Bites from other Blogs

• When you have overripe bananas in your kitchen, you may think about baking a batch of banana bread with them. But as delicious as banana bread can be, it’s not the only option when you want to bake with bananas. Barbara Bakes made a Buttermilk Banana Crumb Cake that any coffee cake-lover would appreciate. The cake is loaded with plenty of mashed banana and is topped with a brown sugar and cinnamon streusel. A drizzle of confectioners’ sugar icing gives the cake a pretty finishing touch before serving.
• You can find even more bananas in Gonna Want Seconds‘ Banana Cream Pie. The pie uses Nilla wafers to make a crumb crust, which not only contrasts well with the creamy pie, but has a nice vanilla flavor to it that goes well with the vanilla filling. There is a generous layer of fresh bananas in the center of the pie, of course, and the whole thing is topped of with plenty of vanilla whipped cream. It’s decadent, but oh-so-delicious.
• It can be tempting to try and squeeze every bit of batter into your muffin pan when you are baking cupcakes, but it is wise to leave some of the batter in the bowl and resist the temptation to overfill your pan if you want your cupcakes to turn out picture perfect. CakeSpy put that extra batter to good use in a batch of Cake Batter Cake Frosting. This is frosting that will make you want to lick the bowl because it has that addictive quality that cake batter has, but in a creamier package. You can use the technique with chocolate, vanilla or any other flavor of cake batter you might be working with.
• The Tiramisu Cake from Spiced Blog is a dressed up version of the classic Italian dessert that is well worth making the next time you need a dessert with a little “wow” factor. Each layer of the three layer cake is soaked in a rum and espresso syrup, then the layers are stacked together with a creamy mascarpone frosting. The cake is finished with some freshly whipped cream and a ring of ladyfingers. Unlike some cakes, this one tastes even better after it has been chilled, so prepare it a day before you intend to serve it.

I’m adding a new feature this week to Bites from other Blogs, a recipe throwback! This feature is intended to showcase a recipe that was published on this day on Baking Bites sometime in the past decade of blogging. That’s a lot of oldies-but-goodies to rediscover and add to your list of recipe favorites!

• Recipe Throwback: Do you like Biscoff, a.k.a. cookie butter? My Biscoff-Swirled Coffee Cake has a delicious layer of cookie butter running right through the center of a tender vanilla cake. Instead of a traditional streusel, this cake is topped with an unusual topping that is baked right onto the cake while it is in the oven. The cake is easy to make and unlike anything that you’ll find down at the local coffee shop.