Last night, I hosted a small group of friends for a book swap, hoping it would serve as a foundation to launch a book club. To sweeten the deal, I plied my guests with wine and desserts.
After perusing recipes for days, I finally decided to make a sour cream banana cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting, and chocolate fudge macarons with marshmallow filling.
the spread
The cake was easy to make and turned out to be moist and fantastic. The peanut butter frosting was delicious, too, a sinful concoction of butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and creamy Jif that I couldn’t stop eating by the spoonful. It was almost too sweet, but a good complement to the banana flavor. (I ate another big slice for breakfast this morning when no one was looking.)
Sour cream banana cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting
I seriously toyed with the idea of topping the whole thing with some crumbled brown sugar bacon and calling it an “Elvis Cake,” but time got away from me. Mainly because, for whatever reason, I lost my macaron mojo.
After four or five great first efforts, I could not make a decent macaron yesterday to save my life. I don’t know if the batter was too stiff, the house was too dry or what, but the first batch of cookies cracked and completely dried out. Figuring it must have been a fluke, I whipped up another batch. Same story, different cookie sheet. Edible and appropriately chocolaty, mind you, but not the right texture or appearance at all. They were way too crunchy, more like a little meringue button than a crusty-chewy macaron. By this point, I was getting the process down to a science. Figuring the third time had to be the charm, I made one last-ditch attempt. My last effort turned out the closest to correct macarons, but still not perfect. Sigh. I gave up, schmeared them with marshmallow fluff and served them anyway. No one seemed to mind.
a semi-successful macaron
By the way, I had totally forgotten what a wonderful thing marshmallow fluff is. O.M.G. I predict several fluffer-nutter sandwiches showing up in this week’s lunch menus…
If at first you don’t succeed, keep on baking.
Mostly Midwestern 