By Chance, Spiced Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping

This banana bread happened by chance.  I was hungry for comfort.  I had gone to the market to make roast chicken and ended up with a bunch of bananas in my bag that did not belong to me.  I believe in things like that.  I took it to mean that I desperately needed banana-related baked goods in my immediate future.

As a general rule, I’m not good at anticipating banana bread.  You have to buy bananas and then get comfortable with them sitting quietly, turning into what look like intensely spotted yellow and brown giraffe necks.  I just can’t get relaxed about that sort of thing.  But I can get relaxed about eating banana bread.  So I let them ripen.  And then got to work.

This bread has since been slathered with warm memories.  I made it for a trip I took with some friends to the Adirondack Mountains.  On Saturday morning, we stood around the camp kitchen island and sliced off bits while we chatted and the coffee pot worked overtime.  As we reduced the bread to a mere nub, my mother flipped enough pumpkin pancakes to feed a forest of lumberjacks.  

We laughed a lot that weekend.  We tasted wine from a local winery called Montezuma, tried on fur hats, talked about hot cinnamon-sugared donuts, and visited quite possibly the most quintessential general store on the East Coast.

We also enjoyed our fair share of banana bread.  And so I’ve begun think of this recipe as living in the company of warm friends and brisk mornings.  It’s spiced with cardamom, ginger, and allspice and the crunchy cinnamon sugar crust just begs to be paired with a good cup of coffee and a companion or two.  It’s a fairly new recipe to me, but it already feels seasoned. It’s just that kind of bread.  The kind that makes you thankful for good friends and overripe bananas. 

Spiced Banana Bread with Cinnamon Crumble Topping

Adapted from Molly Wizenberg from Orangette

Ingredients:

The bread

1.5 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (freshly ground if possible)

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup water

(Plus butter and additional flour for the loaf pan)

The topping

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2.5 tbsp packed dark brown sugar

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.  In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, spices, baking soda, and salt.  In a large bowl, combine the banana, eggs, oil, honey, and water.  Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir until combined.  Pour the batter into the buttered and floured loaf pan.

In a small bowl, mix the topping ingredients; sprinkle the topping on top of the batter.  Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick or cake tester comes about clean.  Cool the bread in its pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes and then remove the bread from the pan.  (Run a knife along the edges of the pan to loosen it; it may take some gentle coaxing and slight side tilting to remove the loaf, but you should be able to do it without losing much of the crumb topping.)  

Yield: 1 loaf

Notes:

-The cardamom really comes through in this loaf.  It's a nice change of pace from a standard banana bread and goes well with the crunchy cinnamon topping, but feel free to leave it off if you aren't keen on the spice.

-You may be inclined to forgo the topping, but it really makes the bread and moves it one step closer to coffee cake.  And this is a very, very good thing.

-This is a version of a version.  Molly Wizenberg attributes this recipe to Bakesale Betty and Bon Appétit.

S'more Cupcakes S'more Fun

I’ve never been one for kumbaya-ing around a campfire. But if you ask me to camp out, I’ll travel far and wide bringing gifts of graham, fine chocolate, and marshmallow. Or—as it happened last weekend—I’ll come by train with dark chocolate bars shoved into my suitcase and a few pounds of finely ground graham crackers stashed in my purse.

Now, there are a lot of s’more cupcake recipes with chocolate cake bottoms, but—in my humble opinion—if you are making a s’more-styled dessert there should be a fair amount of graham action going on to be paired with good quality chocolate bars. (Hence the toting of said contents over state lines.)

And so the s’more cupcakes were born soon after my arrival home. They were for my sister’s bridal shower, which I keep telling people was “camp-chic” themed because it sounds better than “campy.” (I suppose it’s also a more accurate description if you have white linens, s’more-themed desserts piled onto cake platters, and twigs that have been spray-painted and used as table centerpieces.)

So the shower was only loosely Adirondack mountain-themed, which is where she’ll be getting married in about a month. The Adirondacks are a magical place that smells of pine once you hit the mountains; the scent wafts into your car even with the windows rolled up. The lakes are calm enough to see the reflection of forest trees on the water. And the summer nights offer up clear, constellation-lit skies.

It’s also the perfect place to park yourself in front of a campfire, in the company of at least one bag of marshmallows, a solid gang of graham crackers, and a stack of chocolate bars. Should it be unlikely that this scene will happen anytime soon—and should this depress you—I suggest making these cupcakes.

Browning the marshmallow topping is almost as entertaining as toasting marshmallows, if you have a gas stove. You simply hold the top of each frosted cupcake until it licks the flames on the range and you achieve your desired stage of browning. If you don’t have a gas stove, you could use the broiler though I caution it’s not as fun. And for the love of all things woodland, don’t hold back on the frosting: it should be piled high, it’s marshmallowy nature will hold everything in place.

Some may say the cupcake trend has run its course, but it only makes sense to have an individually portioned dessert if the s’more is your inspiration. S’mores ain't for sharing. Neither are cupcakes. And they both tend to follow where the fun is.

So if you’ve ever longed to sit at a campfire holding a long twig with a marshmallow stuck to the end of it, you’ll likely enjoy this little dessert number. They are guaranteed to bring you back to your childhood or at least off up some youthful fun. And—kumbaya or not—it’s okay to laugh when you get a little marshmallow frosting on your nose.

S'more Cupcakes with Marshmallow Meringue

Adapted from Bon Appétit

Ingredients:

FOR THE CUPCAKES

1.5 cups finely ground graham crackers

1/2 cup flour

2.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1/8 tsp ground mace (or nutmeg)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup half and half

6 oz of a good quality dark chocolate bar (such as Scharffen Berger)

FOR THE MERINGUE FROSTING

1.5 cups sugar

6 egg whites

Pinch of kosher salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Dash of coffee-flavored liqueur, such as Kahlua

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners. Sift the ground graham crackers, flour, baking powder and spices into a medium bowl. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add salt and then add eggs, one at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture; add vanilla. Add graham cracker mixture in 3 additions, alternating with half and half and ending with the graham cracker mixture.

Spoon mixture into lined muffin cups and fill until the muffin cups are only half full. Break up your chocolate bar(s) into large pieces and divide between the half full batter cups. Top with remaining batter so that no chocolate is showing. Bake for about 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Try to stick it in a spot that isn't filled with chocolate)

While cupcakes are cooling, make the meringue by whisking sugar, egg whites, and a pinch of salt together in a small heat-proof bowl. Place a small amount of water in a saucepan big enough to allow your bowl to fit in it. When the water is simmering, place the bowl with the sugar and egg whites over the water; ideally, the bowl should not be touching the simmering water. Whisk the mixture for 6-8 minutes or until the mixture reads higher than 140 degrees on a thermometer.

Pour egg white mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on medium-high speed for 6-8 minutes, until it becomes a stiff, white meringue; whip in vanilla and coffee liqueur. Pipe meringue frosting onto cupcakes or just frost them with a knife, making wispy, cloud-like patterns.

Hold cupcake over the flame of a gas burner on a stovetop for about 15-20 seconds or until desired toasted marshmallow doneness. Alternatively, place a few cupcakes at a time under a broiler, checking every so often to prevent scorching.

Makes about 12 cupcakes

Notes:

-It takes about 15 crackers to make the ground graham and a food processor makes fast work of it.

-You could flavor the marshmallow with whatever you like. The coffee liqueur added a nice depth of flavor. I have also tried Cointreau.

-Sadly, these cupcakes don't fair too fabulously in the fridge. Best to frost and eat, though they are certainly still edible the day after.

-Check out my interview on The Mighty Rib, done by fellow foodie and blogger, Kevin Shalin; he's newly transplanted to Boston and serves up a new food feature on his blog daily.