Join Juliet and me as we conga around the kitchen island singing Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song .

Got you in the mood for a banana recipe?

The way I figure it, everyone needs a few good banana recipes. Bananas are a health food, after all. According to the LiveStrong site: “The high levels of potassium and carbohydrates in bananas make them a good source of fuel for athletes. The fiber in bananas can help to lower your risk for intestinal problems, high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes. The fiber can help fill you up and keep you feeling full for longer, helping you keep from eating more calories than you need and gaining weight.” What’s not to love?

I figure everyone also needs a few great banana recipes to use up those unsightly overripe bananas that inevitably end up in your fruit bowl–you know, the ones that shrivel, turn black and ooze out of their skins without the least provocation. (You can, by the way, freeze those over-ripe banana bad boys and use them –right outta the freezer– in any cake recipe that calls for bananas.)

In my home, in addition to my conga-loving rescue pup, Juliet, banana obsession extends to my  27-year-old umbrella cockatoo, Moti. Woe be it to me if I don’t promptly deliver a food dish with a few banana slices to her cage early each morning. I’ve been known to make a sleepy-eyed  early-morning banana run to the supermarket to keep Moti in bananas. Trust me, there is no sunshine in in anyone’s day if Moti doesn’t have her morning banana.

Moti is smart, too. Early each morning, perched on one foot next to her water bottle, she ever-so-carefully places pieces of her other foods onto the velcro-like sticky surface of her banana slices where they stay as she eats a little banana and then a little of her other foods, washing it all down with big gulps of fresh water. (What can I say? Everyone is a foodie in my house.)

Fortunately for us all, bananas have been around forever. Well, almost forever. Food historians trace the domestication of bananas to New Guinea around 8000 BCE, making them perhaps the first cultivated fruit. Later, Muslim traders spread the banana across Asia and into Europe and, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese explorers brought the plant to the new world. In today’s America, the average American consumes 27.9 pounds of bananas each year.

By the way, the plant in the photo (above) is a yellow African begonia, a Staudtil microsperma, from Nigeria by way of Andy’s Orchids in Encinitas.  For my gardening friends who are reading this blog, here is the link to Andy’s website:  Andy’s Orchids .  Prepare to be overwhelmed by the collection Andy has put together.

This truly wonderful banana cake recipe is adapted from one that appeared in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Here is a link to that book: Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

From everyone here, Day-O! to you and yours.

Yields 16 Servings

Banana Cake

20 minPrep Time

1 hr, 5 Cook Time

1 hr, 25 Total Time

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Ingredients

• 3 C. all-purpose flour
• 2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 8 ounces unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 2 C. sugar
• 2 t. vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs (room temperature)
• 5 large very ripe bananas (mashed)
• 1 C. sour cream (or plain yogurt)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Carefully grease your bundt pan.
2. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
3. Add butter to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until the butter is creamy. Add the sugar and beat until the butter/sugar mixture is pale in color and fluffy in texture. Add vanilla to the butter mixture. Add eggs (one at a time) and mix thoroughly after adding each egg--about one minute after adding each egg. Lower the speed of your mixer from medium to low an add mashed bananas. Then, add one half of the flour mixture and mix. Add the sour cream and mix to combine. Add the remainder of the flour to the batter. Mix until ingredients are combined.
4. Using a spatula, scrape the batter into your prepared bundt pan. Rap the bundt pan on your counter once or twice once all the batter is in the pan. This will remove any air bubbles from the batter.
5. Bake on the middle rack in the center of your oven at 350 degrees F. for 65 to 75 minutes. (Cover your cake loosely with tin foil for the last 15 minutes of baking.) Your cake will be done when a toothpick or wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake.
6. Let cake cool on your counter and unmold onto your serving plate. Serve plain dusted with powdered sugar or drizzle a powdered sugar glaze (powdered sugar mixed with a little milk) onto the cake. You can serve this immediately or wrap it in plastic wrap and serve the next day. According to the original recipe, the texture of the cake improves when wrapped overnight and served the next day.

Nutrition

Calories

2352 cal

Fat

101 g

Carbs

300 g

Protein

51 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

57

https://bluecayenne.com/day-o-banana-cake

Olive oil in a cake? Yuck.

Don’t get me wrong. I love olive oil. I regularly drive to Los Alamitos’ Antica Olive Oil store to buy the best olive oils I can find. There, I enthusiastically swirl, sniff, sip and swallow  the various offerings freshly poured from the fusti, searching for the olive oil with the most grassy flavor and the most peppery bite–all the better if it is chock-full of polyphenol antioxidants.

I’m hooked.

But putting three-fourths of a cup of the pungent stuff in a cake? I dunno. Seems wrong to me.

On the other hand, the olive oil cake in this month’s Cook’s Illustrated Magazine had me intrigued. True, I’ve been seeing olive oil cakes in a number of publications in recent years, but up until now I’ve simply registered the idea as an engaging one and quietly slid the copied recipe to the bottom of what is my burgeoning stack of “to try” recipes. But, if Cook’s Illustrated touts a recipe, my cooking instincts told me, it must be good.

Too, I let my heart get away from me at last week’s farmers’ market. I bought six baskets of exquisite organic strawberries. However you cut it them, that is a whole lot of strawberries for one lady and a small sweet dog to consume. So, I was looking for something interesting to serve as a strawberry shortcake. Olive oil cake? Why not?

It turns out that the distinct taste of a fruity olive oil complements the slightly sweet flavor of the cake.

Here is the link to the Cook’s Illustrated article about olive oil cakes: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/462-olive-oil-cake

Yields 8 Servings

Olive Oil Cake

20 minPrep Time

40 minCook Time

1 hrTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 1 3/4 C. (8 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 3/4 t. salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/4 C. (8 3/4 ounces) plus 2 T. sugar
• 2/4 t. grated lemon zest
• 3/4 C. extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 C. milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.
3. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt until ingredients are well-distributed. Set aside.
4. Using the whisk attachment of your stand mixer, whisk eggs until they are foamy, about one minute with mixer set on medium speed. Add 1 1/4 C. sugar and the lemon zest to the egg mixture. Continue to whisk the mixture until it is pale yellow (about three minutesI). With mixer set on medium speed, slowly drizzle the oil into the egg mixture until the oil is completely combined with the eggs (about one minute).
5. Turn mixer speed down to low speed, and mix in one half of the flour mixture. Mix for about one minute until the flour is completely incorporated. You will need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl as you mix in the flour. Add the milk and mix for about thirty seconds. Mix in the remaining flour just until it is incorporated (about one minute).
6. Scrape down the sides of the mixer bowl and scoop the batter into prepared springform pan.
7. Sprinkle two T. sugar over the surface of the batter.
8. Bake cake at 350 degrees F. for approximately 40-45 minutes on the middle rack in your oven. You want the top of the cake to be a pretty golden brown when the cake is finished.
9. When a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with only a few crumbs, remove cake from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. The top of the cake is going to crack, so don't worry when that happens. Then, release the sides of the springform pan and leave cake on your counter to cool completely (1 1/2 hours).

Nutrition

Calories

269 cal

Fat

4 g

Carbs

49 g

Protein

8 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

54

https://bluecayenne.com/olive-oil-cake

Do the words five ingredients and gourmet dessert go together? Throw in the word fast and you have this gorgeous strawberry tart.

Your guests will rave (in a good way).

You may be unfamiliar with mascarpone cheese, the main ingredient in this tart. Mascarpone is a mild-flavored soft double or triple cream cheese that originated in the Lombardy region of Italy. It is similar to cream cheese or a thick French creme fraiche. You may need to sit down before reading the next line, though. Mascarpone has a fat content that ranges from sixty to seventy-five percent. There are six grams of fat in a single tablespoon of the cheese. Fortunately a small slice of this tart is very satisfying!

Typically, mascarpone is a dessert ingredient. It is a chief ingredient in Italy’s decadent tiramisu dessert, for example, but it also is used in savory dishes like pastas. You can buy mascarpone in the dairy section of markets like Trader Joe’s.

There are links at the bottom of this post to the original recipe from the How Sweet Eats blog, to a tutorial for carving the roses (it’s a cinch!), and to a do-it-yourself recipe for making mascarpone at home if you want to give that a try.

Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

1 hrPrep Time

1 hrTotal Time

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Ingredients

• 1 1/2 C. cookie or graham cracker crumbs
• 5 T. unsalted butter (melted)
• 12 ounces mascarpone cheese (at room temperature)
• 1/4 C. powdered sugar
• 2 pints fresh strawberries
• Optional ingredients/garnishes
• juice of 1/2 lemon (or vanilla extract)
• fresh mint for garnish
• honey for drizzling

Instructions

1. Pulverize cookie crumbs in a food processor. (I used graham cracker crumbs.)
2. Melt butter and add it to the cookie crumbs. (Add more butter if necessary to get the crust to hold together. I did.) Press the crumb/butter mixture firmly into a 4 x 14 inch tart pan (or an 8 inch round pan) with your fingers. (Your pan should have a removable bottom. The crust is tender, so a pan with a removable bottom will make it easier to remove the tart from the pan at the time of serving.)
3. Mix mascarpone and powdered sugar in a bowl. Add the optional lemon juice or vanilla extract. (I used fresh lemon juice.) You will want to mix the cheese filling until it loosens up a bit. Gently spread the mixture with a spatula onto your tart shell. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. (The butter in the crumb crust will harden and firm up the crumbly crust. It is still a tender crust, though. Be careful handling it. If it does break, just sprinkle the crumbs over the tart slice and enjoy. It will still look beautiful.)
4. Meanwhile, prepare your strawberry roses. When you are ready to serve the tart, place the strawberry roses decoratively on top of the tart. The original recipe covered the tart with roses. It was beautiful. I used a single line of roses because I thought it was attractive to expose some of the filling.
5. A link to a tutorial that shows you how to carve the roses appears at the end of this post. It was easy!

Notes

When I first made this, I was worried that the small amount of powdered sugar the recipe called for would be enough to adequately sweeten the tart. Once I tasted the finished product, though, the subtle sweetness was just perfect for me. Depending upon your sweet tooth, you may want to adjust the amount of sugar in the mascarpone filling.

Nutrition

Calories

387 cal

Fat

39 g

Carbs

1 g

Protein

6 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

7.8.1.2

47

https://bluecayenne.com/strawberry-mascarpone-tart

Here is a link to a tutorial on carving the strawberry roses: Carving Strawberry Roses

Here is the link to the original recipe on the How Sweet Eats blog: Five Ingredient Strawberry Tart

Here is a link to a recipe to make your own mascarpone that appears on the Epicurious site: Do-it-yourself mascarpone from Epicurious