Baked Bananas

When bananas are baked their natural sweetness is brought out and make them taste even more delicious. In this recipe, bananas are flavored with butter, sugar and lemon juice and baked until soft and silky. Served with some vanilla ice cream and sprinkled with chopped pecans or almonds this quick and simple dessert recipe makes an elegant dish. You can also put whipped cream on top and chocolate shavings. For a healthier alternative, top this with yogurt and enjoy for a luxurious breakfast.

There are many kinds of bananas available in the market and varieties differ in texture, size and flavor. Available the whole year round are yellow bananas and exotic varieties can be bought at ethnic food markets. There is a lot of diversity in Hispanic, Thai and Philippine markets where bananas are grown abundantly and exported around the world. There are red bananas, plantains, Lady Fingers, and burro bananas. You can use a variety of bananas to make this recipe even more fun and tasty. Or you can try different kinds of bananas each time you make this recipe. Lots of ways to cook banana so feel free to view up some online video recipes here.

Bananas develop and ripen further after they are harvested, so they can be picked while they are still green. This allows them to be shipped to far places with little storage problem. However, bananas are sensitive to cool temperatures, and bruise easily below 55 degrees F. Never keep the bananas inside the refrigerator when storing them. 60 to 70 degrees F is the ideal temperature for allowing bananas to ripen. Higher temperatures will cause them to ripen too quickly.

Choose those bananas that are firm with a bright appearance and have no signs of injury or bruises when buying them. Bananas with green tips are not fully developed and should be allowed to ripen for a day or two or more when the solid yellow color is specked with brown.

Ingredients
4 bananas, peeled and cut in halves
2 tablespoon butter, melted
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Put the peeled and banana halves In a bowl and add melted butter, sugar and lemon juice to it.

2. In a greased baking tray pour this mixture and bake it for about 20-25 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degree F. Allow it t cool on a wire rack. Serve in pudding bowls.

3. Chopped nuts maybe added if you like.

Andrea's Coffee Cake

Cake is a term with a long history (the word is of Viking origin, from the Old Norse kaka) and denotes a baked flour confection sweetened with sugar or honey; it is mixed with eggs and often, but not invariably, with milk and fat; and it has a porous texture from the mixture rising during cooking. It is not surprising that the frontiers between cake and bread, biscuit and bun are indistinct. The progenitor of all is bread in its simplest form. As techniques for baking and leavening developed, and eating patterns changed, what were originally regarded as froms of bread came to be seen as categories of their own and named accordingly. Certain Roman breads, enriched with eggs and butter, must have achieved a cake like consistency and thus approached one of these indistinct frontiers.

Europe and places such as North America where European influence is strong have always been the center of cakes. One might even draw a line more tightly, from English-speaking areas. No other language has a word that means exactly the same as the English 'cake.' The continental European gateau and torte often contain higher proportions of butter, eggs and enriching ingredients such as chocolate, and often lean towaars pastry rathern than cake. Central and East European items such as baba and the Easter kulich are likewise different. The western tradition of cakes applies little in Asia. In some countries western-style cakes have been adopted on a small scale, for example the small sponge cakes called kasutera in Japan. But the 'cakes' which are important in Asian are quite different from anything occidental for examples, see moon cakes and rice cakes of the Philippines. Lots of online recipes for dessert are available at the link.

The history of cakes, goes a long way back. Among the remains found in Swiss lake villages were crude cakes make from roughly crushed gains, moistened, compacted and cooked on a hot stone. Such cakes can be regarded as a form of unleavened bread, as the precursor of all modern European baked products. Some modern survivors of these mixtures still go by the name 'cake', for instance oatcakes, although these are now considered to be more closely related to biscuits by virtue of their flat, thin shape and brittle texture. Today Andrea’s coffee cake is quite interesting baked at home. If you love the art of baking, this recipe takes you one level up.

Ingredients
2 tablespoon margarine
100gms sugar
2 large eggs, well beaten
200gms flour, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
100ml sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup chopped nuts – your choice of nuts
3/4 cup melted butter

1. In a large bowl, mix all the cake ingredients together, blending well with a hand blender until smooth.
2. In a greased baking tray, pour 1/2 of the batter.Spread some of the chopped nuts on top. Pour the remaining batter on top.
3. pread more chopped nuts on top, then pour the melted butted on top of them.
4. Take in a preheated oven for about 40-45 minutes at 350 degree F.

A Bread Bathed Soaked in Beer

 Brioche is a type of French pastry that is rich and dense with a heavy crumb and golden flaky crust. It is made with egg, butter, and cream and has a yeasty flavor that pairs excellently with beer. You can get brioche in the bakery or the French pastry shop. Select freshly baked brioche if possible for a better quality and more delicious dessert. In this recipe, the toasted brioche is covered in a batter of beer, eggs, and sugar and then fried in melted butter until crunchy and golden. The rich sweet bread develops a nice crispy crust that is creamy and tender inside and wonderfully melts in the mouth. Eaten with the glazed pears and the beer ice cream, the dish is absolutely divine.

Brioche is sliced, toasted and dipped in a sweetened beer batter then fried in butter until golden and crispy. The dessert is served with beer ice cream and caramelized pears for a rare and unique gourmet dessert that beer lovers are sure to adore. This recipe by Chef Antoine Westermann is an excellent balance of bitterness and sweetness that make an adventurous dish for a splendid culinary experience.

There are a wide variety of beers and some are better for making dessert than others. For this recipe, it is best to use dark or stout beer, which tends to have more malt and tastes like caramel, complementing the pastry, peaches, and the cream. You can also choose sweeter varieties of beer since it only makes sense to use it for dessert. Complex, full-flavored rich beer is perfect for making ice cream. The bitterness of the beer is tempered with the sweetness of the sugar and the luscious cream. Other kinds of beer that work well for his recipe are Belgian style Tripel, which is creamy and smooth, or fruity lambics, which is sweet and pairs well with the peaches.

Beer Brioche

Ingredients

14 tablespoons flour
5 ¼ teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
YEAST?
1 cup beer1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs1 tablespoon milk
5 ½ tablespoons butter
For the beer ice cream:
4 egg yolks
1 cup cream
For the termination:
3/4 cup beer1
½ tablespoons brown sugar
2 eggs For the pears with syrup:
2 fresh pears
2 cups water
1 vanilla pod

juice from 1/2 lemon

juice from ½ an orange

1 ½ tablespoons butter

5 ½ tablespoons sugar

1 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar

1.The beer ice cream should be prepared in advance to give it time to freeze. In a mixing bowl, place the yolks, add sugar and whip them together until smooth and creamy. In a saucepan, put 50% beer and 50% cream and heat on the stove. Pour the beer and cream mixture in with the yolk and sugar mixture beating constantly and mixing it all together well.

2.Pour mixture in the saucepan and heat on the stove at low temperatures, stirring gently with a spatula. Make sure that it does not boil to prevent the egg yolks and cream from curdling. To check if the cream is ready, lift the spatula and blow on the surface and if the cream scatters like a rose blooming then it is good to go. Cool and place in the ice cream maker. Freeze.

3.Peel and slice pears in two and soak them in ice water mixed with lemon slices, orange slices, cinnamon sticks, and vanilla pods. Soak for at least 20 minutes. Cut the soaked pears into thin fan-shape slices. Melt butter in pan and place the pears back side up. Sprinkle with brown sugar to caramelize.

4.Slice brioche and toast. In a bowl, beat eggs and add sugar. Add beer and mix it up well with a fork. In a saucepan, melt some butter. Dip the toasted brioche in the egg and beer mixture until fully coated. Place the soaked brioche in the saucepan and sprinkle some sugar on top of the bread. Pour on a little bit more of the egg and beer mixture. Heat until nicely browned and turn to the other side to get the same nice color.

5.Arrange th brioche on the plate. Place the glazed pears beside it. Put a bit of the brown sugar in the bottom of the plate and place a scoop of beer ice cream on top.