Banana Bread

 Okay I am tired of bananas. Tired of looking for new recipes and tired of baking with them. Luckily, (I think) when we lost power due to the storm we lost my entire shelf of frozen bananas. I am annoyed but not upset. I was planning to make a bunch of banana muffins and freeze them. Darn. Oh well! Right before the storm, I made this banana bread recipe from the 1963 edition of Charleston Receipts but as giant muffins. Because muffins are great but giant muffins are better! 

Super easy looking, nothing unusual or special. No judgement so far. It could still be amazing...

Hmmm....Everything is so white...

Just getting everything prepped. Eggs beaten and bananas mashed!

Just creaming shortening and trying to get artsy. I think it's a cool pic. What do you think?

Everything is all ready to mix together. I debated on pulling out the standing mixer but it was not necessary. I love my mixer but sometimes it is too heavy to deal with.

This recipe made the perfect amount for 6 large muffins. Just for fun I added a light dusting of raw sugar on half the muffins. I am hoping for a lovely layer of crunch on them!

These baked up beautifully! So...I have no idea which ones had the sugar on top. It looks like the sugar just sank in. Interesting.

Isn't this a great looking muffin?!

This was an easy recipe with pretty common ingredients. They baked up very nicely, are moist, and have a good flavor. But, as I suspected, nothing special or unique. Dylan did not share my opinion. If you are looking for a tasty and simple recipe than this one is perfect however I would probably add nuts or cinnamon next time. Or more sugar on top. 

My Rating: Good but not great

Dylan's Rating: Delicious! They are a little dry but overall they are great.

Moldy Mice (Sand Tarts)

Sometimes it's all in the name! I was randomly flipping through the Charleston Receipts, the 1963 edition, and found this gem. To be honest I never looked really looked closely at this cookbook because it did not interested me. It's not that old and I am not into collected recipes.

Apparently these are also called "Sand Tarts" but what is the fun in that?!

 Easy looking recipe with easy ingedrients! It does not look like there is enough sugar though...

 Mix it seperately...

And then together!

 The dough was very dry and made it difficult to roll into small bars. This was definately not going to make 3 dozen cookies!

 Smells so delicious! Every kitchen should smell like pecans cookies!

 Everything is better rolled in powdered sugar!

 Ta Da!

They taste pretty similar to Russian Tea Cakes but a little dryer. All in all not bad but nothing special, except for the name. I still don't know how I was suppose to get 36 cookies out of this and I had to lower the baking time a couple of minutes.

My Rating: Good but not enough to make again.

Friends and Family Rating: "Yum!" "These taste like something you have made before."