Hmm, I have a birthday coming up…

I can’t take credit for finding these things myself, or photographing them, or having actually ever seen them in person, but they’re quickly rising to the top of my must-have list. I may forward them to Mr. Pea for his next baking endeavor. Several years ago, in jest, I told him I wanted a Sponge Bob cake. Lo, he went to a friend’s house and baked and decorated a Sponge Bob cake for me. I was honored and impressed.

I think this year–as I’m nearing right to the edge of 30–I want the giant cupcake:

Look at it! Holy cow! It’s made with two pans and then you must just frost the hell out of them to get them together. Wow! I don’t even know what to say, I’m so astonished by it. I would like me a giant cupcake. I saw this over on Not Martha, and you can buy it at Sur La Table. It’s made by Wilton.

Not to be outdone, I love this octopus cake:

I can’t even imagine how long that sucker took to decorate. It seems less useful than a giant cupcake pan might be, but it’s pretty spiffy. I first saw it at Baking Bites, and you can get it at Williams Sonoma.

Imagine….giant yellow cupcake…giant carrot cupcake….giant devil’s food cupcake….with raspberry in the middle….

Ahoy! Time for a break

With grad school done, I’m taking a little pause from the blog, the shop, my students and everything else for ten days.  In the meantime, I’ve set a whole bunch of posts to, er, post while I’m sleeping in.  Enjoy!

So many bananas

At this time of year it seems that nothing lasts very long if it sits on the counter. That’s how I ended up with a freezer full of bananas. I eat a banana with my cereal most days, but a week or so ago I ran out of cheerios. So the bananas sat, and despite their tropical heritage, they don’t last long in the summer’s heat and humidity. Within a few days they were getting very brown. While some folks like them that way–super ripe and very sweet–I like mine barely yellow. Into the freezer they went.

The other day it was actually cool enough–and not humid at all–to turn the oven on, so I took several bananas out of the freezer and whipped up some banana bread. This recipe is a classic. I wrote it down on a card at my mother’s, and I’m pretty sure I took it out of her orangey-red Betty Crocker cookbook. It’s not nearly as fancy as the streusel-topped recipe, but perfectly delicious all on its own.

You’ll need:
2 1/2 c flour
1 c sugar
3 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
3 T canola oil
3/4 c milk
1 egg
1 c mashed bananas (I use two medium-sized)

My shorthand recipe reads as follows, off my card: “9 x 5 x 3″ everything bowl med speed 1/2 minute, scraping. Bake 55-65 min 350 degrees.”

To translate. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan. Mix everything in a bowl on medium speed for thirty seconds. Bake in preheated oven for 55-65 minutes.

Quick, easy, and tasty, this bread also freezes well.

Spinach Risotto

I have to apologize for the dimness of this photo. Some people take lovely photos of their food with delightful presentations; that’s just rarely the case here. This time it was because Mr. Pea was starving and was continually asking when the risotto would be done. So this is all you get for a picture.

Risotto is one of those things where once you know how to make it and you’re comfortable with it, you can make any number of variations to suit your palate on any particular evening. You can also use up stuff in your fridge, which is where this risotto came from. Mr. Pea had used a small portion of a sack of spinach in his pasta salad the other night, so most of the rest of it was tossed in here. I also added some shredded mozzerrella because, well, we had some, and because we were low on parmesan, which is the cheese normally used in risotto.

First, you need some arborio rice, a particularly creamy long-grain Italian rice. You can get it inexpensively out of bulk bins or when that fails, buy an overpriced box. Then you’ll need, at minimum, white wine, an onion, and chicken broth.

I start by sauteeing a finely chopped onion and a clove of garlic in olive oil over medium heat in a wide saucepan. When they’ve softened a bit, I toss in 1 c of arborio rice. You stir and cook about a minute, until the grains begin to get transluscent with a little white eye in the middle. Then add about a 1/4 c of white wine, and cook off. When it’s nearly gone, add some warmed chicken broth to the pan. With risotto, the trick is to continually add warm broth to the rice to just cover it, stir until it’s almost totally absorbed, and repeat. For a cup of rice it can take 2-3 c of liquid, depending on how creamy or firm you want your risotto. This whole process takes about 20 minutes. Then you add 1-2 T of butter, a serious 1/4 or more of parmesan cheese, and whatever else you have around the house. My favorite is a mixture of sauteed grape tomatoes with slivered garlic and chunks of fresh mozzerella; Mr. Pea’s is chopped roasted asparagus. Add salt and pepper and voila. In this case I added about 5 ounces of chopped fresh spinach and a good handful or two of shredded mozzerella. It’s delicious comfort food. We had it with Texas Toast, one of Mr. Pea’s favorite things. It’ll kill you but it’s certainly tasty every now and again.