Valentine's Day — Blog - Parsley and Pom Poms

Banana Bread is by far one of Zach's favorite baked goods. He doesn't have a big sweet tooth, but once the bananas in the kitchen begin to brown he always asks if I will, please, make Banana Bread. This time I planned on making the bananas turn, as I knew I would not be around for almost two weeks and wanted to leave Z with a few of his favorite foods and snacks.

I have baked many banana bread recipes, some with nuts, some with chocolate. I tend to love most of them, but I continue to try out new ones in search of what is the best. This time around I decided to try out a recipe from Food Network. Link HERE to go direct to site, or follow directions below. I recommend this banana bread - no burnt edges and moist in the center. Yum! xo RCN

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

3 ripe bananas

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Recipe will serve two paper loaf pans "around" size 3.5" wide by 7" long and 1.75" tall. Note: many loaf paper liners are greased, but if not then grease with butter or spray.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Cut three 1/2" slices of banana from the center (widest circumference) of one banana and cut each slice into a heart shape, set aside (for decoration on top of bread). In a small bowl, mash the remaining bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared paper liners. Place filled paper loaf liners into metal loaf pans and place in heated oven. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. About 3/4 ways through baking or ten minutes before removing bread from oven, place and press the three banana heart slices equidistant across top center of bread. Once bread is finished baking, remove liners from pan and set aside to cool.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. It is a sweet time of year, so what better to do, than make some sweets? One of my favorite Christmas cookies that my Mom makes is a Snowball Cookie. Wow, this year they tasted better than ever. Snowball Cookies really apply to all winter long, so I figured I would turn them into Valentine cookies since I L-OV-E them so much. With a little extra help from the sprinkle and dessert cabinet, I made these cookies look fab and fit for any Valentine's Day affair. They are very powdery, you may need some extra napkins! xo RCN

You will find a few versions of the recipe if you search online. This batch was made from the cookingclassy.com recipe. Ingredients and instructions below, or link to direct source HERE. Also...the super cute mini cupcake liners (Meri Meri, $2.99) and napkins ( Lady Jayne Ltd, $3.99) came from Homegoods.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp cornstarch

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup finely chopped Pecans (I used a little less than half a cup)

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, for coating

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using an electric stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment, mix butter on medium speed until creamy, (about 20 seconds). Blend in 1/2 cup powdered sugar and salt. Mix in vanilla. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down edges of bowl before continuing to mix if dough is spread up towards the side of your bowl. Sprinkle cornstarch evenly around mixer bowl then with mixer set on low speed slowly add in flour and mix just until combined. Stir in Pecans. Scoop dough out 1 Tbsp at a time and roll into a ball. I shaped half of my dough into small hearts by splitting the 1 Tbsp into two pieces, rolling into cylinder shapes and then molding back together into a heart shape. Keep one end of each cylinder separate from one another and then press the other end of each cylinder together to form the point of the heart. They look cuter when they aren't perfect!

Place cookies onto ungreased baking sheets and bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes, until bottom edges are lightly golden. Do not under bake, this recipe is meant to be more dry and cookies are not meant to be moist in the middle. The cookies will literally dissolve in your mouth, just like snow. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes. While cookies are still warm, pour 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar into a bowl and roll cookies in powdered sugar. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, then once cookies are cool, roll in powdered sugar once more. Coat until cookies are completely covered. Just after coating for second time, top with pink, red, white, and rainbow sprinkles. Cookies look great served inside mini Valentine themed cupcake liners .