Banana Cookies

I had some bananas that were getting too ripe.  I didn't want banana bread.  Behold, cookies!  They're the fluffy kind, like pumpkin cookies.

Based on this recipe.  Makes about 18 cookies, maybe 20 if you don't eat any dough.

1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted, and whipped
1.5 eggs (I used 1 egg and a half egg's worth of egg replacer)
2 bananas (mine were small)
3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients.   Add the butter.  Add everything else.  Put them on cookie sheets -- they'll roughly double in size.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes.

I frosted half of them and left the other half plain.  I haven't tried the frosted ones yet because I'm waiting for them to dry.  For the frosting, I used 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tbsp half-and-half, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and powdered sugar until it came together.  It covered 8 cookies.

They're very basic when they're plain, but I like them.  You could add raisins, pineapple, nuts, cherries, peanut butter frosting...

Frosted above, unfrosted below.

Monkey Bread

I was looking for a breakfast recipe before, and while I've never had monkey bread it looked delicious, and it turned out better than I expected!  The dough was perfect, but the goo between the dough balls needs some work -- I have ideas.  I based it on this recipe, but only made 1/4 of the original recipe, which was perfect for two people.

If I were making it again, I would:
- Use butter instead of margarine in the goo
- Add more flavor to the goo -- cinnamon & other spices, or nearly-applesauce apples
- Maybe follow some of the comments on the recipe, particularly rolling the balls in just butter, then brown sugar, so they get more on them

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon white sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons margarine, softened

3 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp raisins

Heat up the water in the microwave -- warm enough to stick a finger in it & feel it's warm, cool enough to keep the finger there.  Mix in the sugar in, then the yeast.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until there's some amount of froth (I didn't get much froth -- I think the water was slightly too cool -- but it worked out anyways).

Mix flour, cinnamon, and salt together.  Add liquids and margarine.  Knead it just enough to mix everything together.  Cover with a damp cloth & let rise until roughly doubled, about 45 minutes.

Melt the remaining margarine in the microwave.  Mix in the brown sugar & raisins.

Squish the dough back down.  Tear off chunks & roll into 1 inch balls.  Roll those balls in the brown sugar goo.  Set them into a greased pan on top of each other -- I used pyrex & it turned out well.  Let rise for another 15-20 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until it's golden brown.  Flip pan over onto a plate & eat.

We ate this too fast for me to take pictures of it.  It didn't stay together, because it stuck to the pan & didn't have enough goo between the doughy bits, but it was very tasty.

Notes from making it a second time:
- The rise depends a LOT on temperature.  I left the dough out on the (cool) counter for 45 minutes, and it didn't rise at all.  I then moved it into the oven (slightly warmed then turned off), and it doubled in about 10 minutes.
- This time, I changed the goo.  First I peeled, halved, and boiled half of a small apple (the kind you get in the big bags) for 20 minutes until it was very soft.  Then I heated the butter, brown sugar, raisins (only 2 tbsp), and mashed up apple in a saucepan until it got slightly caramel-like.  This seemed to stay between the dough bits better.  I'd also recommend tending towards smaller dough bits -- the bigger ones were multiple bites, which isn't what I was going for.

Oatmeal raisin cookies

Everybody makes oatmeal raisin cookies.  But I want to make good oatmeal raisin cookies.  So here's an attempt at that.  Based on this recipe.

1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cup oats
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
2/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 shot spiced rum
2 shots water

Mix raisins, rum, and water in a pot.  Put on medium low heat so it steams & smells delicious.  If I were doing this again, I'd only use 1 shot of water so more of the rum goes in the raisins, or I'd plan ahead enough to just soak the raisins in pure rum without heat.  Meanwhile, mix together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a small bowl.  Mix together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon in a big bowl.  Once the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid, drain them and mix everything together in the big bowl.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes or so, just until the bottoms start to brown a little.  Use a silpat so they don't stick and an airbake pan so they don't get crunchy.  They don't really change shape in the oven, so squish them into cookie-like shapes before baking.

Edit:
Another attempt, this one turned out great.  Based roughly on this and this.

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of ginger
scant 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups oats
2/3 cup raisins, soaked in hot apple juice

Microwave some apple juice in a bowl until it's steaming.  Put in all the raisins (they should be covered) and set aside for a while.  In a smallish bowl, cream together butter & sugars.  Mix in egg & vanilla until well combined.  In the big mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the oats & raisins.  Barely combine the dry ingredients and the butter mixture; add oats, strain raisins (discard liquid) and add raisins.  Mix together & stick in the fridge for 15+ minutes.  Then form into balls and bake at 350 for about 6 minutes.  These ones also don't reshape much in the oven, so shape them accordingly before baking.

Cherry Almond Muffins

I wanted to make muffins this morning and hand to work with what was around the house.  This is what came out.  If I were doing it again, I'd want them to be slightly more moist (they were about the consistency of a cornmeal muffin -- slightly crusty outside, which was good, but also a slightly dry & crumbly inside once they cooled, which was less good), but otherwise they were very tasty.  The comments on the site suggested using sour cream or applesauce to make them more moist, so maybe I'll try those.  Based on this bread recipe.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup dried tart cherries -- I used 1/4 cup whole and 1/4 cup chopped, and I liked the whole better
• 3/8 cup milk
• 1 eggs
• 3 Tbs. butter, melted
• 1 Tbs. oil (this was an attempt to make them moister, use all butter if you want)
• 1 tsp. almond extract 

Mix the four dry ingredients together.  Add the cherries & mix to cover them.  In a separate bowl, mix the 5 wet ingredients.  Pour them into the dry mixture and mix until just combined (mine had streaks of egg still in it and it was fine; next time I'll try mixing it even less, still trying to get the hang of the muffin mixing method).  Butter six muffin cups & split batter between them; if you want muffins with tops, butter only five muffin cups -- these don't rise very much, so you can fill the cups basically to the top.  Bake at 350 until a knife comes out clean from the middle (or just before that would happen) -- I don't remember how long this took, but it was somewhere between 20-40 minutes.