Nielson-Massey Vanilla
This is the best.
Yes! It’s what Ina uses & I completely agree with her, use “Good” vanilla in your baking!
Adrienne’s Banana Bread from Heaven
My sister in law, Adrienne Sandvos, created & perfected this recipe. She is a genius, try it. Really. You will thank me, and then I will thank her for you.
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar OR 1/2 cup honey
2 large eggs
3/4 cup unbleached white four
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbl ground flax (optional)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Note: You can also do all white flour if you don’t have whole wheat.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a bread loaf pan. Mix together butter, bananas, brown sugar/honey, yogurt, vanilla and eggs. Make sure you add the eggs last. Separately mix together flours, baking soda, salt and flax. Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture until just incorporated, then stir in the walnuts. Pour into prepared pan and bake for a little over an hour.
Suzie’s Peanut Butter Balls
These always make me think of Christmas parties! These are like home made peanut butter cups, but better! This recipe is from my dear friend Suzie.
Suzie’s Peanut Butter Balls
1/2 lb butter
2 cups peanut butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Mix and form into 1″ balls. Chill 1/2 hour or up to overnight.
For Chocolate: 1 package chocolate chips
1/2 bar paraffin wax
Melt in double boiler.
Dip pb balls in chocolate using toothpicks, set them on a tray lined with parchment paper. Cool and enjoy!
Some tips… I like using natural peanut butter (I like Trader Joe’s) but any kind will work. And I typically don’t need quite so much butter and end up needing to add more powdered sugar to make it the right consistency. So I would recommend starting with half the amount of butter and adding as needed. You can test the dough by rolling it into balls and if it holds and rolls well, you’re golden. (You can also taste test too!). The wax you can buy at grocery stores, usually in the baking aisle or at craft stores near the candy making stuff. I always just ask around. It comes in big blocks though, use small chunks at a time. You just need a little extra wax to make the chocolate chip consistency work better.
Amy's Kitchen 