Dessert Recipe Wrap-Up

So I still haven't been doing much cooking this week. I'm going to cop the resting-up-from-the-crazy-week excuse, even though it's true. But I did manage to bake some desserts this week.

One was a really yummy chocolate chip banana bread. I found the recipe on this blog, which took some searching. (PS, this blogger knows her stuff about food, but is a little crude/harsh/over-sharer, just fyi) I thought chocolate chip banana bread was common thing. But most of the recipes I found either added nuts, which is not my favorite way to do banana bread, or didn't add buttermilk, which I think is a key component. But this one worked out really well, albeit with an extra 10 minutes of baking. (Note, I was inspired by my sisters-in-law who baked really good banana bread over Christmas and I've been craving it ever since.) This was delicious, and as an added bonus it got rid of like half of the black bananas in my freezer!







My other contribution was some chocolate chip cookies for a super bowl party we went to. For Ryan and Vera's wedding, a bunch of friends got together and set up a massive cookie table. (See this NYT article that inspired it all.) So I baked a ton of cookie dough for Faircakes (a family recipe that's amazing) and for these NYT chocolate chip cookies, which I'd made before and loved. There were a couple problems, though. 1) I made WAY too much dough. Probably like 15 dozen cookies worth. 2) The recipe calls for a really long bake time that I have had a problem adjusting to make the cookies work out correctly. So the ones at the wedding were a little brown and crispy, though they still tasted good.

Well, using two of the four rounds of extra dough I have, I made another attempt at the cookies yesterday. I cut the cooking time down to 14 minutes for each batch, and it was much better. I think I'm going to try 12 minutes next time and I think that'll be just about right. Also, don't forget the sea salt. Just a few sprinkles on top add a great texture and flavor.



Someday I'll get more actual food up! Till then, some sweets just in time for Valentine's Day! Enjoy!