Desserts Archives - Yearning to Create

Banana Cake

I love bananas because they force me to bake something yummy once in a while (or I can throw them in the freezer until I’m ready to deal with them)! This banana cake recipe came from my friend Tammy and I absolutely love it. The cake is light and the icing is fabulous!

I also love the blue star plate that I got in Target a while back. It’s my tribute today to my American friends – Happy 4th of July!

Banana Cake

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 4 tbsp hot water

1 cup mashed bananas (I use 3)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Mix soda and water and add to mashed bananas. Mix dry ingredients together. Alternate dry and wet ingredients. (Or if you’re like me and have a Bosch, mix all your wet ingredients and then throw in all your dry ingredients.)

Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes in a 9×13 pan.

Icing (I double it!)

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp milk

3/4 cup icing sugar

Melt butter – add sugar and milk. Remove from heat and add icing sugar.

Pour over your cake when it comes out of the oven.

Oh doesn’t that look delicious?

I recently used the cake recipe without the icing and made it into banana bread. I used two tin foil loaf pans and it worked wonderfully. Loaves seem to cook more evenly when they’re baked in tin foil pans – and it’s so much easier to get the loaf out of the pan when your pan is flexible! Next time I might throw in some chocolate chips, or chopped walnuts, or coconut too!

Yup, sure do love bananas!

Black Forest in a Bowl

This is one of our families all time favourite desserts. And I love it because it’s easy – kids can help!!! And you can make it as big or small as you need so it’s great for feeding a crowd.

All you need are these four ingredients.

And you don’t need this much whipping cream. It was nearing expiry date and I needed to use it – so we just made our Black Forest a little more creamy than usual.

Bake your chocolate cake – we often do this the night before. And you don’t need to grease your pan or anything either.

Have one of your children rip apart the cooled cake into bite size chunks and line all the edges of your bowl. We’re using the lovely huge stainless steel bowl – the one that got dented when Lee used it as a toboggan!

You’ll notice we still have some cake left in the pan once all the bowl edges are lined. We’ll use that later, or eat it!

Make one package of instant chocolate pudding.

Have another kid whip up the whipping cream.

The first batch of chocolate pudding gets poured on top of all the chocolate cake. I find it easier to pour in before the pudding has set too much. Let it set in the pan between chunks of cake.

We put a layer of whipped cream over the pudding because we had all that whipping cream, but usually we don’t – tastes great either way. Now find another kid to spread the cherry pie filling over all the whipped cream. (Lee noticed that her dress matches the dessert!)

And find another kid to rip up the rest of the chocolate cake and throw it in on top of the cherries.

This helps fill up the hole in the middle of the bowl.

Now for the final package of chocolate pudding poured over top of the new layer of cake.

And the rest of the whipped cream goes on top. We added a few chocolate shavings. Cherries also look lovely on top.

We fed twelve people on Fathers’ Day and used just over half the bowl – and they were pretty generous portions. The leftovers tasted great the next day, so no worries!!!

We also love the vanilla version – white cake, vanilla pudding, banana slices, whipped cream and Skor bits. Give them both a try!

Impossible Pie (Gluten free)

My daughter kicked me out of the kitchen the other day – do you have any idea how much I LOVE that!!! She wanted to make supper all on her own. So while she was going about making Shepherd’s Pie, I realized that it was indeed Monday night and since I didn’t need to worry about supper, I could spend time making a treat. Impossible Pie popped into my mind simply because, it’s completely easy and I LOVE it!!! I dug out the recipe and when Jo realized what I was going to make, she kicked me out of the kitchen again (literally shooing me out with her hands) because she wanted to make it! (love that kid!)

If you love coconut and custard, you’ll love this. To make it you simply throw all the ingredients in a blender and mix it up, then pour it all into your pie plate and bake it for an hour.

Let’s examine the layers: the coconut rises to the top, the heavier custard forms the crust, and the middle is kind of a mix of coconut and custard. Tastes great warm or cold – and we’ve never felt a need to serve anything with it – like ice cream or whipped cream.

Jo made this a gluten free version simply by using gluten free flour instead of regular flour. She didn’t need to add any xanthum gum.

My mother-in-law wrote this out for me. She introduced me to Impossible Pie when my third baby (Jo!) was born. She came to help us for a week and made this one day and it was love at first bite!!! I’ve made a few adjustments like the salt and sugar. We could probably even go down to half a cup of sugar.

I find that the edges always get pretty dark because you have to cook it until the center is firm. It has such a nice dome top when it comes out of the oven, but it flattens as it cools.

And there’s Jordy enjoying her Impossible Pie!!!

You can shoo me out of the kitchen anytime!!!

PS – As I write this, my ten year old daughter is making pancakes for us (from scratch). She just came and asked me what granulated sugar meant. I explained that it was the white sugar. To which she replied, “Oh good, I put my three cups in of the right sugar!”

To which I replied in alarm, “Cups? It’s supposed to be tablespoons!”

Hahaha!

And this is how they learn . . . so that one day she will shoo me out of the kitchen too!!!