A tale of two recipes

Last week I really wanted to thank M's family for having me for the weekend, so I decided to surprise them with some pretty homemade baked goods. The first thing I kept in mind was that I was baking for a younger, sweet-tooth M & co, as well as for the older and more adult needs and tastes of his mom. Because of this, I ended up making two versions of each baked good.

The first is my banana bread. It is really delicious!! Not to toot my own horn, but I think it's the best banana bread (especially when fresh.) I made muffins of the extra to give to my roommates, and all three of them raved about them. It has a strong banana flavor and texture, probably due to the large amount of bananas.

For the "healthy" banana bread, I cut the sugar down by 1/2 a cup and increased the cinammon to compromise for the taste. For the "yummy" banana bread, I kept the original recipe and added chocolate chips. Both were delicious! I think I actually prefer it without chocolate chips, because I want to really be able to concentrate on the banana texture.



Next... I tested two recipes of checkerboard cookies because I've never made them before. The first I found online, and it included an egg and was like any normal buttery cookie. The second was a Martha Stewart recipe and didn't have an egg. I found the second to be surprisingly good, very much like a shortbread. Instead of making just chocolate and vanilla checkerboards, I opted for chocolate and orangey-lemon instead :) Instead of vanilla extract, I added Meyer lemon and orange zest and juice to the white dough. It gave the shortbread a delicate and citrusy taste which made all the difference!



Unfortunately a lot of them got broken in transport. They were still mouth-wateringly good though!