TWD: Granola Grabbers

Its Saturday now and I'm only just getting round to putting up my post for this week's TWD. Its just been one of those weeks. You know, late nights at work and all.

So, its no surprise that this week's recipe was Granola Grabbers, which has been already been blogged about (on time, no less!) by so many other TWDers. Still, I thought I'd still put up my post since I did make the cookies. 

Like many other TWDers, I was really looking forward to making these since its been such a long time since anyone picked a cookie recipe for us. The shortbread cookies near the beginning of TWD's existence, which was before I joined, could have been the last time. Having had too much, for now, of pies, tarts and other too rich desserts, I really liked the sound of this one. After all, with granola as a main ingredient, its got to be healthy right? :)

When I was taking my cookies out of the oven, I immediately noticed that mine looked different from the ones featured in Dorie's pictures (and from those of other TWD members). Its not only after I re-read the ingredient list that I realized I omitted the wheat germ and neglected to add in a substitute. As such, you'll see that my cookies spread out more than normal and were very thin and crispy around the edges. Still, the cookies were delicious and I was able to serve them to J, M's little brother, who was visiting from out of town. I loved them as all - in fact, I had some for breakfast this morning. Nothing like granola to start your day!

For recipe, click here.

TWD: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

I love making ice cream, but since the main consumer in our household of ice cream is M, often times this means I end up making his favourite flavours which are, in descending order of popularity: mint chocolate chip, chocolate chip, anything chocolate flavoured, or anything with lots of candy/nuts/cookies in them. While I like ice cream myself, I try not to eat too much of it and my tastes run counter to that of M's. I hate candy or nuts in my ice cream and while I do like chocolate ice cream, I also like to sample the more unusual flavours such as goat cheese ice cream and olive oil ice cream. As such, I was glad that this week's TWD recipe allowed me to incorporate a great summer flavour into ice cream - blueberries!

Following the advice of some of the comments I read on the TWD board, I substituted the sour cream with creme fraiche as many TWDers noted that they found the taste of the sour cream overpowering. I found it quite unusual that there were no eggs in this ice cream as I am used to making a creme anglaise base for most, if not all, of my ice creams. Still, since the recipe didn't involve eggs, it meant that I could easily whip it up in an evening and have it churning in the ice cream maker by night.

I've yet to have a proper serving of this ice cream but I did lick the ice cream scoop and my first impressions are that it tastes a little like blueberry cheesecake and that the texture is less rich than some of the egg-based ice creams I've made in the past. Still, I thought it was yummy and will definitely be helping myself to more over the next few days! 

For the recipe, click here.

TWD: Black and white banana loaf

Several years ago, when I was back in business school, one of the first things that I dabbled with baking is banana bread. It was one of the first few things, besides brownies and chocolate chip cookies, that started my whole love affair of baking and dessert making. So I was genuinely excited to see this week's TWD pick and to try Dorie's variation on banana bread.

One of the obstacles of making banana bread is having ripe enough bananas in the kitchen. And we're talking super-ripe. The type that has is mottled with black spots and one you probably don't want to eat. So almost a week to the day that I was due to bake, I picked up a small bunch of bananas and set it aside on the countertop with a message to all not to eat it.

Come the weekend then, my bananas were wonderfully ripe and just perfect for whipping up this recipe. Rather than making the standard 9 by 5 inch loaf, I decided to make mini loafs, which was just as well since I got a little greedy with the chocolate flavoured batter and ended up with way more than half the batch flavoured chocolate. As such, I ended up with 6 little mini loafs and one small chocolate banana loaf.

To be frank, I wasn't a huge fan of this recipe, much preferring some of the other banana bread recipes that I've used in the past. Still M liked it, so it wasn't a total loss.

For the recipe, click here.