Brownies

Who loves brownies?? Well I Do(once in a blue moon...lol)!!! And so does my little cousin Vanessa lol. I made these for my babies at sunday school and they loved them!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 1 cup white sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
2. In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not OVERCOOK(SERIOUSLY)

Butter,sugar,eggs and vanilla mixture

I used butter to grease my pan for baking

Before going into greased pan

Ready to be baked, I used a bigger pan because I made a bigger batch of brownies

Moist and yummy brownies

Pound Cake (Ghana style)

I've always been the cooking type wasnt really into baking but I was bored on one Sunday & decided why not give that a try. So instead of buying the box mix to make it easier for me. I decided to ask my mom how she did her cakes back when we were in Ghana & I was surprised to see how simple it was

Ingredients:

• 2 cups butter (4 sticks,16oz)
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons baking powder

Ps: As a preservative, so that the cake won't go bad(because of all the eggs you have in there), add 1/4 cup of brandy(any of your choice)to the cake.

Method:

1. Grease a cake pan of your choice
2. Preheat oven at 350 degrees F(177 degrees C)
3. Mix your dry ingredients, flour,baking powder and nutmeg.
4. Then in a separate bowl,cream your sugar and butter till is completely mixed, beat in eggs one at a time still stirring.
5. Add in your vanilla extract, then mix in your dry ingredients slowly, making sure that everything is fully mixed.
6. Pour into greased pan and bake for about an hour or when you stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean. (When you put the cake in the oven don't open it to check on it, let the cake rise well before you do so otherwise it would fall in and you would have a flat cake.....hopefully this makes sense...Lol)

Ps: If you are trying to have yours with the coloring that I have in some of the pictures below. Just take about 4 tablespoons from the batter, add the food color of choice(about 1/3 teaspoon....not too much color) then mix it well,then pour it in your greased pan with the rest of the batter. For the chocolate mix I used 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder in a small mixture of the batter. 

The process of making the pound cake. (I don't have a cake mixer yet so it was all by hand...lol)

Finally got a cake mixer (as a graduation gift...yay) so everything was a bit easier

I used green,purple and pink food coloring for this trial cake. Loved how it came out

Wanted a vanilla and strawberry flavor so I used this with a little bit of batter from the original

Something blue lol

How it looked like lol (Something blue)

Something blue is ready lol

The end result. (Sorry I don't have a before picture for the chocolate one, but I will update as time goes on)

For some interesting reason the cake looks like red,yellow and green after it was done haha. (But I had some left over batter so I made cupcakes with them)

With a little of chocolate in the middle

Plain old pound cake with a dash of vanilla & strawberry flavors

Baking for christmas 

Very colorful lol

Ghana colors, representing my motherland!!! 

Soft and yummy 

With a little chocolate hidden inside

Banana Bread

I had some bananas that were going to waste so I figured why not make something with them. That's when I made this banana bread with the help of other recipes. I combined 3 different recipes and made mine. Do NOT waste your bananas make YUMMY banana bread. :-)


Ingredients:

• Cooking spray(for greasing pan) 
• 3 ripe bananas
• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• Optional - 1/4 cup walnuts(chopped)
•                -1/3 cup chocolate chips (unsweetened)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven at 375 degrees F. (190degrees C)
2. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl
3. In another bowl, cream sugar and butter together till its evenly mix 
4. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, add milk and vanilla extract
5. Mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and mashed bananas. (If you choose to add walnuts or chocolate chips you can add that now)
6. Mix everything till smooth
7. Pour in greased baking pan (loaf pan will be ideal)
8. Bake for about 1hr and 5mins or when you stick a toothpick in and comes out clean
9. Allow your banana bread to cool for about 10minutes before serving it.

Not the prettiest sight but this is without the chocolate chips or walnuts

Mini chocolate chips mixture

Oven ready. Ps: I overdid it with the cooking spray(DONT be like me..lol)

I wanted it plain hence the reason why it's missing the walnuts and chocolate chips

Banana bread with mini chocolate chips

Inside my mini chocolate chips banana bread :-)