If you are anything like me, sometimes you buy a whole bunch of bananas with the intention of actually eating them.  And then a few weeks later, you realize that your bananas have turned from yellow and bright to almost black…oops.

But, then you get excited because over ripe bananas means banana bread!

My mom made banana bread pretty often when we were growing up, so I gave her a call to get the recipe from her…which of course she knows by heart!  Have I mentioned my mom is awesome?  Ya, she is.

I modified my recipe slightly to make it a little lower in calories.  Here’s the ingredients I used.

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 3/4 cup Splenda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 over ripe bananas

**Note, my mom just uses 1 cup of sugar instead of the Splenda/sugar combination and she omits the vanilla extract.  She also usually adds chopped walnuts to hers.

First things, first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Next, put the stick of softened butter, eggs, Splenda, and sugar into a stand up mixer.  Cream these ingredients.

Next, peel the bananas and toss them in and mix until combined.  If you are going to add the vanilla, now is a good time as well.  (You can tell that my butter wasn’t exactly softened enough since it’s kinda lumpy…remember to allow enough time for your butter to soften on the counter. ;))

Now, add the two cups flour and the baking soda.

Mix on medium high speed for about 2 minutes or until mixture is no longer lumpy.  The batter should be pretty thick in consistency.

If you are adding walnuts, fold them into the batter using a spatula.

There are several ways you can cook your batter.  The most traditional way is probably using a loaf pan.  If you choose this option, it will take about an hour and you’ll want to turn the heat down to about 325 degrees.  The loaf is done when a toothpick comes out clean.

My mom always used a large muffin tin to bake her bread and that takes about 30 minutes to bake.  I’d spray the muffin pan (and also the loaf pan from above) with some non-stick cooking spray or use parchment paper.

I wanted to make smaller portions, so I went with a cupcake pan and used some cute wrappers I had around.

Since the batter is so thick, I scooped it out with a measuring cup and used a spatula to guide it in to each cup.  I filled them about 3/4 of the way full.  As an added touch, I sprinkled the top of each one with sugar (that’s how my mom always does it).

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.  I like to take them out before they turn brown so they don’t dry out.  Some might consider them slightly under baked.  This recipe made exactly 14 cupcakes for me.  Remember that if you are not filling all the cupcake tins be sure to add a little water to each empty one so the heat distributes evenly.  Hopefully your oven has more than one rack so you don’t have to bake them in two batches like I did!  (Ya, making Easter dinner was fun with only one rack in the oven!  And by “fun,” I mean it took a lot of pre-planning!)

These make the perfect to-go breakfast and aren’t too bad as dessert either!

And how adorable are these pink foil wrappers?  I LOVE them.

Here’s a close up of the sugary yumminess on the top.

This recipe is pretty quick to make and provides you and your honey a week of breakfast (they freeze well, too!), or two days of muffins if your fiance finds them delicious.  😉

Anyone else forget to eat bananas?  I found some super old zucchini in the bottom of my fridge the other day…too bad moldy zucchini doesn’t make yummy zucchini bread!  I really gotta get better at that…

There’s nothing better than the smell of homemade pizza cooking in your oven.  And I’m half Italian, so of course I love pizza!  How cliche, right?  Maybe you think that making your own pizza dough is too complicated?  I’m here to tell you that you can do it!  The ingredients are probably much more simple than you might think.  This does take a little planning though because the dough takes an hour to rise, so be sure to plan ahead.  Trust me, it’s worth it!

This dough is easiest made with a stand up mixer and a dough hook, but I’ve seen my mom make it with a Cuisinart, too!  And I’m sure you could knead it by hand if you are up for the challenge.  This recipe makes one pizza, which is enough for two people.  Double it to make two pizzas.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup warm water (from the tap)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Don’t forget your dough hook!  That’s the cork screw looking thing in the photo below.

Measure out one cup of warm water (from the tap, but not too hot) and add the teaspoon of yeast and tablespoon of sugar and stir.  I have a jar of yeast.  If you are using packets, use one half of a packet.

At first, it won’t look like much, but after about 5 minutes, the mixture should start to foam up and look similar to the foamy head on a beer.

I do this to make sure that the yeast is still active.  If it doesn’t foam up, your yeast is bad and your dough won’t rise…no bueno.  While you are waiting for your yeast to foam up, put the three cups flour, salt, and olive oil in your stand up mixer.

After your yeast, sugar, and water mixture foams up, turn the mixer to level 2 and slowly pour in all of the liquid.  Stir up the liquid as you pour it to make sure all the yeast makes it in as well.

Keep the mixer on level 2.  The dough will start to come together as it continues mixing.  See it starting to pull away from the sides of the bowl?

The great thing about using a dough hook is that it does the kneading for you.  Keep letting it mix and the dough will start to take shape.

The dough needs to keep mixing until it pulls away completely from the sides of the bowl.  You may need to add a little extra water until it looks like this (or a little more flour if it seems too sticky).  Let it knead for about a minute more once it’s all balled up.

Now, grease a glass or stainless steel bowl.  I poured some olive oil into my bowl and smeared it around with a paper towel.  If you have an olive oil mister (I don’t) or spray olive oil, that would work great as well.

Shape the dough into a ball and put it in the greased bowl.  Turn the ball over to make sure it gets a little oil on all sides and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

It needs to be in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour to rise.  If you have a gas oven, just having the pilot light on should keep the oven warm enough and you can just pop it in.  My oven is electric, so while the dough is mixing, I turn the oven on to 200 degrees for just a couple minutes and then turn it off.  This makes it just warm enough without it being too warm.  It also helps to warm up my pizza stone a bit.

After an hour, your dough should have doubled in size.  Just like magic!

Now comes the fun part…punching down the dough.  And that is exactly what it sounds like.

Oh, and don’t forget to turn your oven to 450 degrees to preheat while you’re jazzing up your pizza pie!

Punch the dough down into the bowl.  The yeast creates air bubbles, so it’s feels kinda like a sponge.  This part is very therapeutic, actually haha.  You don’t really need to punch it…it’s more like just pushing it down with your fists.

Now, it’s time to take the dough out of the bowl and shape it into a pizza shape.  I like to put corn meal on my pizza stone so the dough doesn’t stick.  You can also use a little bit of flour for this.  If you don’t have a pizza stone, a baking sheet will work just fine.  And there’s nothing wrong with a rectangle pizza…that’s the shape I grew up with when my mom made it at home.  😉

Use your fingers, palms, and fists to push down and out on the dough until it is in the shape that you want it.  Even though my OCD kicks in, I’m resigned to the fact that it will never be a perfect circle…I haven’t perfected the whole pizza toss thing. 😉

Now, dress your pizza up however you like!  I spread some olive oil all over the dough, add some tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, turkey pepperoni, and black olives.  In general, I’m a pizza purist…I don’t like weird stuff on pizza that is made to be other places…like BLT pizzas for instance…no thanks!  Lettuce belongs in a salad on the side, not on top of my pizza!

When your oven is sufficiently preheated, cook the pizza for 10-20 minutes.  Be sure to check it at regular intervals.  The cheese should be bubbly and the crust should be golden brown.

And that’s it!  If you don’t count the whole waiting one hour for the dough to rise, this is actually a pretty quick meal.  And it is sooo good!

This would be something fun for a dinner party as well.  You could make the dough in advance and have everyone make their own mini pizzas.  Now, that’s the kind of dinner party I like to go to!

Anyone else a fan of homemade pizza?  How about any tips for getting it to bake perfectly every time?