Baked Alaska (because who would eat Baked Canada?)

We are an Olympics family, in enthusiasm, if not in the sense of actually competing in any sport in a world class level, or for that matter, on a neighborhood block level. Each night since February 12th, we gather the girls, and instead of telling stories by a cozy fire, we watch sports history unfold to the flickering light of broadcast television. The Winter Olympics games in Vancouver are thrilling, I grant you, but my heart longs for the innocent Olympics of my youth, when the Games unfolded without a script. These are cynical times and as exciting as it is to watch Apolo Ohno and Shaun White, it’s just not the same as the other Canadian Olympics, 1988’s party in Calgary. When athletes like nearsighted part-time plasterer Eddie (“the Eagle”) Edwards could fly from a 90-meter ski jump and Jamaicans could cheer on their very own bobsled team.

What better symbol of the Olympic dream has there ever been than the Jamaican bobsled team? They may not have ever seen snow or temperatures cooler than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, but they knew how to run. In honor of the Jamaican team (which did not qualify for Vancouver) I’ve created a dessert of contrasts: a Baked Alaska (closest I could get to Canada) with Roasted Banana Coconut Ice Cream and Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee Ganache. It is the essence of the Caribbean encased in a marshmallowy meringue igloo.

This dessert has many components and is an ideal way to fill your time while you watch ESPN’s coverage of Olympic curling. The length of the recipe may be daunting, but if Apolo Ohno can return to the short track after winning “Dancing with the Stars,” then you can certainly pick yourself up and put this together. There are four main components: pound cake, which can be storebought or homemade; roasted banana coconut ice cream (the roasted refers to the banana, not the ice cream); Blue Mountain coffee ganache; and Italian meringue.

Baked Alaska with
Roasted Banana Coconut Ice Cream

This recipe yields four igloos and one loaf. You can make a half recipe, using just one pound cake, which is plenty for eight servings (your guests will need to share igloos, though). And, yeah, I know, there are no igloos in Vancouver.

First, you will need to make:

Coconut Ice Cream with Roasted Banana Chunks

adapted from The Family Baker by Susan Purdy

3 medium bananas, peeled and sliced into 3-inch pieces

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 (13.5 oz.) can unsweetened coconut milk

1 cup heavy cream

4 tablespoons light corn syrup

½ cup granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1. Preheat the oven to 450. Place the banana pieces in a baking dish and toss with the canola oil. Bake for about 15 minutes, until soft and brown. Let the banana cool, then mash with a fork.

2. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine coconut milk, heavy cream, corn syrup, sugar, pinches of salt and allspice. Stir for about five minutes, until bubbles appear around the perimeter of the pan. Remove from heat and add vanilla and coconut extracts.

3. Freeze coconut mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. After about five minutes of freezing, add the mashed banana to the ice cream and continue to freeze. It’s best to fill the cake while the ice cream is still soft, but if you want to make this ahead, freeze the ice cream first, then soften a few minutes at room temperature. A 15 to 30 second zap in the microwave accomplishes the same softening.

You may stop here and enjoy this tropical treat, or you can surrender your kitchen and a few hours' work to a sublime dessert. For the Baked Alaska, you will need three additional items: a couple loaves of pound cake (my recipe is top-notch), a batch of Italian meringue (more on that later) and a recipe of ganache.

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Ganache

4 oz. heavy cream

4 oz. dark chocolate, such as Godiva Chocolatier Extra Dark Santo Domingo Chocolate (85% cacao)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons brewed Blue Mountain coffee

1. In a saucepan over a low flame, heat cream to just under a boil. In a bowl, break up chocolate pieces. Pour warm cream over chocolate and ask a pint-size helper to stir until smooth. Add vanilla and slowly stir in coffee. Chill in refrigerator until ready to use.

Begin Assembly:

1. Carve out a boat in one pound cake loaf. Cut off sides and scoop out middle. Save cake bits for another purpose, like feeding any stray helpers who wander into the kitchen. For the igloos, out of the remaining loaf, use a 3-inch and a 2-inch ring to cut out four large circles and four small circles and place on foil-lined baking sheet.

2. When ice cream is ready, scoop four large and four small scoops into shallow containers and place in freezer (these are for the igloos). Fill cavity of pound cake loaf with remaining ice cream. Spread a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top of ice cream. Smooth top and wrap in foil. Place filled loaf in freezer.

3. Make Italian meringue according to your favorite recipe, or use Shirley Corriher’s recipe from "Bakewise." Which is a bit of a pain, but beautiful and your children will be absolutely thrilled when they taste this giant marshmallow.

4. Minutes before serving, have all components at hand and crank up the oven to 475. Have a foil-lined baking sheet ready. For the igloos: Put down a big circle and a little circle of cake, then place a spoonful of ganache on each cake round. Place frozen scoops of ice cream on each circle, then cover with meringue piling high. Bake in 475 degree oven for 3 to 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve immediately.

5. For the loaf: cover with meringue, mounding over the top and swirling in a pretty pattern. Bake at 475 for three to five minutes. Slice and serve immediately. Any leftovers should be frozen. They will not be as lovely the next day, but certainly tasty.

Serve the Baked Alaska to friends while watching the closing ceremonies. Think of all that snow and then turn off the tv and dream of the islands, palm trees blowing in the tropical breeze, a steel drum in the background..Pass the Dutchie, indeed.

Banana Rehab

I have the best of intentions when I see bananas in the supermarket, especially if the clerk has just put them out and the bunches are creamy yellow, not marred by brown spots, and there is just the slightly fragrant smell, hinting at ripeness just a few days away. The girls will eat these bananas after school, I think, and indeed, if I remember to pack them in my purse, they will eat a banana in the car on the way home. The problem is remembering them...

As the wrestling coach who spoke at my high school graduation said, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas." (I can't remember much else about the speech, but the cliche has stuck with me.) So, intentions aside, I have a back-up plan. The plan used to be, and still is, freeze the mushy, smelly reprobates and give them new life as banana bread or snack cake. There is another solution, but this is entirely dependent on timing: the key to successful banana rehabilitation is to catch them just before they go bad.

If you have such a banana on your counter, check the freezer for vanilla ice cream or the fridge for vanilla yogurt, and if the answer is affirmative, get out a saute pan and go to town. Place the skillet over medium heat and sizzle a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter. Peel the banana or (s) as necessary, slicing the length of the fruit, then crosswise into 2-inch lengths. Saute the bananas in the melted butter until softened. Sprinkle a couple tablespoonfuls of brown sugar, light or dark, over the bananas, stir through. A pinch of salt would be ok, as would a finishing glug of vanilla. Have ready bowls of vanilla ice cream or that fridge mainstay vanilla yogurt, I say allow one banana for two servings, and spoon the syrupy bananas over the the vanilla ice cream. Lovely.

Banana Cake with Chocolate Ganache

What could be better than banana cake dressed up with chocolate ganache? The need to send a cake to a family member coincided with the cleaning out of the freezer, which is where mushy bananas go to await their culinary fate. At first, I intended to make either the Pleasant Hill Shaker banana bread that I've made for the past 20 years, or the ATK banana chip snack cake that's a snap to put together. A flash of inspiration struck -- Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cordon Rose Banana Cake with Sour Cream Ganache from The Cake Bible. This cake ups the elegance factor considerably (ganache has a way of doing that) and is no more trouble than the rustic cakes, except for the additional bowl to clean up.

It's hard to believe that it's been 21 years since The Cake Bible was first published. Any person interested in baking, especially at home, must have a copy of this book. The banana cake recipe is from the chapter "Simply Foolproof Cakes," and it's true, if you follow the recipes and take care with the ingredients and techniques, you will produce a tender, luscious cake. One of the unusual (at least to me) aspects of Beranbaum's books is that the recipes are in chart form, with measures and weights for ingredients. The only other cookbook that I have with charts is the industrial Food for Fifty. Still, I measure ingredients, although I'm considering entering the 21st century of baking by purchasing a scale. At first the ingredient charts were off-putting, but a few successful cakes into the book and I wish more cookbook had charts.

Beranbaum's charms extend beyond reliable recipes -- the recipe headnotes and the photographs pull you in, really sell the cakes, make you want to get in the kitchen and bake! Beranbaum's foolproof technique combines the sugar, flour and other dry ingredients together before creaming in the butter, eggs and liquid ingredients. This is much simpler than the usual butter and sugar creaming, then eggs, then flour, and produces a lovely, tender cake with just the right crumb. The Sour Cream Ganache is, as my Alabama grandmother would say, "out of this world!" (making three syllables out of "world.") It's just melted bittersweet chocolate and sour cream, but it is luscious and chocolatey and would redeem any cake, no matter the baker or box it came from (not that I would ever bake a cake from a box, mind you, I was raised better than that.).

Check out Beranbaum's excellent blog and search for "banana cake" and "sour cream ganache" for the recipes.

Afterschool Special

One of the perks of the job title "stay at home mom" is being close to my kitchen so that I can bake during the day. I can leave the butter and eggs on the counter in the morning, and after feeding the baby lunch, whip up a little something sweet, a smackerel as Pooh says, for big sis when she comes home from school. Darling daughter lives on Fluffernutters, hot dogs and air, and the occasional piece of this cake. She will eat it after school, for breakfast, and as a snack before bedtime. It's the perfect partner for a glass of milk, with its Hostess-like moist texture (without the cottony mouthfeel). Adults go for it, too, I guess because of the melty chocolate chips.

This cake is based on one from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, one of my absolute fave cookbooks (again with the ring-bound thing). I've made similar cakes that use sour cream, which I don't usually keep on hand, so I'm pleased that this version with whole milk can be made with ingredients in my pantry and a few black nanners from the freezer. The ATK cake is made with an electric mixer, but whenever I fire up the Kitchenaid, helpful kidoodles come running. I've discovered that stirring the cake by hand yields a perfect cake and a calm mommy and a cleaner kitchen.

Banana Chocolate Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 large ripe bananas, peeled & mashed to equal one cup
1/2 cup milk, room temperature (I always have whole milk on hand.)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup mini chocolate chip morsels

1. Heat oven to 350. Use butter wrapper to lightly grease a 9-inch square cake pan. (I use a Pampered Chef stoneware pan, with excellent results.) Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

2. With a sturdy wire whisk, beat together sugar and butter together until well-combined. Beat in eggs, followed by bananas, milk and vanilla.

3. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips over batter. Spread remaining batter over chips. Bake 55 to 60 minutes. (I use convection and it's always spot-on, 55 minutes.) Cake is done when a toothpick inserted in center comes clean or a very clean finger can gently press the center of the cake and the cake pops back up.

4. Let cake cool and then serve in generous squares to happy kids.

Banana Bread

Banana bread is a humble but reliable creation, and because it uses dead-ripe bananas, it's the frugal baker's best friend. There are hundreds of variations of this basic quick bread, probably the first baking project most young cooks will try at home. I'm not the most accomplished baker, but after 30 years in the kitchen, I still make banana bread. Primarily due to the fact that we always buy bananas at the store, and frequently they get too ripe for our tender palates. I have a drawer in the bottom of my freezer where I stash the overripe fruit. Every now and then, especially when I have buttermilk on hand, I will make this easy banana bread and enjoy it warm from the oven, crumbly and tender, with a cup of tea.

This recipe is from a cookbook from Pleasant Hill, the Shaker community in Kentucky. Appropriately, it's a simple bread, not gussied up with spices or nuts or chocolate, although it could be a blank canvas for experimentation. I usually double it, to use up more bananas and buttermilk. The instruction for adding the leavening is unusual - first add one cup of flour, then stir baking soda and salt into the remaining flour before adding to the batter.

Best Ever Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 bananas, mashed, to equal 1 cup
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar in bowl with electric mixer. Beat in eggs and bananas. Add one cup of the flour and half of the buttermilk alternately. Add salt and soda to remaining flour. Stir in second flour mixture and end with remaining buttermilk. Turn into well-greased 9 X 5 loaf pan. Bake at 325 for one hour (per cookbook, mine take up to 1 hour and 15 minutes to bake).