What to do when you have a whole bunch of over-ripe bananas? You bake, of course. I looked up "what to do with overripe bananas?" and landed on this recipe. I added cinnamon chips to the batter and sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top.

After an experience that I found disappointing (Soft Pretzels), I needed to go back to the tried and true. This is a basic country bread I make regularly. Simple and yet, oh so good. I have now been making this bread for a few years and with me working part-time, I find more opportunities to make it. It is always a favorite with the family.

Eat it with butter and cheese, chocolate spread, jam... Toasted when it becomes a bit stale. And then as French toast when about 3 days old.

I looked up some advice about taking pictures of food. Focusing on the finished product (Hard to take many pictures in the best light and from the best angle when you're trying to hurry with the dough), what do you think? I tried to set it up in a simple but attractive manner. Comments?

So playing around on Pinterest, I come across this recipe for 30 minutes homemade soft pretzels. They look delicious and easy to make. All the comments seem to agree... I'm going to try it!

Let's just say, this was a disaster of epic proportion... And proportion is the word. I know it has somehow to do with the amount of flour. I can't figure out if I put too much (some pieces would come off, not adhere to the rest of the dough) or not enough (it was so sticky at some point, I had to add flour). The small balls of dough would not ROLL, no matter which surface I used, it would just slide. My husband even tried it and even though he was more successful than me at getting a long string, the fact that we couldn't get it uniform or round... So I just gave up, I threw it all out and I posted a comment on the website. Sally was nice enough to respond very quickly. I still believe I can do it but maybe I should wait for a bit less humidity, 99% must be screwing with my dough, right? :-D

Experience of the day: Apple Pie Pops. My daughter and I saw that on "My Fair Wedding with David Tutera" and thought to try it. I looked for a recipe and found one on bhg.com.
Results: good dough, good filling but a bit dry in the mouth. You really want something to drink afterwards. I think it's because the ratio dough/filling is off, there is too much dough for the amount of filling. So, I'll keep the recipe for the filling and go back to traditional pies...

After having a friend taste the cake, we discussed ideas to enhance it. She suggested using a recipe for "Gateau de Savoie", so I've started researching some recipes.
In the meantime, ideas for this cake were to combine with a fruit filling (strawberries seem to be the most popular). Liquor, espresso/coffee, lemon zest... could also be added to the batter.
What I did today was cut the left over cake (half of it) in half and put some jam/preserves (raspberry and apricot). It does taste wonderful.

The cake was a bit dry this morning, so I looked at ways to preserve cakes (seems like my cake cover is not airtight) and found this website. I'm also trying to figure out if I can make the cake a bit more moist. I think next time, I'll add more milk (maybe 150ml instead of 125ml). As always, ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome.

Here is the recipe I used for this cake (in French).

This was a basic light cake, very similar to a genoise. My purpose was to find something that could be used with filling/icing, so I did not want a too sweet cake. I modified the recipe based on comments on the website, mostly, reducing the amount of sugar in the batter (225g instead of 300g) and the cooking manner (instead of 60 minutes at one temperature, I did 30 minutes at 250 degrees, 30 minutes at 300 and 10 minutes at 350). The batter did not rise as much as I expected, but it looks good, so maybe I should try with a smaller pan or more batter?!?!?

The texture looks, feels and tastes good. It was moist enough that I didn't feel like I was eating sand. The taste was very subtle, although the powder sugar I put on top helps a bit. Since the purpose was for me to find something that would go well with a filling or icing, I'll have to experiment. I tried a bite with nutella but it was too overwhelming. I tried another with strawberry jam and it was much better. I think this is definitely a keeper.

1. I wondered about the cooking style. When you raise the temperature during the baking process, do you leave the cake in the oven? I did and it came out ok, but I was wondering...
2. Converting oven temperatures is not too hard, there are many references out there. However, converting "a glass of milk" or "a glass of oil" is much harder. The glass of milk turned out to be (I hope) 125 ml while the oil had to be weighed at 115g.