Oatmeal Breakfast Cupcakes

Bananas have this habit of going from green to black. There is no in between. Maybe like a 5-minute window when I can handle the taste of a fresh banana. So, I find myself baking things that call for very ripe bananas. The oatmeal breakfast cupcakes are one of those things. 

These were a pretty great find from Chocolate Covered Katie (via Pinterest, of course). You can do a lot with them as far as add-ins go (I opted for raisins and cinnamon). They're easy to make ahead and freeze. Great to grab on your way out the door.  No processed sugar (unless you're the person who adds chocolate chips). Easy to make gluten-free and/or vegan.

I was actually kind of surprised by how they turned out. The outside texture is more of a cupcake/muffin, but the inside is like oatmeal. Not runny, but like sticky, gummy oatmeal. It was weird. Good, but weird. And I was shocked that the brother loved them. Seriously. He usually disses my healthy "chick" food. 

Oatmeal Breakfast Cupcakes

2 1/2 cups Rolled Oats

3-4 Bananas, mashed (overripe) 

1 tsp Salt

5 TBSP Pure Maple Syrup or Agave Nectar

1 cup Water

1/8 cup + 1 TBSP Coconut Oil

1 1/4 Pure Vanilla Extract

Optional add-ins: Cinnamon, Raisins (or any other dried fruit), Shredded Coconut, Chopped Walnuts, Ground Flax or Wheat Germ, Chocolate Chips, etc.

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 380*F and line a 12-cup muffin pan. I personally recommend spraying your liners with a non-stick spray as well…
• In a large mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and stir well. 
• In a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients.
• Mix the wet into dry.
• Pour the batter evenly into your prepared muffin cups. 
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done. 

They're really good warm with butter…or peanut butter! Enjoy!

Banana Bread Bars

I totally meant to post this yesterday, but yesterday didn't really go as planned because Friday night didn't really go as planned. We spent the early evening hours in "tornado mode," and watched as another one tore through the OKC metro. I was about to go to bed when there was banging on the door. Generally, banging on the door late at night doesn't mean anything good. Especially in a storm. Turns out, the creek by the house was just about full (we were seriously flooded out in June 2010). So then, we had to switch to "flood mode" (basically get everything that's important and below waist level up higher). Got that done, went out to check the creek, and it was still rising, the rain still falling. Decided it would be better for me to take the dogs and go, just in case. Most terrifying drive across town ever. Anyway, nobody got sleep and the water got up into the yard and driveway before it finally stopped raining. SO thankful the house stayed dry! I really would rather not spend another summer on flood clean-up. I finally went to bed around 0730 on Saturday, so I missed the 0900 wedding I was planning to go to. Then, I had to spend the afternoon putting things back. I had a great evening though! I got to go to dinner and catch up with a friend. And also do Yoga-X. Love. 

Now...Banana Bread Bars...

At one point, my Pinterest feed was flooded with a recipe for Banana Bread Brownies from omg! I Love to Cook. I resisted repinning them for a long time, but it eventually happened. As luck would have it, there was a potluck last week and we had several bananas and sour cream that needed used up. Perfect. I decided to call them "Banana Bread Bars" because they remind me of the Applesauce Bars I've made, except, of course for being more banana-y. Also, as delicious as they are, they don't remind me of a brownie at all...but that could be because I only make gooey, fudge-y brownies. In reality, it's probably more of a "banana bread sheet cake," but that's not as catchy.  

Bottom line-- Delicious. Like the mentioned Applesauce Bars, I think they get better (more moist) with a little time...so you can definitely bake them 2-3 days in advance. Also, it's unfortunate that you could not smell these baking. So good. It's too bad the little brother wasn't around to try one. He would've been so excited that I did not make them "healthy." 


Banana Bread Bars

Ingredients:
Bars
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Frosting
1/2 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3-4 TBSP milk

Directions:

• Heat your oven to 375 degrees and spray a 15x10 jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray. 
• In a large bowl, cream together softened butter and sugar. Add sour cream, eggs, bananas and vanilla; beat. Add flour, soda, and salt; beat gently until combined. 
• Spread batter evenly into baking pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown...or until a toothpick comes out clean.
• While that's baking, heat the other stick of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until boiling. Let it turn a delicate brown and then remove from heat.
• Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. Whisk together until smooth. The texture should be thicker than a glaze, but thinner than your average frosting. 
• Using a spatula, spread the warm frosting over the warm bars. If one or both are cool, you are going to have a really difficult time...good luck. 

Enjoy!

Healthy Banana Bread

We literally had a bunch of bananas go from green to overripe. There was no yellow. Seriously. It's kind of like how Oklahoma usually goes from winter to summer without any spring. I have several recipes pinned that call for overripe bananas. I REALLY wanted to make these banana bread brownies, but I didn't think I really needed a pan of those sitting around the house. The brother had mentioned he wanted banana bread, so I decided to make that instead. I got my recipe from "8 Weeks to a Better You" via Pinterest. First of all, this was WAY simple and fast to whip together. Just 7 ingredients. Secondly, I think it tastes great (and the mother agrees). It does have the whole wheat "healthy" texture. In the brother's words, "Oh, banana bread....Ah, it's healthy! What have you done?!" I guess the healthy taste doesn't bother me anymore. At this point, I have a harder time with the more processed, not-so-healthy taste. Judge me. If the whole wheat texture really bothers you, you could easily do a half-and-half mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose flour. Bottom line, I definitely recommend this recipe for a healthier, more natural banana bread! It's good plain and with natural peanut butter. 


Healthy Banana Bread

Ingredients:
3 overripe bananas
1/2 cup unsweetened natural applesauce
3/4 cup natural honey
2 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
• Put bananas in a large bowl and beat/mash (I used a KitchenAid stand mixer). Add applesauce and honey, mix well. Add eggs, beat until combined. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl, whisk together. Pour dry mixture into the wet mixture, mix just until combined. 
• Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 
• Let cool for 10 minutes in pan before turning it out onto a wire cooling rack. Enjoy!

Honey-Ginger Trail Mix

I feel so blessed to have been able to spend last evening with the wonderful women of Gamma Rho. It's been rough not getting to see anyone outside of nursing school and not getting to do anything non-nursing school related...especially Spring Sing. Anyways, our fabulous Chaplin organized a mini retreat for this evening, and it was a blast! It was so good getting to see so many of my sisters. Great games. Great crafts. Great songs. Great devotional. And, of course, great food. As a senior, I was suppose to bring a "healthy" snack. I didn't want to do just a fruit or veggie tray. I wanted to be a little more creative. I hunted around and found a good looking recipe from Chex. (Definitely maybe not as healthy as an apple, but surely better [for you] than cake.) I was actually surprised by how well it turned out. It was definitely a hit. Several gals wanted the recipe, so here it is...more here is what I did:

Honey-Ginger Trail Mix
(Chex Ginger-Honey Crunch)

Ingredients:
6 cups Honey Nut Chex cereal
1 cup dried banana chips (I didn't actually put any in because the grocery store didn't have any to buy when I was there...but I bet they add a nice touch)
1 cup unblanched whole almonds
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries or dried pineapple (I did a 1/2 cup of each)

Directions:
In a large microwave bowl, mix cereal, banana chips and almonds.
In a 2-cup microwavable measuring cup, microwave butter, brown sugar, honey and ginger until mixture is boiling; stir. Pour over cereal mixture; stir. Microwave for 1 minute; stir (repeat this step 3 more times). 
Stir in coconut, cranberries and/or pineapple (I cut my pineapple tidbits into quarters).
Spread onto jelly roll pan (lined with wax paper) to cool. Power cool in the fridge, if you want.
Store in an airtight container...if there's any left!

 

For some reason I am not sleeping tonight, which is always fantastic...said no one ever! I'm not sure if it's the 1-hour rest period I had in the middle of the afternoon or the fact that I apparently put the "energy" variety of Crystal Light in my water that I took to the retreat...maybe a combination of the two. On the plus side, I have breakfast made for the next 6 days (post coming soon), the kitchen is cleaned up, and I have fresh sheets and towels. I really wanted to workout, but I have a feeling that the people who live below me would not appreciate me doing Plyocide right now. I thought about working on taxes, but that seems a little ambitious. Oh, well. Maybe a movie? Or smell the new Scentsy fragrances again? That's always fun. Well, I'm off to find something else to do! Happy Saturday!

Oatmeal Banana Muffins

The basic idea for this recipe was found via Pinterest. However, I naturally changed some stuff up. Like, for instance, I did not use real sugar or real eggs...resulting in muffins that are just about 82 calories a pop. I also added some cinnamon. I was a little bit concerned about how they would turn out after making such changes. Honestly, I don't think anyone would ever know. Not that I've shared them with anyone to find out. (No, I did not eat all 12 at once. I froze 10. I have found it works really well to pull a couple out before I go to bed, so in the morning they're room temperature. Then, I just put a little peanut butter on them. SO GOOD.) This recipe is definitely a keeper!


Oatmeal Banana Muffins

Ingredients:
2.5 cups oats (can be gluten-free)
1 cup fat free plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup egg substitute (equivalent of 2 eggs)
3/4 cup sugar or sugar substitute (I used Ideal brown sugar)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda 
2 ripe bananas
Cinnamon for sprinkling (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Spray a 12-cup muffin pan or line it with the little paper things.
Mix everything together in a good food processor or blender (I used my Ninja).
Pour into pan.
Sprinkle with cinnamon. 
Bake, oh, 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Blueberry Banana Cake

I'm loving how much baking I'm currently getting to do!  I made a blueberry banana cake the other night to share with some friends.  It was delicious!  Basically, I would say its like a wonderfully moist banana blueberry bread with cream cheese frosting.  Yum.  The original recipe is from theKitchn, which is where I'd previously found and tried a fabulous recipe for banana caramel cake.  I did modify the recipe a little though.  I didn't put lemon zest in the frosting or almonds on top.  I also left out the rum.  I figured that the kiddos would be a little weirded out by those things.  I know I was when I was a kid.  And, let's be real, while I thought the almonds were nice for garnish, I didn't really want to eat them on my frosting.  Like why would you want to ruin perfectly smooth, creamy frosting with nuts?  I also simplified things a little by leaving the cake in the pan versus taking it out and having to find a platter and frosting the sides.  I would caution you to know how your oven bakes and start checking on the cake EARLY, if you ever decide to make it.  I was house-sitting, and apparently that oven bakes quick.  The original recipe says 75 minutes, but my cake was done in 45.  I'm glad I checked on it when I did!  Unfortunately, this cake disappeared before I got a picture.  It seems as though the brother got a slice and forgot to put the rest up...leaving it easily accessible to a couple of dogs.  Argh.  However, I decided to solve this little problem by making another one.  After all, my mom hadn't gotten to try it and we're in Minnesota with family to share with.  And it's practically a health food, right?  It's got bananas, blueberries and lemon... That pretty much outweighs all the sugar, don't you think?  The second time around, I still left out the rum, but I did keep the lemon zest...which, I think, was a wonderful addition to the frosting!  This time, it took the full 75 minutes to bake.  Clearly, all ovens are not created equal!  I did manage a picture...although, not a very good one:        

Caramel Banana Cake

Sometime last month, when my roommate & I should have been studying, we came across a recipe for a caramel banana cake.  As luck would have it, my father's birthday was last month, and he likes bananas.  So, I had the perfect opportunity to try this recipe.  And, OH MY GOODNESS.  It was SO delicious.  I mean, between the gluten & dairy, I almost died, but it was definitely worth it.  It was really moist, dense & perfect.  Well, taste-wise.  I'm not really fabulous at frosting, so it's not exactly the prettiest cake.  Also, for some reason, it's not suppose to have frosting on the top...I haven't decided how I feel about that.  I mean, it doesn't really NEED it, but I think it might make it look better.  So, don't laugh.  Here it is:

 

Here is the recipe for the cake: Caramel Banana Cake

And the frosting: Caramel Buttercream