One day last week (I think), Elle tweets me something along the lines of “Renee! You have to check this out!!!” Seriously, there were at least 3 exclamation points. The “this” she was referring to, was a “recipe” for One-Ingredient Ice Cream on another blog, The Kitchn. Really?!? How’s that work? Every brain cell is telling you that this shouldn’t work, but it does!

Apparently, 1 cup of mashed banana contains approximately 1 gram of fat. Which ain’t much in the grand scheme of things, especially when you consider the nutritional powerhouse that is the Banana. That little trace of fat is the source of the magic.

Essentially, you peel and slice some bananas, lay them out in a single layer on a plate, and freeze them for about 2 hours. Then you run the frozen bananas through your food processor. (For step-by-step instructions with photos, see the post at The Kitchn.) At first, it just looks like a crumbly mess, and doubt sets in. But you keep going, and suddenly, that crumbly mess transforms into a creamy, rich, decadent delight, exactly the consistency of ice cream! Who knew?

Well, the mind boggles, doesn’t it? If you like bananas – and it’s still the Number 1 fruit in America, so chances are that you do – how many umpteen-thousands of add-in combinations can you come up with? Our minds raced. And as we tweeted back and forth excitedly, we sucked in Kathy of A Good Appetite, Heather of He Cooks / She Cooks, and Barbara of Vino Luci Style. At some point today or tomorrow, all 5 of us (don’t forget Elle of Elle’s New England Kitchen!), are posting some of the variations we came up with that you should try at home.

All of mine are based on 2 bananas per batch, adding the other ingredients just after they begin to get creamy in the food processor. I’m going to show you three of my favorite variations:

Coconut Macadamia: 1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped salted macadamia nuts.

Chocolate Hazelnut: 3 Tbs. Nutella and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts (This one’s my favorite!)

Kahlua Pecan: 2 Tbs. Kahlua liqueur and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans. (This one was MJ’s favorite)

With summer coming up (already here for some of us!), isn’t it nice to know that there’s another healthy option in the frozen treat category? Just keep in mind that the riper the bananas, the sweeter this is, so if you use some that are just ripe, you may want to add some sweetener, such as honey or agave nectar. Yes, the base-flavor is always going to be banana, but how’s that a bad thing?

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I’m on the home stretch, and finally getting to Day 10 of our 12 Days of Cookies project, where our little band of intrepid bakers are baking and blogging 12 cookie recipes of our individual choice from Bon Appétit’s 2008 Cookie-a-Day collection!

Hazelnut Shortbread Sticks

Preparation:

Notes:

Love this cookie! Crispy, tender, and light, and the milk chocolate with toasted chopped hazelnuts really set it off.

They’re also very quick to prepare and bake – just what the doctor ordered for that last-minute cookie emergency. And yes, there are cookie emergencies. Really.

I actually melted the chocolate in the microwave (50% power for about 90 second, stopping to stir every 15 seconds), which made for an even faster and less fussy/messy experience.

I would absolutely make these again, and so should you.

Please visit my partners in holiday baking, below, and see what they’ve got in store for you. And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the eleventh installment!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings (hey! that’s me!)
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project

Welcome back for Day 5 of The 12 Days of Cookies, and since it’s Saturday, it’s also PhotoHunt Day. The theme for the PhotoHunt this week, is “Curved.” I think you’ll agree that these Hazelnut Linzer cookies fit the bill!

In case you’re wondering what’s going on, I was invited to participate in a project to bake and blog about 12 cookies in 12 days (December 1-12), choosing from the 2008 Bon Appétit Holiday Cookie-a-Day collection. We were free to choose any 12 cookies from the 31 recipes in the collection, in any order and compare notes. You didn’t know I had it in me, did you?

On with the cookies, and the PhotoHunt!

First the recipe, then my notes:

Hazelnut Linzer Cookies with Blackberry Jam

Preparation

Notes:

If you’ve stopped by to see the first four installments of this series, you won’t be surprised to learn that here’s another really soft dough for a cut-out cookie. In fact, you’re probably pretty sick of reading me bitch about it. Fine. Not another word. You can’t say you weren’t warned. I’ll just say this: Keep the bench flour close. You’ll need it. And when cutting out the tops of the cookies, take them to the cookie sheet before cutting out the “Linzer eye” and cut it out in place.

This is a very tender cookie, a nice way of saying “more delicate than it looks.” It’s very crispy, but in my opinion, might have benefited from using the whole eggs, rather than just the yolks, to give them a little more backbone. As it were.

Yes, Linzers are traditionally round, although the “eye” can be virtually any shape. But, you know, I have the cutters in various sizes, so why not use them?

Also? I didn’t have any blackberry jam, so I substituted lingonberry. That should be the tip-off that we spent some time in the Ikea store awhile back.

Please visit my partners in holiday baking, below, and see what they’ve got in store for you. They’re not PhotoHunting, but their photos are guaranteed to make you drool! And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the sixth installment!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings (hey! that’s me!)
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project