pain doré

That's french toast in...well, French of course! French toast is a classic, it's easy to make, and it's perfect for a lazy Sunday morning (morning being 12:30 in the afternoon).

It's hard to go wrong with french toast but there are two things that I think are essential to get the most out of your toast.
1) Challah makes the best french toast, hands down.
2) Real maple syrup is 100x better than that fake stuff (sorry Auntie J.)

All that you need is:

• sliced raisin challah (or plain, or chocolate chip, or other bread if you must)
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
  
• a pinch of salt

1. Beat eggs in a large bowl
2. Add milk to the eggs, mix together
   
3. Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt to the mixture
4. Butter a large pan and set stove to high
5. Dip the bread in the egg mixture, covering both sides, and place in pan
6. Once pan is heated (you should hear the sizzling) lower the heat to medium-low
7. Cook toast until browned on both sides
8. As you take the toast off the pan, place the slices on plate in oven or somewhere it will stay warm until ready to be served
9. When you've toasted your heart content, top with some fresh fruit, powdered sugar, or just some pure maple syrup, mmm...

you know the deal, eat two and call me in the a.m.

chocolate chocolate chip banana bread

I should probably have titled this post chocolate chocolate chip banana bread disaster, because it really was. Ultimately though, the bread was delicious, so that would have been slightly misleading. Let me explain...



Yeah...that's what I meant by disaster. What happened was I put the loaf pan on top of an insulated baking sheet to keep the bottom of the bread from overcooking (good idea). Then when it came time to check if it was ready, I pulled the bread out by the baking sheet underneath the pan (bad idea). The uneven weight caused the loaf pan to slide gracefully off the baking sheet and onto the kitchen floor, oops.

So what did I do? I decided that instead of letting all this food go to waste, I would embrace the second law of thermodynamics and accept that the disorder of this universe is constantly increasing, and it just so happened in my kitchen. I slid the pan (that was obviously face down) onto the baking sheet, flipped it back right side up, scraped off the top layer, and put it back in the oven for a little to finish cooking/kill any germies i didn't scrape off.

In the end, it was good. It would have been a lot prettier had I not encountered that little mishap, but can't judge a book by it's cover, right?

So if you trust that this baby is good enough and have not been completely grossed out by the fact that part of this banana breads journey was on my floor.. then here's the recipe for disas...success!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup cocoa powder

• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed

• 3/4 cup buttermilk

• 1/2 bag bittersweet chocolate chips (or as much as you please!)
  

Little Trick: If you don't have buttermilk on hand you can add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for every cup of regular milk, and let sit for 10 minutes. This is what I did this time.

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl
3. In a larger bowl use an electric mixer to beat the room temperature butter until soft
   
4. Beat the brown and regular sugar into the butter until soft
5. Add eggs, again beating until smooth
   
6. With reduced speed, beat the mashed bananas into the mixture
   
7. Add the dry ingredients into the mixture gradually (about 1/4 of it each time) mixing until they disappear into the batter.
8. Add the buttermilk and mix thoroughly into the mixture
   
9. Add in your chocolate chips (you can also add nuts if you like)
   
10. Put in a greased 9x5 loaf pan, put the pan on top of an insulated baking sheet, and place in the oven for 30 minutes (this will keep the bottom from overcooking)
    
11. After 30 minutes cover the top of the bread loosely with aluminum foil (this will keep the top from overcooking). Leave in for about another 40 minutes.
12. Check to see if ready by sticking knife in center of bread and seeing if it comes out clean.
    
13. Take out, NOT by pulling out the baking tray from underneath the loaf (for reasons already established) and let cool for about 20 minutes before running a knife around the edges of the pan and taking out the banana bread.
14. Enjoy while still warm, gooey, and delicious.

See, in the end it came out quite good, despite the technical difficulties. I don't know if this picture fully conveys the chocolatey-ness and moistness of the bread, more like cake.

Banana bread is just the perfect thing to make when your bananas get all brown and too ripe, why throw them out when you can make this? Especially in summer when the transition seems to happen twice as fast. I guess that means I'll be baking twice as much banana bread. Mmm.. I'll leave it on that optimistic note.

Eat two and call me in the morning.
- your pre-med chef

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