Flour's Famous Banana Bread with Banana Frosty

I was all hyped up to make coconut macaroons tonight.  I have someone very special who requested them, so they'll be coming soon.  Most likely Thursday-soon.  Tonight though, the hubs was a little disgruntled by the aging bananas on our counter and requested banana bread.  Hubs has some good ideas, and warm banana bread on a cold, rainy Boston night is one of them.

I decided to crack out one of my newer cookbooks, Flour by Joanne Chang.  Flour is an amazing Boston bakery, and I'm lucky to work right near one of the locations.  The banana bread at flour is legendary, so I was excited to try out this recipe.

The image on the left is a picture from the cookbook

The cookbook overall is excellent.  It has beautiful photography, fun anecdotes, sometimes scientific explanations for why you're asked to do certain things.  I love it.  My favorite recipe so far is the one for homemade poptarts.  A friend and I watched Joanne make these at a Williams-Sonoma demo, and of course I had to go right home and try it myself.  They came out awesome.  That was before I started this blog, soooo I'll probably have to make them again soon for you all!

So as this bread was baking up, I was working on a new family budget and J's eyes were glued to the tv- it's Bruins game 2 tonight.  Just as the 30-minute cooling time was coming to an end, the Bruins scored their FIFTH goal in one period!  In a fit of excitement I decided this banana bread needed to become CELEBRATION banana bread.  Inspired by Beantown Baker's recipe for Banana Soft Serve that I read at work today, I whipped up my own topping and call it Banana frosty.  It's a more liquidy version of your favorite fast-food soft-serve treat, and heavy on the banana!

We went from having plain (yet amazing) banana bread to an amazing banana bread sundae in just seconds.  Bananas past their prime = prime time dessert.  Enjoy!


For the banana bread recipe, check out "flour, Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe" by Joanne Chang.

To top your favorite banana bread with my Banana Frosty- here's the recipe!

Need:
1 banana - cut into chunks and frozen for about 1 hour or more
2 ice cubes
1 tsp rum extract (if you want, i added this and could barely taste it)
1/4 cup. milk
1 hefty squirt of chocolate syrup

Do:
Put everything in a food processor and pulse until it makes a consistency that you find desirable for topping your banana bread!

*NOTES/Disclaimer- In case you're wondering- flour did NOT ask me to endorse their book, I just love it!  I hope they don't mind the picture of their picture- just wanted to show a glimpse of my night - flour cookbook, mixing bowl and a glass of red wine :)


Banana Bread

Strawberry Banana Galette

My family and friends know me as a chocolate-cake-brownie dessert type gal.  90% of the time I am...nothing makes me happier than chocolate-cake-brownies-one-or-all-three-doesn't-matter-I-LOVE-IT!  Last night was one of the rare days where I was craving dessert of a different type.  I wanted something doughy, sweet, and tart.  Sitting on the couch thinking about what would be the perfect fix, my new Pies & Tarts book by Martha Stewart caught my eye.


Every time I see this book, I smile.  I had mentioned a while back to a coworker that I was looking for it, but had been unsuccessful at finding it in a store.  She happened to see it at Costco a couple weekends ago and picked it up for me!  My new favorite Martha book greeted me at my desk on a Monday morning- best way to start the week ever!

So I'm flipping through Pies & Tarts and thinking man, I don't have the ingredients for any of these things. As I was reading through the freeform section I decided to try a galette, and try putting my own spin on it with fruit I had in the house.  With some strawberries that weren't going to last much longer and bananas that were in the same boat (har har) came my creation- Strawberry Banana Galettes.

Mine looks nothing like Martha's, but it tasted great and definitely hit the spot.  A galette is a simple pate brisee with fruit filling.  It's meant to look a little rough around the edges, and served hot with a nice scoop or two of vanilla ice cream on top, it tastes like a personal open-faced pie. Perfect rainy night treat.

What type of dessert person are you? Chocolatey? Fruity? Or none at all? I noticed I have a fair amount of readers- would love to hear from you!

Strawberry Banana Galettes

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Mini Rhubarb & Raspberry Galette recipe

Need:

-Pate Brisee (make enough for one 9" pie crust, or check out my recipe below)

-All purpose flour for dusting

-1 1/2 cups chopped fresh strawberries

-1 medium chopped banana

-1/8 cup cornstarch

-1 cup granulated sugar

-coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Do: 

- Divide dough evenly into 2 pieces.  Roll out each piece to approximately 7" round, 1/8" thick.  Transfer rounds to a parchment-lined cookie sheet, several inches apart.  If these feel soft at all, REFRIGERATE!  I didn't, and it led to the galette fail that I will show you below.

- In a large bowl, combine strawberries, bananas, cornstarch and sugar.  Toss to coat evenly.

- Split the berry mixture evenly between both rounds.  Leave at least 1" border, I left about 2-3".  Gently fold the edges up around the fruit mixture.  Make sure to leave a hole in the middle.  Gently brush the folds with water and press to connect them.  Refrigerate again about 30 minutes until firm.  Again- I neglected to do this and got a galette fail.  

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and brush cold galettes with water, then sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Bake for 30 minutes- crust should be golden brown.  Reduce heat to 375 for about 15 minutes more, until juices are bubbling.  Martha says to let cool completely.  I say, serve hot (and eat carefully!) with a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Get ready for a warm, ooey gooey delicious single-serve bowl fulla pie.  

If you're dying for dessert and decide to skip the refrigeration parts of this recipe, fear not, you will still have a delicious treat!  It will just expand and maybe not be so pretty...

Don't say I didn't warn ya!

Now, if you need a pate brisee recipe, here's Martha's, reworked by moi to make just enough for 2 mini galettes:

Need: 

1 1/4 c. all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 stick cold, unsalted butter cut into small pieces

1/4 cup ice water

Do:

-Whisk together flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl

-Add butter and mix around so all of the butter pieces are coated in flour.

-Quickly cut in butter with a pastry cutter until mixture resembled coarse meal, with larger pieces remaining.

-Drizzle with 1/4 c. ice water and mix together with a fork until mixture starts to come together.  If dough is too dry, add another 1/4 c. ice water.

-Divide dough in half onto two pieces of plastic wrap. Gather each into a ball, wrap loosely in plastic, and then flatten into a disc.

-Refrigerate at least 1 hour for best results.  (I put mine in the freezer for 15 min. and you can see the results above.  Coldness is key!)