Easy 3-Ingredient Banana Bread

 Bread Baking, Desserts, What's Cooking?  No Responses »
May 052015
 

easy 3 ingredient banana breadI love banana bread, but I could never make a good one. They always came out too dense, if you know what I mean. Too heavy and well, thick. Until I found this recipe. This is more like banana cake, I guess, but I make it in a bread loaf pan and it passes for a very nice loaf of banana bread.

You only need three ingredients, yellow cake mix, eggs, and over-ripe bananas. That’s the basic recipe for a great tasting banana bread, and you can add additional ingredients if you’d like. For example, I added a teaspoon of vanilla, and a handful of walnuts and chocolate chips. I sliced and served it warm with a pat of butter…yum, it’s so good!

Ingredients:

  • Box of yellow cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
  • 2 eggs
  • 3-4 over-ripe bananas
cake mix, eggs, ripe bananas
Cake mix, eggs, over-ripe bananas – That’s it!

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Mash up several bananas in large bowl.
  3. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
  4. Grease two small or one large loaf pan (I used my 10″ x 5″ loaf pan).
  5. Bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes, until golden brown.
  6. Let sit for 10 minutes and then turn out onto cooling rack.

Optional Additions:

    You can also add all kinds of things if you like, such as chocolate chips, pecans, walnuts, blueberries, apples, etc.
Easy 3-Ingredient Banana Bread
Cake mix, eggs, bananas, chocolate chips, and walnuts
Easy 3-Ingredient Banana Bread
Easy 3-Ingredient Banana Bread, plus Chocolate Chips and Walnuts

Printable recipe without images:

Easy 3-Ingredient Banana Bread

Ingredients:

    Box of yellow cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
    2 eggs
    3-4 over-ripe bananas

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Mash up several bananas in large bowl.
  3. Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
  4. Grease two small or one large loaf pan (I used my 10″ x 5″ loaf pan).
  5. Bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes, until golden brown.
  6. Let sit for 10 minutes and then turn out onto cooling rack.

Optional Additions:

    You can also add all kinds of things if you like, such as chocolate chips, pecans, walnuts, blueberries, apples, etc.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Desserts, What's Cooking?  No Responses »
Nov 062013
 

Perfect Chocolate Chip CookiesI found a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that hasn’t failed me, yet. They come out perfectly every time. Nice and crispy around the edges, soft and plump in the center. Added: Make sure all of your ingredients (especially baking soda and eggs) are fresh.

Ingredients:

1 cup salted butter, softened (don’t use margarine or they might come out flat)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda (make sure it is fresh, not sitting in your cabinet for months)
2 tsp hot water
2 cups (12 oz. package) semi-sweet chocolate chips


Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth.
  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
  4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt, stir.
  5. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
  6. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until edges are nicely browned.

Yield: 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 dozen, depending on size. My last batch came out big, about 3″ in diameter and yielded 3-1/2 dozen.

Bon appétit!



No Crust Coconut Cream Pie

 Desserts, What's Cooking?  No Responses »
Oct 272013
 

No Crust Coconut Cream PieHave you ever made a pie without a pie crust? Well, here’s one that came out great!

I didn’t know what to think when I first saw this recipe, but it looked delicious. I thought it would be more like a coconut custard or pudding-like texture. But I decided to give it a try. This turned out great! Serve warm or cold with your choice of whipped topping. I use Cool Whip. It is firm, and slices just like a pie. I was very impressed. It was such a hit, three pieces were gone before I could take a picture! 🙂

There were several recipes to choose from online. One used 1 cup of coconut, another used 1-1/2 cups. One recipe baked it for 45 minutes, another for 60. One used flour, another used Bisquick. I suppose any of these would work, but I did the following and it came out perfect!

Ingredients

4 eggs
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 Tablespoon butter, softened (one stick)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bisquick (or all purpose flour)
1-1/2 cups shredded coconut
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions:

Don’t throw all of the ingredients in at once. I learned that lesson the hard way. I almost killed my blender doing this. After putting all of the ingredients in at one time, I pushed the button and it looked like it was mixing everything, but after a few seconds smoke started coming out of it and it smelled like burnt rubber…Ewww! It’s a good thing I didn’t walk away from it. My husband grabbed the base of the blender and carried it out to the porch, for fear that it would blow up or something. I continued to stir the ingredients in the pitcher and it looked like it was well blended. So, if I were you, I’d gradually blend the liquids first and then add the dry ingredients a little bit at a time until it was well blended. I tested the blender later on and it seemed to work okay.

Pour into a greased and floured 9″ pie plate. Sprinkle nutmeg on top. Let sit for 5 minutes. I don’t know why it has to sit, but since I forgot to preheat my oven I let the pie sit for more like 10 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve warm with a a little cream and a dollop of your favorite topping. That’s it, delish!

Bon appétit!

Family Rating: Five Smileys

Brookies – Brownies with Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Desserts  No Responses »
Dec 182012
 

I found these Brookies on Frugal-Freebies.com’s Facebook page. This is what they’re supposed to look like. Good luck with that! If you decide to make them, please upload a photo or link, I’d love to see how they came out!

This was my recipe for Brookies:

Step 1 – Make Cookie Dough

The recipe is on the package of Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies, but here it is in case you use your own chocolate chips or you can substitute M&Ms for chocolate chips.

Ingredients:


    2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (can use grater to shred hard butter)
    3/4 cup granulated sugar
    3/4 cup packed brown sugar
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    2 large eggs
    2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels or regular size M&Ms
    1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Chill bowl in refrigerator. Continue reading »

Do Your Chocolate Chip Cookies Come Out Flat?

 Desserts, What's Cooking?  2 Responses »
Jan 232012
 

We moved to Tennessee almost two years ago, and I hadn’t made any cookies since I lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Every time my husband would stop at Food City (once or twice a month) here in Knoxville, he’d buy chocolate chip and M&M cookies from the bakery. I have to admit, they are delicious! But every time, I would say to myself, my cookies are way better!

You see, when I made cookies in Florida, they came out great. Nice and plump, not flat! Granted, some cookies are meant to be flat or thin, but not my Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies. They came out perfect. Nice and plump, and oh, so delicious!

So, over the Christmas holiday I decided to make chocolate chip and M&M cookies. Using the best tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe from Nestles, I made a couple of big batches of cookies, adding M&Ms to half of them. My cookies came out flat! What the heck??? That never happened before. They look and taste okay but they are too thin and will fall apart.
Continue reading »