dessert Archives | Page 47 of 55

Pumpkin bread has always been my favorite of the quick bread varieties and I’m sure you can guess why. I can remember my mom making several mini loaves at a time with the intention to freeze some, but few would actually make it that far. I’ve said it here, and I’ll say it again, I LOVE pumpkin. Period. But, enough about pumpkin because I want to show some love to bananas. I have found that people either love bananas or don’t particularly care for them. I’ve met many banana haters and banana lovers. I’ve met people that couldn’t even stand the smell of bananas and those that preferred waiting until they were black and shriveled before they ate them (I might have made some of you gag right there, sorry!). It’s quite the dichotomous world we live in when it comes to this fruit.

I don’t get to bake banana bread as often as I want to because it requires the forethought of buying bananas and letting them basically shrivel up, all the while having my apartment smell like ripening bananas. Sure, I could roast the bananas beforehand to help them soften and release their sugars, but that requires an extra step and more time with my hot oven on. I decided this past weekend it was time to bake some banana bread. I realized I have not been baking much for myself or anything other than the farmers market the past several months (mostly because it’s summer and turning my oven on is a pain) so I designated Sunday as a baking day. Dare I say it was actually sort of fall-ish weather as it was cloudy all morning and only in the 70s. Perfect banana bread baking weather, or at least as perfect as it will get in Texas at the beginning of September.

I’m going to give you the basic recipe for banana bread below and leave the add-ins up to you. This go-around I did a combination of pecans and chai spices but I encourage you to go with whatever suits your fancy. This isn’t a very sweet bread so please taste the batter and adjust it to your liking. Do be mindful though if you add too much more liquid to the batter that you might have to adjust with a bit more flour. I chose to bake 3 mini loaves, but you can also bake the bread in a regular loaf pan as long as you adjust the baking time. I’d say about 45 to 50 minutes would do the trick. Also, in case you haven’t realized by now, I bake in weights as it’s more accurate with gluten free baking so please don’t try to convert it into volume. You might have a banana catastrophe.

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It’s been raining here every day this week and I’m one of the few people that really loves and embraces this type of weather. I overhead someone complaining the other day about it not being sunny. I wonder if that same person will be complaining when it’s 100 degrees in a few short weeks. I’ve been especially grateful for the rain this week because it’s been keeping the temperatures down and making a broken air conditioner in my apartment a little more bearable. Good thing I also had this tasty ice cream to help cool me down as well.

I guess technically it’s not ice cream since it’s made from coconut milk. I think the proper term is “non dairy frozen dessert”. But, that sounds ridiculous, so I’m just going to go with ice cream if that’s okay with you. I’ve been a little underwhelmed with the vegan ice cream options available to me locally so I decided to just bite the bullet and make some this past weekend. The resulting ice cream was an homage to a certain Texas company’s pecan pralines and cream. But, it’s healthier, made from whole food ingredients, and a lot tastier.

The ice cream does take a bit of planning ahead due to the chilling/freezing time, so keep that in mind if you want to make it. I ended up tossing the toasted pecans with a bit of vegan butter to give them a little more depth and flavor, but it’s definitely up to you. You can actually omit the caramel, replace the vodka with a GF-friendly bourbon, and you’ve got yourself a buttered pecan ice cream. But, I highly recommend giving this version a go first. Enjoy your weekend friends 🙂
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Banana Bread

Toasted Pecan & Date Caramel Coconut Milk Ice Cream