What are you baking? May 2026

Thanks. I will have one of my sons help me

That’s a good idea; I couldn’t quite wrap my head around reading a cookbook on the Kindle.

I made a recent recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog: Banana Chocolate Chip Cake.

Takes 3 eggs, separated, 3 bananas, baked in a 9 X 13 pan, mine took about 40 minutes. It’s hard to tell when it’s done because your skewer won’t come clean cause of chocolate chip goo. (I used a bag of TJ dark chocolate chips … excellent … + a bit more of chopped chocolate to get the correct amount.)

The banana taste is subdued, house smelled great.

I want to mention a tip I learned from a friend many years ago: if you line your pan with foil there’s no need of parchment, spray nor grease. You just lift it out of the pan and pull away the foil.


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Looks delicious! That’s the kind of chocolate ratio my kids would be all over.

Regarding foil, I’m a regular user of the Reynold’s nonstick foil for this kind of thing. So much easier to deal with than parchment. Have you given it a shot before?

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The regular foil works perfectly.

Cinnamon-pecan scones, modified from Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Morning Treats.

I’ve made the original recipe – which calls for eggs and sour cream – a couple of times but have always felt it needed more cowbell. For today’s version, I added cinnamon-glazed pecans to the dough and ground cinnamon to the final glaze. I’m happy with the results (and will disregard the beige-ness).

Side Note: Taking a page from RLB’s playbook, I made the scone dough in advance, patting it into a (lined) 9” cake pan, chilling the disc overnight before cutting the scones and baking them off early this morning. This is a handy trick and has worked well the few times I’ve tried it.

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Honestly, couldn’t love your post more – from no cowbell to cinnamon-glazed pecans. Can you explain your pecan recipe?

When we hosted a brunch the day after my older daughter‘s bat mitzvah, I made dozens of mini scones and froze them way in advance and baked that morning. They were perfect.

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I too am pondering the cowbell. :thinking:

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Cowbell matters!

I like using the glazed pecans (without cinnamon) for salads. With the cinnamon, they worked well to add oomph to the scones:

Toast 1 cup of whole pecans in a single layer on a sheet pan at 350 degrees - tossing occasionally until fragrant - about 8 minutes. Transfer the pecans to a cold dish to stop the cooking and reserve. Line the sheet pan with parchment.

In a saute pan, add 2 T. brown sugar, 2 t. salted butter, 2 t. light corn syrup, 1/4 t. ground cinnamon (optional), and 1/8 t. granulated salt. Whisk over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add toasted pecans. Cook, stirring to coat and until bubbling - about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to the prepared sheet pan and bake at 350 - tossing every 4-5 minutes - until bubbling - about 8-12 minutes (YMMV). Cool. Pecans should be shatteringly caramelized once cooled and can be chopped.

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:rofl:

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@MunchkinRedux you are a genius!

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Classic. :+1:

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Hahahahaha! No one who knows me first hand would say that - I just set the handle of my spider on fire while frying tortilla chips on a gas stove. :rofl:

I am (begrudgingly) a big Will Farrell fan. Don’t get me started on Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. :iceland:

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I was talking to my mother about Sunshine’s latest injury and she suggested “Pineapple”. My mother said pineapple had healing properties and I should try to make something with pineapple in it.

So… a quick Pineapple Cobbler for my girl.

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Dorie’s World Peace cookies, with the addition of about 1/3 cup crushed freeze dried raspberries. I used Lindt’s Dark Chocolate Raspberry Bar for the cut up chocolate. Always a hit.

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Asiago bagels.

I used grated fresh asiago and just a bit of parm to my usual plain bagel recipe, grating it into the flour at the very start of mixing (ie. no Panera-style chunks added only at the end of kneading). I replaced any rye flour with an equal amount of bread/high gluten flour mix. I kept the sourdough discard in the recipe. The grated cheese for topping - which I kept chilled until the last minute - was a little fiddly to handle until I figured out to put it on slowly and deliberately (no cavalier sprinkling here or it all falls off).

These are delicious, and came out with a crispy crust and very tender crumb - almost bread like, despite using 50/50 bread/high-gluten flours. Also a little flat on the bottom. I’m guessing the cheese inhibited the gluten development a bit. Next time will increase the % of high-gluten flour and see the outcome.

Will look forward to toasting up this batch for breakfast sandwiches.

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We’re a family of Star Wars geeks, so yesterday I made tie fighter inspired ice cream sandwiches. I didn’t have time to pipe the tie fighter details onto the cookies, so I just used a chopstick to punch in a pattern. Not quite as cool looking as being decorated in chocolate, but they still work and boy, do they taste good. The cookie is from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz and, he’s right. I will probably never buy another ice cream sandwich again. They’re very chocolaty and just sweet enough to complement the vanilla gelato (from Making Artisan Gelato).

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Cochinitos. They’re Mexican little pig cookies that bake up soft and bread-like with a hint of cinnamon. Very nice with a cup of tea or hot chocolate. The recipe is from https://patijinich.com/my_three_little_piggies/.

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Really cute! :heart_eyes:

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so delicious! thank you, @rstuart