Today while watching some business leadership videos that the UW puts out, they were interviewing the former CEO of Starbucks. He said:
“There Are No Stressful Situations ONLY Stressful Responses”
I love that. Goes along with my life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how you react to it philosophy. Something we should all be working on to remember.

Boozy Banana Bread

1 cup cake flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, well-beaten
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups mashed ripe bananas
3 TBSP bourbon
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans

Glaze:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 TBSP corn syrup
1 TBSP bourbon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, cream butter with an electric mixer (I used a stand mixer). Add well-beaten eggs, sugar and bananas. Beat on medium speed for three minutes. Add lemon juice and bourbon, beat 30 seconds.

Add flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Fold in chocolate chips and chopped pecans.

Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until a toothpick inserted in top center comes out clean. Loaf should spring back slightly to the touch.

Cool completely on wire rack. Then Glaze. (For knock-out flavor, let sit 24 hours before eating.) Wrap in foil to store.

Glaze:

In a small saucepan on medium-low heat the chocolate chips and corn syrup until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Add the bourbon and whisk until smooth again. Drizzle over cake.

Adapted from My Baking Addiction

Clearly you deserve a better post…but that won’t be today. It’s been a long week around here. People who are close to me know that when someone passes in my life I usually bake bread. Not sure why I just always have. Sadly one of our local hockey family, a guy I have played both with and against, passed away on Wednesday morning. He played a game of hockey and said he wasn’t feeling well but still went to his second game of hockey where he played a few shifts. Told everyone he didn’t feel great and was going home. And at 7am the next morning he had a heart attack and died. Life is short people, spend it with the ones you want to, don’t waste your time on anything that isn’t bringing you joy.

I did manage to make something…these are kind of healthy muffins…well healthy for me. I was going to make a pretzel topping but never got around to it. Like I said, weird week.

Peanut Butter White Chocolate Chip Muffins

½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup peanut butter (your choice…I went with Jif)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
4 eggs
1 TBSP vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat (see the healthy part)
2 ½ tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup whole milk
1 ½ cups white chocolate chips (I went white so that the dog could have a bite )

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together the oil, peanut butter, and sugars until on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, it should get lighter in color.

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.

Add ½ the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low add until just combined. Then add the milk, and mix on low. And then add the remaining dry ingredients until just incorporated.

Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Scoop into muffin tins (with liners), doing the standard 2/3 of the way up. You will get 24 of these bad boys…or at least I did.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Remove muffins when completely cool.

Here’s a picture of me with my new do for the late spring into summer. Thank goodness I have friends who are in the industry to keep me looking lovely for cheap.

And since it is Fur Baby Friday here is CCS enjoying some white wine…I kid, she is a dark beer drinker.

Two things, first off a BIG thank you to any and all who donated this is my last post where it is mentioned for a year. I learned this week that while demographically speaking while I don’t have that many men (mostly ex-boyfriends) who read the blog, a large percentage of them donated to me. As well as college students which is a big deal as they are giving up pizza and beer money there. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Second, thanks for the encouragement with me and MDP. I can say that my favorite part about coming out so to speak is that I no longer have former students giving me advice such as “show some more boob Ms. G (my maiden name) that’s what works for me”. Though now we have moved onto “yeaaaa, get some Ms. G” so I’ll be honest in saying, not sure which one is worse. I’ll mull it over and let you know.

We got random snow this week and that always makes me want to bake with yeast thanks to my mom always doing that when we were kids. Except it’s pretty much the worst time to as everything takes twice as long to rise because of the cold. The first batch I made at night and would have been great right up until the point where I forgot to put it in the fridge. So I woke up to a little fermenting blob running down the sides of my bowl and dryer…laundry room is the warmest room in the apartment. After some colorful words I cleaned it up and decided that I was going to make dough that would take less time.

So back to the drawing board. Found one. It sat and sat and sat and never rose. I still don’t know what happened exactly. To say I was cranky was putting it mildly. So again, after some colorful words (if my dog could talk number one I would have a crap ton of money and number two her first words probably would have been the f-bomb ) I decided to try one more time.

I was hoping for third times a charm and that’s how it turned out. I had an idea after watching Guy eat some Baklava on Triple D that I wanted to make cinnamon roll like buns but instead use Baklava filling…one of my better ideas in a while. Now, I’m pretty sure these are horrific for you calorie-wise but I was a good girl and only ate one…every four hours, you know, like medication.

Of course if you are a Baklava purist these are not for you, but if you like the flavor of Baklava you will sooo enjoy these. I thought about making more of a honey glaze but decided just to drizzle honey over it instead.

Baklava Buns

½ batch sweet dough (brioche is nice), I used this one
2 cups unsalted pecans
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 TBSP granulated sugar
2 TBSP unsalted butter, softened

Spray an 8-x-8-inch baking pan with baking spray and set aside. I used an 8-inch spring form pan as my other pan was dirty.

Prepare you dough according to recipe directions. My dough had to be refrigerated overnight then brought to room temperature, so keep that in mind if you think you are going to just whip these out.

Using a food processor add the nuts and cinnamon and pulse until you get a fine crumb, don’t go too far or you will get nut butter and you don’t want that. Set aside.

Roll out your dough as if you were making cinnamon rolls, so about a 9-x-12 inch rectangle. Spread butter across the dough leaving a 1 ½ inch boarder on the far edge. Sprinkle sugar evenly over butter.

Sprinkle nut mixture evenly over sugared butter.

Starting at the side of the rectangle closest to you, roll the dough tightly. Pinch the sea well to seal the flap. Roll the log back and forth a few times to seal the layers. Gently stretch the log with your hands.

Cut log into nine equal pieces and place into prepared pan cut side up, trying your best to space evenly.

Let rise for about an hour, or until they have doubled in size.

Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes (you might need to tent yours with foil so they don’t get too dark).
Serve with honey.

I’m not totally sure how it started but someone suggested I run for President. I said no thanks that I had too many skeletons and it wasn’t a very fun job anyway. Then someone else piped up that I should just run for Congress then, as they are allowed to have skeletons. We had some lovely slogans all centered around my joke that I stay larger so people can see me better.

We had things like “there’s more of me to love thanks to bacon” and “vote for Peabody I have more cushin’ for pushin’”. That last one coming from my bff in California who hates overly skinny women.

To ensure I keep up with my figure to run for Congress I best figure out how to eat more bacon in my everyday life. We were discussing on my Facebook page how restaurants and recipes don’t call for enough bacon. You will notice this recipe calls for a pound. You can use more or less but I didn’t want to skimp after we just had a discussion about it.

These are a diet killer in every way possible. In the words of people I was sharing this with “why can’t I stop eating this?”. The answer is because I’m evil. And a genius. And an evil genius. Moderation doesn’t really exist with these unless you eat this with a lot of people. Then it becomes a death match to get the last pieces.

Maple Bacon Monkey Bread

About 1 cup brown sugar
2 cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury® Grands!® Homestyle refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (or any fridge biscuit)
About 1 ½ cups pure maple syrup

1 pound center cut bacon, fried, toweled for oil, and chopped into pieces

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 TBSP maple syrup
3/4cup butter , melted

Heat oven to 350°F.

Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan with cooking spray.

In a shallow bowl add 1 cup brown sugar (you might need more). In another shallow bowl, add maple syrup.

Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters.

Dip each piece into maple syrup and then into brown sugar.

Arrange in pan, adding bacon among the biscuit pieces.

In small bowl, mix brown sugar, 3 TBSP maple syrup, and butter; pour over biscuit pieces.

Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center (this is hard to tell).

Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Adapted from Pilsbury