Snowy and cold (and will soon be colder!) weekend in Maine visiting my mom, so I decided to raid the pantry to see what type of combination that I would bake with and as usual, I ended up with a crumble bar combo. As you know, they are my “go to” treat. This time with hazelnuts and apricot jam… a little bit of sunshine with the golden color and tartness of the apricots.
I didn’t think that I would be a mincemeat person. I mean, I like raisins and dried fruit on the whole — and my recipe has raisins, sultanas, dates, apples and even a bit of dried apricot in addition to the candied lemon and orange — but I didn’t think that I would like it as much as I do. The reasons are two fold: I added candied pecans (crushed to powder in the MagiMix) to add a amazing nutty note to the crust, but 2. most importantly, serving it was gingerbread ice cream. That definitely cut the sweetness and made this the perfect Christmas dessert.
Crumble bars are my go-to treat when I need something straight forward, can be eaten out of hand and are easily shared. As you know by now, the base recipe is flour, sugar, melted butter and vanilla and then anything else goes — one fruit, one “add in” (nuts, mini-chocolate chis, even oatmeal). It being autumn and all, I thought that I would go with pears and walnuts this time. Do you think that is fall-esque enough? The pear jam had just a hint of cinnamon too.
This is a quick and delicious recipe that you can actually do with a few types of berries — blueberries of course, but also blackberries or currants or raspberries (although I would par-freeze raspberries before mixing them into the batter as them can be a little mushy. Also, this recipe as written is for a fairly small bundt cake (like smaller than your usual) so you can also double it for a regular sized bundt cake pan. If you like, this size can be made into a 4 x6 loaf pan though. Anyway, it is delicious, works well as a breakfast cake or a cake for tea and it travels well (isn’t too “fall-apart-y”) so would serve nicely at a potluck!
I know that you might be getting sick of me saying this (although I don’t think that I say it all that often), but sometimes I make a recipe that just turns out perfect. This is one of those recipes.
I have this tendency to buy 3-4 bananas when I know that I can’t eat all of them before they get too rip (I am more of a less-on-the-ripe-side banana girl) so by the time two weeks rolls around, I have 2 or even more bananas to “use up”. That means a lot of banana bread. This time, I decided to make something different and made these Banana Blondies. They are delicious. Moist, a little chewy, super-banana-y. I added walnuts to the mix but skip them if you aren’t a fan. Other “mix in” options are toffee bits, chocolate chips or other nuts. Swirling in a but of Nutella might also work!