Banana Cake with Hazelnut Ganache

This cake was an epic fail. Since our current apartment living is only temporary, I didn't unpack my round cake pans and I tried to bake the cake in a 10x13 springform pan. The outer edges of the cake were chewy and the inside was just raw. I think the cake could have had some potential if I actually used the proper baking utensils.

The ganache on the other, OMG! I used half and half instead of heavy cream. It was still good, but I little too thin, plus I don't think I stirred it enough. Even if you don't try the cake, you must try the nutella ganache on something! Ahh, so when blogging this, I found the original blogger updated it to reflect US Nutella since that sold in Europe is thicker...recipe below in the updated one.

BANANA CAKE

Recipe adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

* 3/4 cup butter
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar 10.5 ounces
* 3 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup sour milk - buttermilk
* 1 cup mashed bananas - 3-4 bananas
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 10.63 ounces
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix together butter or margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, soda, and baking powder. Add these dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Add sour milk and bananas to the batter. Beat together well.
3. Line two 9 inch round cake pans, or one 9 x 13 inch pan with wax paper; the pans can be greased and floured instead, if desired. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 17 to 20 minutes for the layered cakes, or for 25 to 40 minutes for the sheet cake.


NUTELLA GANANCHE

Recipe from Pam's Pantry

1/2 cup Nutella
1/4 to 1/3 cup heavy cream

Cook in heavy-bottomed sauce pan over MEDIUM heat*, stirring constantly until the mixture is completely smooth (~7-10 minutes). Let ganache cool slightly (~5 minutes). Pour over warm cake. Let the ganache cool completely before serving.

*Do NOT use HIGH heat; if you rush this, you won't like the results.

Note: If the mixture is too thin to set up as a typical ganache, simply re-warm it and stir in a handful of chocolate chips (preferably semi-sweet) until smooth. Also, I have not tried to whip this frosting, so I do not know if it can be used as a substitute for whipped ganache.

Chocolate Chip Macadamia Bread

Earlier this month I decided I want to try at least one recipe a month out of a cookbook. (I get most of mine off food blogs or magazines).

This weekend I made The Mixer Bible's Chocolate Chip Macadamia Bread. Since the recipe is from a published cook book, I'm not going to post it here.

First off, I had another baking fail. I used the designated pan size, cooking time, and oven temperature, but yet again it was undercooked. I tried cooking it some more, but that didn't work, yet again. I'm really hoping this isn't a start to a trend of baking fails.

Taste wise, it was OK. I think it would bake better as chocolate chip muffins than a bread. I added the macadamia nuts, but I didn't think the flavors complemented each other well. I've really only had macadamia nuts in white chocolate chip cookies. While, that wasn't the flavor I was expecting, the nuts still seemed a little odd in the bread.

Why such a crappy picture? I used my cell phone. Since it was such a horrible baking fail, I felt no need to pull out my SLR and try to get a good shot.

I'm hoping my next baking adventure is more successful!

Baking Fail

A couple of weeks ago, a recipe for chocolate chip, pretzel, peanut butter cookies is circulating the boards on the nest. Back in August I made these chocolate chip pretzel bars, and with all the talk of those cookies, I knew I had to make them to satisfy my craving. When I made them last time, I used a 9x13 pan. Don't get me wrong, they were delicious, but I thought perhaps I'd like them a little thicker. So I tried baking them in an 8x8 pan for the same amount of time. Yeah, that was a mistake.

I drizzled the chocolate and peanut butter on top, cut into the bars, and they're not done. (I tried the toothpick test, but kept getting chocolate). So I put the whole thing into the toaster oven to try to bake some more. Why the toaster oven? Well, I thought I was finished baking the cookies, so I started baking chicken for Tikka Masala and I didn't want the garlic and spices of the chicken to taint my yummy cookie bars. Eventually I smell burning...

As you can see, even after trying to rebake them, they're still not done. Plus, all of the beautiful, yummy chocolate and peanut butter toppings were burnt. I was so disappointed, but I didn't let a some burning get me down. Yes, I pulled out all of the ingredients and made another batch. This time I used the 9x13 pan.