a skillet over low-medium heat. Meanwhile, spread a thin layer of butter on one side of each slice of bread. Sprinkle a good amount of cinnamon-sugar on the buttered side of each slice.Slice the banana into enough rounds so that you can layer the unbuttered side of one slice of bread with the rounds. Spread Nutella on the unbuttered side of the other slice of bread.
Carefully place the bread with the bananas, buttered side down, into the skillet. Immediately place the other slice of bread, Nutella side down, right on top of the bananas.
Fry until golden brown, then flip the sandwich over and fry until golden brown. Keep your eye on it, it can burn easily!
Let cool, slice diagonally if you like, and enjoy!
So what are you waiting for? Go celebrate World Nutella Day!
See Ms Adventures In Italy, Bleeding Espresso and World Nutella Day for more information.
Aug 16
I just love banana breads and muffins and have a collection of many different recipes for these. Earlier this week I chose to use a recipe from my Taste of Home cookbook, called Special Banana Nut Bread. As the name would imply, it is a recipe for banana bread, but I went out and bought a jumbo muffin tin to turn the bread into muffins.
The original recipe asked for pecans, but I used walnuts instead. What I really did like about this recipe is that it uses cream cheese. It is creamed along with the butter and sugar, so it is thoroughly incorporated through the batter.
The texture is absolutely perfect and so moist! It almost mimics the taste of those yummy Otis Spunkmeyer muffins that I love.
These muffins were fantastic for breakfast and were so filling that I told my mom that this might be my only banana bread recipe!
Special Banana Nut Bread
Adapted from Taste of Home
Makes 1 loaf, 6 jumbo muffins or 12 regular muffinsIngredients
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts, dividedMethod
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, beating well. Beat in bananas and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture. Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts.Transfer to a greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan or greased muffin tin. Sprinkle with remaining walnuts. Bake at 350F for 1 to 1 1/4 hours for a loaf, 30 minutes for jumbo muffins or 20-22 minutes for regular muffins, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Aug 8
Zucchini bread is something that’s always been on my to-bake list, but it was at the bottom of the list. I had never eaten zucchini bread before, and I admit I was a little scared of what it might taste like!
A friend of mine recently baked a loaf of zucchini bread which did not turn out as she had planned, so I decided to try the recipe that I had bookmarked a few weeks ago from Made By Melissa, thinking I could recommend the recipe to my friend. I chose this recipe because of the use of ginger – I just love the taste of ginger!
Melissa’s recipe makes 2 8×4-inch loaves; I decided to make 1 loaf and use the rest of the batter for muffins (more kid-friendly, I thought). I had just enough batter to make exactly 12 muffins.
I was totally blown away by this zucchini bread. As I said, I had never eaten zucchini bread before, and didn’t know what to expect. It is possibly the moistest bread I’ve ever eaten, and while it might have had a slight taste of zucchini, it tasted mostly of cinnamon and ginger. It was absolutely delicious.
I will definitely be making this recipe again! I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to bake zucchini bread. My next venture with zucchini might include chocolate zucchini cupcakes – the zucchini made the bread so moist, and I would love to see if it has the same effect on chocolate cake.
Apr 6
I realize this is not the right time of the year for pumpkin-based foods, but I had a craving! I haven’t made this bread since living in Australia, about 3 years ago now, and I loved it then.
The recipe I used comes from Simply Recipes (but left out the walnuts). After tasting the pumpkin bread today and trying to compare it to what I remember from 3 years ago, it doesn’t seem to be quite as tasty as it was back then. I used a butternut squash instead of pumpkin – I boiled chunks of the squash, peeled off the skin and pureed the squash in a blender. Today I used a canned pureed pumpkin. This is the only difference. Maybe the squash made the difference, and/or the fact that it was fresh.
It is still a nice bread, however, and I would recommend it if you’d like a change from the usual banana bread. It’s almost like a bread version of pumpkin pie, but not quite, and it is really moist. Also tastes nice with coffee. :)
Apr 1
I found the recipe for Starbucks’ chocolate cinnamon bread by total accident. I hadn’t even seen this particular bread for sale at my local Starbucks. It sounded way too nice to pass up on, so I bookmarked it for later – I used the recipe from Baking Bites, who made a few changes to the original Starbucks recipe. The only thing I did differently from Baking Bites’ recipe was adding a pinch of ginger to the sugar blend topping.
I love all the ingredients in this bread – especially the combination of chocolate and cinnamon. The sugar blend on the top is fabulous as well – it’s a mix of sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder, cloves and ginger.
In my opinion, there was too much of the sugar blend for just the top of the bread – if I was doing this again, I would have made the sugar blend first and coated the inside of the loaf pan with it, using leftovers for the top of the bread.
I used a silicone loaf pan for this bread, but I would highly recommended a normal metal or glass loaf pan. The silicone isn’t strong enough to support the loaf as it’s rising – it ended up with big bulging sides!
And most of the sugar blend fell off when I took it out of the loaf pan. I sprinkled as much as I could back onto the bread.
Now, I don’t understand why this is called a “bread” – it most certainly does not have the texture of a normal bread, barely even banana bread. The chocolate cinnamon bread is super moist, and has a crunchy top.
The chocolate taste is super strong, with a hint of spice. A slice of this loaf goes a long way, so while Starbucks may serve you a slice that is nearly 2-inches thick, I’m recommending to slice it a bit thinner (unless you’re really hungry!). It tastes amazing with a cup of freshly brewed coffee.
I think this bread, which I personally think is more like cake, would look very nice baked in mini loaf pans, or even muffin pans. The top of the bread remains flat, so don’t expect to get a nice dome out of this.
Sorry for all the photos, but I thought the bread looked very photogenic! :)
Mar 21
For some reason, I had always thought that French toast was a difficult breakfast to prepare. I was totally wrong. This is twice I’ve made this recipe in the past few months and I just love it. The first time I made this, I used regular whole wheat sandwich bread, and drizzled it with maple syrup and a few blueberries (my daughter loved it). This time I used French bread, drizzled it with maple syrup and topped it with sweetened strawberries and bananas (and again, my daughter loved it).
I have to state the fact that my daughter loved it because she usually doesn’t eat things I cook for her – she’d rather eat raw stuff, like vegetables, fruit and sandwiches (at least it’s good for her!).
French Toast
Serves 1-2, depending on how hungry you are!Ingredients
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash nutmeg
2 slices bread, whatever kind you have
butter for panMethod
Coat a frying pan with butter and warm the pan to medium heat.Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together egg, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour into a shallow rimmed plate or bowl, to easily coat slices of bread. Dip slices of bread, one at a time, into the egg mixture, turning to coat thoroughly.
When the pan is hot, place slices of bread inside and cook for about 3 minutes, or until bread is golden brown and crispy. Turn the slices of bread over and cook again until golden brown and crispy.
Serve with maple syrup and/or fresh fruit.
I love banana bread and had a great recipe, from Betty Crocker, I think, that I could swear by but have lost it somewhere. While on the search for another one I came across this one from Martha Stewart, which was a banana bread made with whole wheat flour and flaxseed (walnuts are also in the ingredients, but I don’t like walnuts in my bread!). I decided to make it right away.
I loved it! It was very moist and tasty. I made this about four months ago (above photo taken at that time), so I decided it was time to make it again, since we had a few bananas sitting around getting too ripe.
This second time around, I have to make some notes that I noticed from last time.
* I would prefer not to use course salt next time, as I keep getting a salty burst in some bites of the bread which I don’t like; I’m presuming the salt didn’t totally dissolve. Why use course salt though? Why not use regular salt and perhaps decrease the amount as well?
* The final step before placing the batter in the oven says to “Add the reserved flour mixture, and mix on low speed until well incorporated, about 10 seconds.”. 10 seconds did not well incorporate the dry ingredients with the wet, so I needed to mix for longer.
* The recipe says to bake for 35 minutes – I have never heard of banana bread baking in just 35 minutes. Both times I have used this recipe I need to increase the baking time for another 15 or so minutes.
Overall, for a great banana bread recipe, look no further! With whole wheat flour and flaxseed meal it also means that isn’t all that bad for you either!
Jamieanne has a passion for food and baking that dates back to her early childhood. She is the author of The Sweetest Kitchen blog, which features her favorite recipes from magazines, cookbooks and other food blogs. Keep up to date with Jamieanne and her blog by following on:
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