Five-Bananas Banana Blueberry Bread

You might find me updating the blog every other day for the next few days. No reason other than I finally decided to kick (some of the) dust off my idle hands and stop being the master procrastinator I am by editing some of the photos I have on hand. You have no idea how it scared me when I slotted my camera memory card into the laptop recently and found that it had over 2000 new photos. And that's so not including my travels 2014 photos  and various other photos  which I've already transfered onto my laptop. -insert awestruck face- That's like bringing procrastination to a whole new level by itself hey.

Banana Blueberry Bread

Biscoff Oreo Banana Bread

I swear I'm the sort that simply gain weight just by looking at pictures of food. I mean, I look at food all da time (via Instagram, via the Internet, via magazines, via everyday life). Haha. It's a terrifying thought if our weight is based on what we look at.

Biscoff Oreo Banana Bread

Nutella Swirled Banana Loaf

A hot topic in Singapore lately - the bad weather. The weather lately has been quite bad due to the haze. In fact, the Pollutants Standard Index (PSI) in Singapore hit a record high of 401 on Friday. Never before has it been that bad during the annual haze period, the last highest record was 226 in 1997. So for the past week, we had been breathing in "unhealthy", "very unhealthy" and "hazardous" air.

Thankfully, we had a respite this weekend, with clear blue skies shining through. Friends and family were all delighted, us having once taken something simple and basic such as clean air for granted. Let's hope that the initial prediction that this haze will last for months is not true, and we can all bear through this temporary phase. Stay healthy and hydrated people!

 Nutella Swirled Banana Loaf

Stuffed french toast with bananas and maple whipped cream

I've always wanted to make stuffed french toast. As you know, I'm a breakfast kinda person, so I love having all kinds of breakfast foods such as waffles, pancakes, french toast, big breakfast, scrambled eggs, granola yogurt, cereal with berries and milk. Yeps, I practically like every other breakfast option.

So, I told my Sis that I'll be making french toast. And since I know she's not really a fan of french toast, but she loves peanut butter, I decided to make PBB stuffed french toast. And that reads peanut butter banana (in case you were wondering...).

While I don't mind peanut butter (only the crunchy kind please!), I'm actually more of a Nutella girl myself. Thus, I decided to make both PBB, and NB (yeps, nutella banana!) for breakfast.
 

Stuffed french toast with bananas and maple whipped cream

Banana nectarine cherry popsicles

Minimalising usage of the oven is really quite easy on hot and humid summer days. Slurping cold (that's actually stating the obvious cos since when is it hot anyway?) ice cream and taking cold showers, both of which are little pleasures of life.

Instead of gorging on creamy ice cream, I thought that refreshing popsicles should do the trick. I was keen to play more with the popsicle mold that I had just gotten, and after my first attempt at making popsicles, I was all set for further experiments.

Banana nectarine cherry popsicles

Chocolate banana sour cream muffins

The Sister was making ice cream and she had some leftover sour cream. I hate waste, so I told her I'll use it up for her. Words said, I then had to go hunt for recipes that uses sour cream.

After a quick search, I thought that muffins and quick breads for breakfast are the most likely items to use sour cream, and I chanced upon this recipe, which encompasses one of my favourite combo as a breakfast item - chocolate and banana.

Chocolate banana sour cream muffins

Roasted banana ice cream

Bananas spot easily. Their brown spots grow at an alarming exponential rate. Way faster than how a normal spot grows on the human face. I'm glad I'm not a banana.

To use up some spotty bananas, I decided that I was not going to go my usual route of making this uber scrumptious banana bread, but to go for something with a chill - ice cream, instead.

What do you get when you combine bananas, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon?

A damn sexy looking tray, that's what you'll get.

Hidemi Sugino's B-Caraibe

This is my first attempt at using a recipe from Hidemi Sugino's book, Le Goût Authentique Retrouvé.

 Hidemi Sugino's B-Caraibe

Banana Date Chocolate Loaf

There was a bunch of bananas in the house. Though we tried our best to finish them up as quickly as possible, bananas ripen really quick. And soon, the skin turned really really black (okays, yellow base still but with LARGE patches of black covering the yellow everywhere...). I decided to use the remaining sad looking trio all at one go by making a banana loaf. Googling recipes for banana loaf, I found a recipe that sounds promising. Dates (I bought some Medjool dates a while back!), chocolate (licks mouth in anticipation), and holey moley, it requires three ripe bananas! Now. If that isn't fate calling, what is?

Banana date chocolate loaf

Leftovers

Recipes for tarts always yield more than enough dough, and I end up freezing the leftovers for future tarts (although I tend to forget about them for quite a while, and by the time I get to them, the dough has turned slightly dry when baked...). What do I do with the leftover dough I had from making my recent lemon tart? I made little tartelettes. And I didn't freeze them this time, I just baked them all at one go. Haha. Abundance of tarts in my kitchen that week. ;)

Peanut butter banana and Nutella banana tartelettes

Caramel banana ginger crumble panna cotta verrines

Since my last post on caramelised bananas, a little voice in my head was constantly chanting "caramelised bananas...make caramelised bananas!" It's akin to a non-stop chant that goes on in my head...that would not stop till I fulfill the whining that goes on...all inside my head, of course.

Caramel banana ginger crumble panna cotta verrines

Ailette

I wanted to do something special for myself in November (my birthday month). Flipping through all of my newly bought Chinese baking books, I finally settled upon the Ailette. I was drawn in with the words "caramelised bananas" and "caramel mousse"...

Caramelising the bananas

Pear banana walnuts muffins

Let me tell you more about these lovely muffins. I think that the pear is an often overlooked fruit for baking muffins. The common choices are banana, chocolate(fine, it's not a fruit but it is a popular choice!), apple, blueberries or raspberries. Yet, the humble pear is a really good fruit to use in baked goods cos they have a subtle light fragrance that heightens the finished product. If you get what I mean. The pears also soften considerably after baking so it doesn't matter if the pears are still not yet fully ripe. Add some chopped walnuts for the crunch factor, well, I think I've found a pretty healthy muffin recipe! (:

Banana blueberry muffins

I'm currently sprouting a muffins addiction (which is a really really bad habit since it's carbs!) but I try my best, substituting plain ol' flour with oats flour (which basically refers to the throwing of rolled oats into the food processor). First up on the muffins list is these blueberry banana muffins. I think they're pretty yums, but wait till you see the next entry - the pear banana walnuts combo. Which are, in my opinion, even better than these blueberry babies.

Cutie pie niece and nephew who came over for a visit when I was i the midst of baking these muffins.

Adorable-y cute. (:

Lost.

Oh my god. It's the end of April. In less than 2 months. I'm going to kiss QUT bye-bye. Graduation. I'm so not looking forward to it. I have so many choices I have no idea which to decide on. One thing I detest at this moment is anyone who ask the fatal question "So what are your plans after graduation?". The million dollar answer to the question is "I don't know, so stop asking me."

Pistachio paste is used for the pistachio buttercream.

Macarons from front to back - Coffee; Grapefruit; Pistachio.

Koko black chocolate is superb. I decided that since I like chocolates, and like muffins, I should just combine the two so I don't eat double the fats. snigger. Rough chunks of these in a muffin? Yummy.

Special two-in-one muffin. Nah. Actually it's leftover batter. (:

Fiona & Claudia's graduations + Ludwig's farewell. I baked green tea muffins and checkerboard cookies and dressed them up in the pretty packaging from where else but my fave store in Singapore...Daiso! (:

I tried my hand at baking other bread besides focaccia. Sweet buns dough, with various fillings.

I like the chocolate ones best. No surprise. ;)

Lemons lemons lemons. I love zesting the lemons and rubbing it in sugar. The smell oh the smell. I wish I could smell like lemon sugar. Someone should bottle the scent of lemon sugar seriously. (:

For Rick, Gerald & Esther's graduation, it's chocolate pie (tasted suspiciously brownie-like) and lemon almond oatmeal lace cookies.

Cravings for double dark chocolate cookies, so made some hugeass ones. A glass of cold milk with these is simply the best.