Banana Chocolate Chip Bread by Recipe Girl

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature (1 stick)
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 ounces chocolate chips (mini chips are best)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one 8×5-inch loaf pan.

2. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. Add baking soda, sour cream, eggs, bananas and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in flour and chocolate chips, just until combined.

3. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake 40-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Yield: One loaf

Serve up this truly delicious fair trade chocolate chip banana bread on our one of a kind Ceramic Fish Platter!

Happy Eating! Dawn

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Here’s a little taste of summer for you! Strawberry shortcake is a sweet and simple little treat that works for summer or any day that you can get strawberries from your grocery store or local farmers market.  This recipe is so easy you can whip it up before friends come over or you can have it for a tea party themed birthday party or even as a quick dessert after dinner one evening.

What To Do

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ cup turbinado raw cane sugar, and one pinch kosher salt.
3. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients: 1 large egg, ¾ cup low-fat Greek yogurt, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
4. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Spray with cooking spray or grease 6 cups of a muffin tin, then pour in the batter equally to the 6 cups (or 7 or 8, for slightly smaller cakes). Lightly spray the tops of the cakes, then bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the tops are lightly browned. Let stand in the muffin tin 1 minute, then remove to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes.
5. While the cakes bake, wash 2 cups strawberries, and slice them into a medium bowl. Stir in 1½ tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, then let stand until serving, stirring occasionally.
6. Make the whipped cream, using whipping cream or coconut milk.
7. Chiffonade the mint (following this video).
8. When ready to serve, cut the cakes in half. Spoon over strawberries, top with whipped cream and fresh mint, and top with the remaining half.

For a fun way to involve your guests in your party, place whipped cream in one small sea stripe capiz bowl and strawberries in another and let friends pile on both with a little mint!

Happy Eating! Dawn

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When I was a kid growing up my older sister would make my grandmother’s cheesecake and it seemed like a difficult feat.  The spring pan alone felt way out of my league.  But then I decided to take on the challenge and as it turns out cheesecake isn’t so difficult to make.

Here is a recipe I found online and enjoyed the results of! It’s not too complicated and there are several opportunities to use fair trade items in this little gem. Also, there is a super easy cream cheese topping, which can hide any cracks in the top of the cake!

Fair Trade Pumpkin Cheesecake (from LivingPretty)

Ingredients:

Directions:

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Salty and Sweet is the best!

Plus an added bonus is that homemade chocolate covered pretzels make a great gift.  Just put them in a little cellophane bag (you can buy pretty ones at Michaels or online) put a ribbon on them and they make a simple, affordable gift for folks during the holidays or you can have them out as snacks at your holiday party.

How cute would fair trade chocolate covered pretzels look in one of these green and red bowls for a Christmas party?

Eva Hand Painted Bowls

Recipe:

Pretzels

Fair Trade Chocolate (dark, milk or white…it’s up to you)

Break chocolate bars into smaller pieces and melt in a double boiler.  If you don’t have a double boiler, no worries. I fill a large pot about half way with water and let it boil then place a large glass boil that can sustain high heat on top and then add the chocolate to the bowl.  Stir until fully melted.  Remove glass bowl from the pot and place on a heat safe surface. You can either drop the pretzels in the chocolate to fully cover them or use a spoon to drizzle chocolate on to the pretzels.

Let them cool and then enjoy!!

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This week I bring you some fair trade pumpkin bread with walnuts.  The recipe is a family favorite. I added walnuts because I had some extras left over from another recipe, plus I just really enjoy them.  And I used applesauce instead of eggs because I prefer not to use eggs when possible; it’s just a personal preference.

Enjoy – Dawn

Fair Trade Pumpkin Bread Recipe (makes 3 loaves)

3 cups canned pumpkin puree

1.5 cups vegetable oil

4 cups fair trade sugar

1/4 cup applesauce (x6)

4 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

1.5 teaspoons baking soda

1.5 teaspoons of salt

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1.5 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1.5 teaspoons ground cloves

1 cup of walnuts – this is what I had left from another recipe

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9×5 inch loaf pans

2. In a large bowl mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combing the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and walnuts; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended.  Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Once your pumpkin bread has cooled pop it out of the pan and consider using our Modern Wood Cutting Board to cut it and serve it to your friends and family!

Modern Wood Cutting Board

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For this year’s 4th of July I made a fair trade blueberry crisp for a family gathering.  It was quite good, if I do say so myself and quite easy! While I truly enjoy all parts of the crisp the crumble on top is my favorite part.  The crumble alone would taste good on ice cream.

The recipe I have been using for some time comes from Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”. I used Wholesome Sweeteners Fair Trade brown sugar for both the fruit and topping recipes.

Fair Trade Blueberry Crisp! 

The Fruit 
About 4 cups blackberries
1 tablespoon flour
3 tablespoons white sugar or light brown sugar
1 teaspoon orange rind, finely grated

The Topping 
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sort through the berries and toss them with the flour, sugar and orange rind. Put them in an 8-inch glass pie pan or equivalent earthenware baking dish. Prepare the topping, combining the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces; then work it into the flour with two knives or your fingers until the small pieces begin to hold together. Put topping over the berries. Bake until the top is lightly browned and the juices have risen around the edges, about 30 to 40 minutes.

Serve with cold thick cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes 4 servings.

Enjoy and have a great day! Dawn

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Salt Sweet Goodness indeed and with fair trade chocolate!

When I have the chance to go to the movies, which isn’t so often these days, I always get the same thing, buttered popcorn along with chocolate.  I love the combination of salty and sweet.  So when I heard about today’s recipe I was on board!

Joy the Baker modified an already delicious sounding cookie that can be found in the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: buttered popcorn cookies.  The addition of coarsely chopped dark fair trade chocolate makes for salty sweet goodness that is unbelievable.

Here’s the recipe and enjoy.

Deb’s Buttered Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes 24 cookies

adapted slightly from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 cup yellow corn kernels

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate

(one large bar of fair trade chocolate fit the bill)

coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Let’s make the popcorn first.  Place oil in the bottom of a medium saucepan.  Heat over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add corn kernels in a single layer across the bottom of the pan.  Cover the pot but keep the lid ajar to let a bit of steam out.  Listen to the popcorn as it pops.  Turn off the heat and remove the pan from the burner once the popping has subsided.  Sprinkle with salt and drizzle with butter.  Toss to coat all of the popcorn in a bit of butter.  Piece through the popcorn to remove any unpopped kernels.  Set aside to cool.  You’ll have about 4 cups of popcorn.

Next we’ll make the dough.  Place a rack in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar.  Cream until butter is pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in egg and vanilla extract for one more minute.  Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat on low until just combined.  Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula to fold in the popcorn.  It might seem like a disproportionate amount of popcorn considering the cookie batter.  Keep folding.  The popcorn will break down a bit as it’s folded in.  Fold in dark chocolate.

Scoop dough by the heaping tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheet.  Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with coarse sea salt.  Bake for 10 to 13 minutes or until the edges and tops are golden brown.  Remove from the oven, allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

PS – Would consider serving these truly amazing cookies in our lovely Teal Brilliance Wooden Serving Bowl – who says cookies should only be served on a plate?!?

Teal Brilliance Wooden Serving Bowl 

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Fair Trade USA posted a photo of this fair trade quinoa granola on their Instagram feed and we posted it on our Facebook page too again, because it looked so good. The recipe that Fair Trade USA referenced for this fair trade quinoa and the recipe that I used to make it came from the blog A Couple Cooks.

Crispy Fair Trade Quinoa Granola:

by: a Couple Cooks

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They are pretty easy to make and so so good. These cookies are a little time consuming though, but I say it is worth it! And a little shout out for the Smitten Kitchen because I really like her recipes and I find them creative, interesting and pretty easy to make, which is saying a lot because while I love to bake I don’t really like to cook.  But her recipes make we want to do both!

Fair Trade Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie:

8 Tablespoons unsalted butter; at room temperature

(a little tip I learned from the Barefoot Contessa reagarding ‘room temperature’ leave the items out overnight to be sure they are at the correct temperture)

1 cup smooth peanut butter; at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated fair trade sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed fair trade light brown sugar

1 large egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 fine sea salt

Filling:

8 ounces fair trade semisweet chocolate; coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Pince of salt

Make the cookies In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy, then add the peanut butter and beat until smoothly combined.  Add the sugars and beat until combined. Add the egg and beat until the batter is smooth.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be thick and a bit crumbly. Divide the dough into two parts, placing each on a piece of plastic wrap. If you’d like to slice the cookies from a log, form each dough half into a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch log that should be about 12 inches long. Wrap each log and freeze for 30 minutes, until firm. If you’d like to roll out the cookies, flatten the packets a little and place them in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling cookies out.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two or three baking sheets with parchment paper.

To Slice Cookies Slice each log of frozen cookie dough into just shy of 1/4 inch slices. I like to hold the end of the log gently with two finger as I a slice the cookies, because they are so prone to breaking.

To Roll Out Cookies First, promise me you know what you are getting into. These cookies are crumbly and the dough, it will not want to be rolled out. It helps to let it warm up a little and use as little flour as possible. And again, accept that the dough will be crumbly and keep nudging it back together until the cutouts resemble cookies. The upside of all of this crumbliness is that the cookies hold their shape nicely in the oven.

Bake Cookies Transfer the formed cookies to prepared baking sheets with a thin spatula and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.  They should be a little puffed and faintly golden at the edges when they are finished.  Transfer the cookies to cooling rake and cool completely.

Make the Filling In the top of a double bolier or ina bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, butter and a pinch of salt, whisking together until they are melted and smooth.  Let the mixture cool until it is thick but spreadable.  You can speed this process up in the fridge or by setting the bowl in another bowlof ice water, but for both methods, be sure to stir frequently so that it chill evenly.

Finish the Cookies Dollop half the cookies with about 1 teaspoon of chocolate peanut buttter filling each. You can do this with a butter knife or, if you wish to be more precise, you can use a pastry bag with a round tip, or a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off.  Place a second cookie over the chocolate mixture, and press the cookies gently together so that the filling approaches the edges.  Repeat with the remaining cookies. Let the cookies set until the chocolate is mostly firm.

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