Home Cookin'

Baking, really.

Last weekend, I bought a large quantity of bananas for a small dinner party because I was making Bananas Foster for dessert and the bananas were on sale. We ended up using less than anticipated, so had a very large number of bananas left over. I assumed we'd use 10 to 16, and bought 32. We used five. Lee and I had some delicious smoothies to use up some leftover ice cream and fruit juices from the punch, froze some for later banana bread, and I wanted to make something else with bananas.

I found a recipe for Spiced Banana Cake, thinking Lee might like it, and a Vanilla Glaze that sounded simple and delicious. We both like the cake, it's very moist and the banana flavor is mild but present against the spices, which is nice. I love the glaze; it's almost exactly what they used to put on the heavenly cinnamon buns at the bakery in Animal Kingdom (before they changed the supplier), but Lee thinks it's a bit sweet. I learned that the Japanese cake pan is a bit smaller than an American one when the cake rose up about 1.5 inches from the top of the pan, dripping extra batter into the center, making a lovely little secondary cake. Once I finished glazing and admiring the cake, the question was what to do with it (aside from the obvious). I give you our makeshift cake plate:

Once we're in the States again, I'll need to get myself an actual cake plate. A large Pyrex bowl over a dish, while obviously an acceptable solution, is not an elegant one!

Apples were on sale a bit ago as well, so instead of one $30 apple pie, we were able to get two out of approximately $20 in supplies. Since I've only made one type of pie crust before, and that crust has worked well for me (but is not The Pie Crust according to Lee), Lee made one and I will make the second for his birthday. We can't make two at once because we have only one pie dish. He realized exactly how odd the flour is here while making the crust; he's made the crust before but it's never been quite so yellow or wet before. The apples also aren't quite pie apples. They work, but are not quite as firm or flavorful as we'd like. Oh well.


We also got some lovely little peppers on our pepper plant. Lee ate the ripe one raw, and we're still waiting for another four or so to ripen. We'll definitely get two, and there are a couple more little buds that may turn into peppers if they get there before the weather gets nasty.