Banana-Lime Jam

Recently, some friends confessed that they are loathe to eat a banana in any less than perfect condition. They are so averse to banana bruises, strings and speckles that it even deters them from buying bananas at all. "What's the point?" they sigh in resignation.

I do not fear brown bananas. In fact, I usually buy massive bunches of bananas in the hopes that a few will dodge consumption and become soft, mottled and sweet.

I have no shortage of uses for these imperfect perfect fruits*, the easiest of which involves breaking into pieces and freezing in ziplock bags for use in smoothies or banana soft serve. My favorites are Hummingbird Cake and Blueberry Banana bread.

When I ran across this Banana-Lime Jam recipe in Cooking Light, I just happened to have some lovely ripe bananas on my counter. It was one of those times when I moved without thinking- I grabbed some limes and started squeezing.

Combine:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

in a saucepan. Bring to a boil.

Add:

Three peeled and sliced over-ripe bananas.

Reduce heat to medium and cook for 45 minutes, occasionally stirring and smashing the bananas with the back of the spoon. When thickened, remove from heat and stir in two tablespoons of butter. The jam will thicken more as it cools.

This jam is utterly delicious and reminds me of caramelized bananas. It would be fantastic on english muffins, and I really like it on whole grain breads. All the sugar preserves it very well, and mine's still doing fine in a jar in the fridge after a couple weeks. Ah! I just thought about banana jam on pancakes! Mmmmmm.

*My thoughts on the banana:

What an odd and lovely fruit. It requires no washing. No juices dribble down your arm when you take a bite. No messy fingers- it's got a built-in wrapper. Just grab and go. A perfect package of fiber, potassium, vitamin c and more.

Bananas are emulsifiers- they keeps ingredients from separating, keep things suspended, which is why they are so good in breads and cakes and smoothies, and you can often cut down or exclude eggs or butter because of this. What's more, they are the only fruit I can think of that is really opaque. Could bananas save the world?

Strawberry Cake II

Isn't this just the picture of lovliness?

...standing in stark contrast to this despicable mess.

I had such high hopes for this cake. The layers were gorgeous. I wanted to take my time and make the cake pretty and dainty and tasty. It is strawberry cake layers from Sky High with White Chocolate frosting. Then I got greedy and thought, Chocolate Ganache! Homemade Strawberry Jam! This will be the cake to end all cakes!

Thats when it started going downhill, because you see, I layered the jam between the chocolate and the white chocolate cream cheese, and the layers slid everywhere. It was all I could do to keep them together. And then I ran out of frosting. And I kept trying to make it prettier, and everything I added made it a little worse. I've concluded that this could've been avoided by either not including the jam, or by putting the jam on the bottom, next to the cake so it could be absorbed a little bit. This cake could've been gorgeous. It tasted gorgeous.

This recipe makes a lot of cake. Three thick Layers, even with 6 cupcakes-worth removed. Also, I added a few drops red food coloring to enhance the pink color.

Strawberry Cake adapted from Sky High

Ingredients:

4.5 cups cake flour

3 cups sugar

5 1/4 t baking powder

2/4 t salt

3 sticks butter, softened

1.5 cups pureed strawberries (you can use fresh or frozen. If frozen, then thaw in a bowl and puree with the juices)

8 eggs whites

2/3 cup milk

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Preheat to 350. Line 3 9-in round cake pans with parchment paper. You could also use square pans for this recipe.

In the bowl of a mixer, blend the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the butter and strawberry puree and mix until blended, then raising the speed to medium high and beating til fluffy. The book promised that the batter would look like strawberry ice cream at this point, and they were right on!

Combine the egg whites and milk, and slowly add to the ice cream batter, scraping down the bowl sometimes, until they are fully incorporated. Do not over mix.

Divide the batter among your batter receptacles and bake for about a half hour, until a knife or a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cool completely before frosting. (Best to turn out the pans after 15 minutes and cool on racks.)

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from Sky High

Ingredients:

2 8-oz blocks of cream cheese (calls for cold from the fridge so the frosting doesn't get too soft.)

1 stick butter

6 oz white chocolate, melted and cooled

4 cups confectioner's sugar

The original recipe didn't call for butter....but I like butter so I added some. It was also wary about over heating the frosting in the mixing process by over beating. I paid no attention to this and beat the fluffy mercilessly into the frosting. This resulting softness could have contributed to the cake sliding fiasco.

Mix the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the white chocolate and beat until fully mixed. Slowly add the confectioner's sugar.

Now you can freeze the strawberry layers if you want, to make the cake frosting process go smoother. You can also apply strawberry jam and melted chocolate to the cake, in that order, before laying frosting between the layers. I would not recommend glopping white chocolate ganache, and then white chocolate ganache mixed with jam haphazardly onto the top of the cake in an effort to save its looks.

People seemed to like the cake a lot, and the cupcakes were delicious, but very sweet. I think I'm done with strawberry cake for awhile.