Peanut-buttery goodness

Had a hankering {yes, I just used that word} for something peanut buttery a few weeks back. I scoured my bookmarks for everything from mail order treats to Fiber One brownies. I settled on this yummy little recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything. They were super simple and swiftly gobbled up. 

They also seem pretty customizable flavor-wise since you're using cake batter. Hmm... I just had a brilliant idea for a fall-inspired pumpkin version. Stay tuned!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars - ☆☆☆☆☆ (I'm a sucker for peanut butter)

Enjoy!

This dish is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

In our kitchen, rapidly browning bananas usually mean banana bread or muffins are on the menu— but this time I felt like shaking things up a little. I've recently been thinking about the last great dessert I had [honestly, when am I not thinking about dessert?] It was a pear-croissant bread pudding from Sutro's at the Cliff House in San Francisco (over Christmas). It was one of those desserts where you just wanted the taste to linger on your tongue. I swear I didn't drink anything for at least 20 minutes after my last bite. 

Anyway, back to my bananas...   

I tried my hand at creating a banana version of the croissant bread pudding. I started with this recipe and adapted it to get the taste I was going for, which is usually somewhere between decadent and sinful. 

Here's my set up:

I use ramekins for a lot of my desserts, mostly in an effort to predetermine those portion 

sizes.

12 "mini" croissants. Buttery and delicious. 

Cube those suckers (wouldn't even try tackling this without a quality bread knife). 

Meanwhile, whisk together wet ingredients in a large bowl. I probably would've thrown this in the stand mixer if I'd thought about it sooner... 

...but a little elbow grease never hurt anyone!

Whisk in the semisweet chocolate bottom-dwellers chips. 

I transferred the croissants by the handful into the bowl of wet ingredients—I prefer this method to pouring the custard over the bread. 

Fold until well-combined, but not mushy! Mush = zero texture after baking. 

Place the ramekins in a shallow baking pan, and fill with water to the halfway point. 

Spoon your bread pudding until you have even amounts in each dish, but not too much over the brim. The bread will absorb the custard and expand while baking, so the top will rise ever-so-slightly. 

Pop in the oven, bake at 350º for about an hour...

et voila!

And now for a barrage of photos, because I think these came out beautifully...

Banana Chocolate Chip - Croissant Bread Pudding - ☆☆☆☆☆
4 eggs
1 ¾ C heavy whipping cream
¼ C milk
¾ C raw sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
12 mini croissants (or 6-8 regular croissants)
2-3 overripe bananas, mashed
1 C semisweet chocolate chips

• Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º. 
2. Place baking dish(es) in a shallow pan, fill halfway with water. 
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk whipping cream, milk, eggs (one at a time), sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in bananas, and chocolate chips.
4. Transfer croissant cubes into the wet ingredients. Fold until well-combined. Let sit for 5 minutes. 
5. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until a knife/toothpick/etc inserted in the center comes out clean.

If you're into bread pudding (and I certainly am), this is a 10. Enjoy!

Cream Cheese Danish-y Goodness

Say that three times fast. 

While you were saying that, I was nibbling on THIS:





and it is beyond. Beyond what, you ask? Beyond delicious, beyond easy to prepare, and rather importantly—beyond easy to clean up.


It all starts with a grand total of six ingredients: 

cream cheese

sugar, vanilla

crescent dough (and not pictured: cinnamon sugar and butter)

Whip up your cream cheese, sugar and vanilla til they're well combined...

...and make a pretty photo...

Roll one can of crescent dough out into the bottom of a 9"x13" pan.

Spread the filling evenly... don't skimp on those corners!

Then roll out the second layer of crescent dough on top of the filling. 

Melt butter, pour on top layer and finish off with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. 

Pre-oven

Post-oven

 Yup, that's mine. 

That one too. 

Maybe if you do my dishes, I'll let you have a taste... but probably not :)

This recipe is one of many from my school's awesome cook book. Our genius social committee collected recipes from the staff and put together quite the collection of breakfasts, apps, entrées and desserts. This is my first attempt at a dish and it was quite the crowd (read: Amwilli) pleaser. Plus, it got me in the mood to work my way through more of the recipes in the book... so look out for some goodies!


Cream Cheese Danish - ☆☆☆☆☆
♡ I'm a cream cheese kinda gal, so this speaks to my soul.
♡ One bowl recipe
♡ Easy clean up
♡ It's dessert!
♡ Haven't tried, but you could "healthy" up this recipe with lowfat cream   
     cheese, reduced fat crescent rolls, and raw sugar (or those Splenda/sugar hybrids). 


Here's the recipe:
2 - 8 oz blocks of cream cheese
1 C sugar
2 cans of crescent rolls
1 tsp vanilla 


Preheat oven to 350º
Blend cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together. Lay out one container of crescent dough on bottom of 9x13" pan. Spread cream cheese mixture over first layer. Lay out the second layer of crescent dough (try to pinch the holes shut). Melt 1/2 stick of butter and pour over top of crescent dough. Mix together 1/2 C of sugar and 1 T cinnamon and sprinkle over top. Bake  for 30 minutes. 


✳✳✳A BIG shout-out to Miss P for sharing such a tasty recipe!✳✳✳


Enjoy!

Overripe Bananas...

are ugly.

BUT can be used to create some delicious baked goods. Exhibit A: Boo-Boo Banana Bread, another recipe from Bethenny Frankel's Skinnygirl Dish.

Boo-Boo Banana Bread

1 C raw sugar

1 T butter

1 C overripe bananas

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 C wheat or oat flour

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350º

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl (yay for one bowl recipes!)

Spoon into preferred baking dish

Bake for 30 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test

I chose ramekins because oddly enough, I don't own a loaf pan... and apparently I'm too lazy to travel the half mile to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick one up (wow).

I thought they turned out nicely! The ramekins made for a shorter cooking time, and no guesswork on the portion size.

I did have a slight problem with spillage, and some unintended issues with foil. Figured slapping a chocolate bandaid on it would fix the issue... and I was right!

This recipe is fantastic! It took about 10 minutes to throw in the bowl, mix and load into ramekins. Bake time was around 20 minutes. The finished product was moist and flavorful. I'm a banana lover so this was right up my alley. The only thing I would change is to cut the sugar from 1 C to 3/4 C depending on the ripeness of your bananas. Mine were pretty brown, so they were very sweet by themselves. Other than that, this is a quick and sweet treat that's perfect for anytime of the day.

What makes it healthier:

♡ Whole wheat flour

♡ Raw sugar

♡ Egg whites, or no eggs

♡ No white, processed, enriched ingredients we're always warned to stay away from!

Boo-Boo Banana Bread: ✩✩✩✩ (out of 5) Definite keeper!

✳✳✳

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Popsicle-y Goodness

If you're a popsicle fanatic such as myself, you run to the freezer section of the grocery store as soon as you get that first really hot day of Spring or Summer. Typically, I'm a tried and true "Fla-Vor-Ice" kind of girl, but this year I've decided to diversify my portfolio.

I know, I know— most popsicles and fruit bars are sugar and water, but some are actually better than others. And sometimes a girl just needs a little flavored sugar water in her life.

So far I've found two winners in my grocer's freezer. The first is Edy's Pomegranate Fruit Bars. These bars are absolutely delicious. If you enjoy the taste of pomegranate and really juicy fruit bars, these are the way to go— and at only 70 calories a pop, they're guilt-free.



Next up (and for the kid in all of us) there's PhillySwirl "SwirlStix". These tasty little treats are actually Italian Ice and come in flavors such as: cotton candy, banana split, applelicious and more. They'll only run you 48 calories, and they are big on flavor. My favorite is the banana split.



What are some of your favorite popsicles and fruit bars?