Minnie Mouse Buttercream Ruffle Cake

For my girl, who turned 5 last week. The spunky, crazy and sassy LuLu loves Minnie Mouse. I wanted to try these buttercream ruffles and what better time to experiment than on a cake for our family? There's a tutorial here, but it's really easy. The cake was chocolate, filled with chocolate ganache. The buttercream was just vanilla.

Happy birthday to my sweet pea!

Roasted Banana Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

I'd like to say that I'd been planning on making these bars for a while, but honestly, we had a bunch of bananas that went super-ripe in about a day's time (what's up with Costco bananas? They're green one day and brown the next?!). So, I have made banana bars before, but this whole roasted banana idea intrigued me. 

Start out by roasting the bananas with brown sugar and butter. I did mine under the broiler in about 5-7 minutes.

After the bananas are roasted, it's pretty straight forward. Butter, sugar and eggs, add in the dry and wet ingredients alternately.

Ok, and now listen carefully. Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT use any other frosting with these. This frosting is so yummy and wonderful it's a crime not to use it. Now get to it and make these. And share with friends. A lot of friends.

Roasted Banana Bars
adapted from Cooking Light
3 cups sliced ripe banana (about 5 medium)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
4 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup nonfat buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
Baking spray

1. Preheat broiler.

2. To prepare bars, combine banana, brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon butter in an 13"x9" baking dish. Put under broiler for 5-7 minutes, until the bananas are golden. Cool slightly.

3. Reduce the oven temperature to 375°.

4. Weigh or lightly spoon cake flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, soda, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Combine banana mixture, buttermilk, and vanilla in another medium bowl. Place butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs to granulated sugar mixture; mix well. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternating with banana mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

5. Pour batter into a 13"x18" baking pan (cookie sheet) coated with baking spray. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack.

Browned Butter Frosting

1/2 cup butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat; cook 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly. Combine browned butter, powdered sugar, cream cheese, and 1 teaspoon vanilla in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer until smooth. Spread frosting over cooled bars.

TWD- Cherry Nectarine Pie

What is it about baking in someone else's kitchen that makes you feel out of sorts? We're visiting family and we're staying at my parent's. For some reason, I cannot bake very well in my mom's kitchen. Cooking is ok, just not baking. Things turn out like this and this. So sad.

I wasn't sure how this week's TWD for Blueberry Nectarine pie would turn out, but I thought pie doesn't have to rise. I should be ok. I opted for cherries because, well, I like cherries more.

The fruit is cooked in sugar, flour and lemon zest for a few minutes until it's syrup-y and the fruit is soft.

Pour it in the pie crust, top with the other crust and pretend you know how to crimp the edges.

The recipe says to bake 30-40 minutes. Mine took almost 40 minutes. Maybe not the prettiest pie. It was hard to make the edges look good because it's baked in a cake pan. That's my excuse.

This recipe was really fantastic. The cherries were juice and a little tart, and the nectarines added some more tartness. I probably should have used a little more sugar, but paired with ice cream, this was delicious.

Hilary and Liz have the recipe!

TWD- Semolina Bread

I meant to make this recipe for Semolina bread last night. About 7pm, I read the recipe. Three rises of two hours. Not a feat I was willing to start at 7pm. So I started this morning. By dinner time, we had a nice loaf of bread. That was too hot to eat.

The recipe starts with a starter of yeast, water and flour:

Once it's risen, add some more flour- all purpose and semolina, salt and oil. Rise again. Shape in a loaf and rise again. Slit (with a razor??!! I used a knife) (also, was anyone else confused about the slitting instructions?), and bake:

The bread is tender and chewy, with a nice crust. This is a great, easy recipe, if not hands-off time-consuming. Anna of Keep it Luce and Renee of The Way to My Family’s Heart have the recipe!

Hello Kitty Cake IV

I made this cake a couple months ago, but I didn't get any pictures of it except for this one from Instagram. It was for 2 sisters who had the exact same birthday, two years apart. It was made to match the same Hello Kitty party decor as this and this.

Cinderella Cake

When I was pregnant with my first son, one of my good friends was also pregnant with her first daughter. Her daughter was born a couple weeks before my son. Now, three years later, she asked me to make little Hanna's birthday cake. I can't believe how quickly time goes by! Hanna wanted a Cinderella cake (when I dropped it off on the morning of her birthday, Hanna was already in her Cinderella dress ready to party). 

Cake was strawberry with vanilla filling.

Noah's Ark cake

The same cute mom who requested the Cars 2 cake also wanted me to make her son's christening cake that was for the same weekend. She wanted something similar to this cake, and this is what I came up with. She liked the animals and colors, so I stuck with that. I know Noah's ark wasn't a sailboat, but the boat was made of rice krispie treats and I wasn't sure structurally how to make a tower sit on top of it.

Cake was red velvet with vanilla buttercream.