Banana Pudding Pops

Its been so warm here this week, I found that I had images of popsicles and ice cream cones dancing around in my head.   My new Cuisinart ice cream maker did arrive this week, but I really wanted to try out my new Tupperware popsicle molds that my mom and dad had gotten me for Christmas.  We had these molds as kids, but all that remains of that old set is a few of the sticks.  I don't know what happened to the rest of the set, which is OK, because all of the sticks are riddled with teeth marks and they are kind of dingy looking. 

My new set is lemon yellow with a lime green tray to hold the popsicles upright in the freezer.  I started thinking about these popsicles again, when I saw an article in an EatingWell magazine last year featuring various flavored freezer pops.  I decided to try the banana pudding pops recipe this week, and because we were all out of mini-chocolate chips, I put Hershey's Cinnamon Mini-chips into the pudding before filling the molds.  They are just delicious, very economical and hubby and I just sit there after dinner in quiet solitude savoring every lick (bite in his case) of our banana pudding pops. 

Banana Pudding Pops
from EatingWell.com

1/3-1/2 cups light brown sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
Pinch of salt
2 cups low-fat milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups diced bananas

(I cut the recipe in half and it filled all 6 of my Tupperware popsicle molds)

Whisk sugar to taste, cornstarch and salt in a large saucepan.  Add milk and whisk until combined.  Bring to a boil over  medium heat, whisking occasionally.  Boil, whisking constantly, for 1 minute.  Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. 

Put about half the pudding mixture in a blender or food processor and add bananas.  Process until smooth.  Stir the mixuture back into the remaining pudding.   I let the mixture cool to room temperature, and then added a couple tablespoons of cinnamon mini chips before adding the pudding to my popsicle molds.  Insert the sticks and freeze until completely firm, about 6 hours.  Dip the molds briefly in hot water before unmolding.

Multigrain Snickerdoodles

Finally, after a couple of days of so-so whole-grain recipes, I hit on one that is excellent.  I had bookmarked this recipe last fall, but since I didn't have barley flour, I had to wait until my desire for these cookies, supplanted my resistance to stash yet another type of flour in my pantry.  When growing up, snickerdoodles were my favorite of all my mom's homemade cookies.  I have made whole-wheat snickerdoodles before from this recipe, and they are good, but they do contain some all-purpose flour, and my goal has been to find recipes that use none.

The Multigrain Snickerdoodles recipe I tried yesterday contains no all-purpose flour, but includes barley flour, ground oats, and traditional whole wheat flour.  I found barley flour at Whole Foods in the bulk foods section, which I was grateful for so that I didn't have to commit to buying a whole bag.  According to the book, Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce, barley flour was the main bread grain in Europe ~ 500 yrs ago, before the great rise of wheat.  It also says barley flour works really well in doughs and batters (as a secondary flour) with a scent strangely reminiscent of ripe apricots.

I did not alter the recipe this time, except for cutting in half the ingredients for the cinnamon-sugar coating that the balls of dough are coated with.  To coat my dough balls, I followed the procedure my mom taught us as kids, and that was to combine the cinnamon-sugar in a cereal bowl, drop a ball or two in at a time and roll it around before placing on the cookie sheet.

Multigrain Snickerdoodles

from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Dough

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks, 6 oz) unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp orange juice

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups (4 5/8 oz) old fashioned rolled oats, ground for 30 seconds in food processor

1 cup (4 oz) whole barley flour

3/4 cup (3 oz) traditional whole wheat flour

Coating

1/3 cup (2 3/8 oz) sugar

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

(I cut the coating ingredients in half and had just enough to coat all 38 dough balls.)

Cream the butter, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla in a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.  Beat in the orange juice and eggs, scraping the bowl, then add the oats, barley flour and whole wheat flour, beating until well combined.  Refrigerate the dough, covered, overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 350°.  Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.  To prepare the coating, combine the sugar and cinnamon in a large plastic bag.  Drop the dough by the tablespoonful, 6 pieces or so at a time, into the bag.  Gather the bag closed at the top, trapping some air inside.  Shake gently to coat the balls with sugar mixture.  Place them on prepared baking sheets and flatten to about 1/2 in. thick, using the flat bottom of a measuring cup or drinking glass.

Bake the cookies, reversing the pans midway through (top to bottom, bottom to top), until they're beginning to brown around the edges, 12 to 14 minutes.  (I baked only 1 sheet of cookies at a time and all of my batches were closer to the 14 minute mark.)

Remove cookies from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.  Store in an air-tight container.  The book also says the cookies will stay soft and chewy unless you leave the cookies out over-night to harden and then store them.  I prefer mine to stay soft and chewy so mine were stored after cooling.

It's hard for me to convey the deliciousness of the food without alot of photographic talent or eye-catching props, but believe me these cookies are good and well worth the effort if you are searching for whole-grain cookie recipes to try.