Banana Pecan Caramel Sauce

Gooey, sweet and sticky, this banana pecan caramel sauce is perfection over ice cream, brownies or baked apples. Or you can just eat it with a spoon. You won’t get any judgment from me. Seriously, it’s that good. 

I am not a big sweet eater but I do have a fondness for caramel. The caramelization of sugar adds a welcome slight bitterness that I find very appealing and I know I’m not alone in that. Some of the most popular candies in the world have caramel as an element. Think Snickers, Milky Way and Twix to name just three.

As a kid, my movie candy of choice was always a big box of Milk Duds and I loved Sugar Daddys which were basically a solid rectangle of caramel on a stick. Those would pull your fillings out if you weren’t careful! Totally worth the risk. 

If you feel the same way as I do about caramel, you are going to love this sauce. 

Banana Pecan Caramel Sauce

This recipe makes a little more than two cups of sauce. Because of the bananas, I recommend you store any leftovers in a refrigerator, which means it will turn solid but spoon-able. Gently rewarm it back to sauce consistency before using. This recipe is adapted from one on Marsha’s Baking Addiction.

Ingredients

1 cup or 240ml water

2 cups or 400g sugar

1/2 cup or 57g chopped pecans

2 medium bananas (about 180g), pureed until smooth

1/2 cup or 120ml heavy cream, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add the water and sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar.

Turn the heat down to medium and allow the mixture to come to a light amber color without stirring. 

Instead, swirl the pan around occasionally to make sure the mixture caramelizes evenly. (This can take a while. Be patient, and don't be tempted to turn up the heat!)

Remove the pan from the heat, and add in the chopped pecans. Stir well.

 Add in the pureed banana. Stir constantly until combined and the bubbling has stopped.

Place back on the heat, and keep stirring until the mixture becomes a deep, rich amber color.

Remove from the heat and gradually pour in the heavy cream, stirring constantly until combined. The sauce might sugar up at this point if your cream isn't room temperature but just keep stirring and all will be well, as the sugar melts again and it turns back into a sauce. 

Take the pot off of the stove and stir in the vanilla.

Pour the caramel into a heat-proof jar and allow to cool completely before using. Serve over ice cream or even spread on toast or pancakes. 

Or eat it with a spoon. 

Again, no judgment from me.

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay and my blogger friends and I are celebrating National Banana Lover’s Day, which is today! How will you celebrate? We’ve got a list of great recipes you might like to try. Check them out below: 

• Banana Chip Cookies with Melted Caramel from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Banana Mousse from Culinary Cam
• Banana Pecan Caramel Sauce from Food Lust People Love
• Banana Zucchini Cake from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Chocolate Coated Banana from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Double Chocolate Whole Wheat Banana Bread from Cook with Renu
• Frozen Peanut Butter Banana Pretzel Bites from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Sourdough Banana Appe from Sneha’s Recipe

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Toffee Apple Bread Pudding Bundt #BundtBakers

Tart apple, sticky toffee and vanilla custard filled bread come together in this toffee apple bread pudding Bundt to create a dessert that is way more than the sum of its parts.

My husband is a huge fan of bread pudding but I must confess that it’s not my favorite dessert. I do love that is uses up leftover stale bread though, so I make it from time to time. The problem is that he eats just two or three servings, and then I have leftover bread pudding! First world problems, I know, I know.

I hate waste so I’ve started working smarter. This recipe is made in a 6-cup Bundt pan (<Amazon affiliate link) so that’s four generous servings or 5-6 skimpy ones. I promise you, no one will want a skimpy serving of toffee apple bread pudding!

Toffee Apple Bread Pudding Bundt

This recipe is adapted from one on the BBC Good Food site. The caramel can be homemade or store-bought. All caramel is good!

Ingredients
3 brioche buns (Mine weighed 6 oz or 170g.)*
2 eggs
3/4 cup or 180ml full-fat milk
1/2 cup or 120ml whipping cream
4 tablespoons golden caster sugar (You can substitute granulated sugar.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 green apple (I used a Granny Smith)
1 cup or 312g thick caramel
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled, for buttering 6-cup Bundt pan.

Optional: extra caramel for serving

*Note: You can substitute another stale bread but buttery brioche makes a richer bread pudding. Also, the crusts are tender so they don’t have to be removed.

Method
Cut the brioche buns into small cubes and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, cream, vanilla extract together with the 4 tablespoons sugar.

Core and peel the apple, then chop it into small chunks. Toss the chunks immediately into the egg mixture so they don’t turn brown.

Stir the bread cubes through the apple/egg mixture. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

When the refrigeration time is up, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Using a pastry brush, liberally butter the Bundt pan with the melted butter and pour the rest of it into the bottom of the Bundt pan.

Spoon 1/3 of the pudding mix into the pan. Spoon about 1/4 of the caramel into the pan.

Top with another 1/3 of the pudding mix, followed by another 1/4 of the caramel.

Finish with the rest of the pudding mix followed by another 1/4 of the caramel, reserving the final 1/4 of the caramel for pouring over the finished apple bread pudding.

Put the Bundt pan inside another larger cake pan and put your kettle on to boil.

Put the pans in the preheated oven and carefully pour boiling water into the bottom pan to about halfway up that pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is golden and the custard has set. You should see some butter bubbling up around the edges.

Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack then invert on a plate. This toffee apple bread pudding Bundt can be served immediately with the reserved caramel on the side. Or continue cooling it completely and drizzle on the additional caramel before serving.

If you have even more caramel than the recipe calls for (My store-bought jar held more that one cup.) serve those leftovers with the pudding. Because more caramel is always better.

Enjoy!

Many thanks and happy birthday month to our host Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out all the lovely apple Bundts we are sharing today!

• Apple Bundt with Caramel Glaze by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Apple Butterscotch Bundt Cake by Katin špajz|
• Apple Crumb Ring Bundt by Living the Gourmet
• Apple Zucchini Nut Mini Bundts by All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Black Bottom Apple Bundlets by Sneha's Recipe
• Caramel Apple Bundt Cake by Merce`s Cake
• Quinoa and Apple Bundt Cake with Rum by Cookpad
• Reduced Carb Apple Pecan Spice Cake by Palatable Pastime
• Toffee Apple Bread Pudding Bundt by Food Lust People Love
• Vegan Apple & Oats Mini Bundt Cakes by Patty's Cake

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

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Salted Caramel Pumpkin Blondies

Alternating layers of sweet pumpkin batter and rich salted caramel sauce bake up into the most succulent pumpkin blondies you'll ever want to eat. Pass these around for your Halloween party, or even Thanksgiving dessert! They are that special.

Some of you may have noticed that my recipes are a haphazard combination of measures. Sometimes by weight in grams or ounces, equally often cups and milliliters and other volume measures. My problem is that I have moved all over the world collecting cookbooks (and recipes from friends!) so I have gotten quite comfortable mixing and matching. I own two sets of measuring cups, US and UK, where a cup varies from eight ounces in the former to nine ounces in the latter. I don’t actually own a separate set of measuring spoons, but I know that an Australian recipe calling for a tablespoon of something needs four teaspoons instead of the US three. Thank goodness all teaspoons are 5ml!

I have a wonderful set of vintage scales, a gift from my mother, procured by a dear friend in Aberdeen, which has both imperial and metric weights. This is my very favorite thing in my kitchen and until I bought a digital scale, and I used it all the time.



When using my US cookbooks, I often measure things out, then tip them in the digital scale and write the weight in pencil in the cookbook, so I can just weigh the item the next time I use the recipe. How we ever started using cups, I do not know, because weighing is so much easier - and more accurate!

If you too find yourself with a foreign recipe, online or in a cookbook, check out Traditional Oven, the website I often use for conversions. It has been a godsend! But whichever measure you use, you'll want to make my salted caramel pumpkin blondies.

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Blondies

To give everybody credit: My recipe was adapted from this recipe from BakedBree.com which was in turn adapted from this recipe from SingForYourSupperBlog.com which was in turn adapted from a recipe for basic pumpkin blondies from Annies Eats, who adapted hers from Martha Stewart. And so it goes.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g plain flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated or ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (245g) room temperature butter
1 1/4 cups or 250g brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (Check out the link if you'd like to make your own.)
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin (not pie filling)
1 cup store-bought caramel syrup with 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt added or this lovely recipe. I made this myself and ended up with a much darker caramel sauce.

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Combine all dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar until very light and fluffy in another bowl.

Add the egg and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar.

Now beat in the canned pumpkin.

Finally, fold in the reserved flour mixture a few spoons at a time, and stop stirring when the batter is just combined. This is going to be really thick.

Line a 9×9 baking pan with parchment paper and spread half the batter around evenly.

Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and pour the caramel sauce over the partially baked batter.

Carefully spoon the remaining batter over the caramel.

Spread to cover, as best you can. A gentle touch is key.

Return the blondies to the oven and bake for another 30 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean. Let the blondies cool before cutting.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle on more salted caramel sauce before serving.

Enjoy!

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Salted Caramel Macchiato Muffins #MuffinMonday

These Salted Caramel Macchiato Muffins are your favorite Starbucks caramel macchiato in muffin form, dripping with salted caramel. Perfect for that on-the-go breakfast or mid-morning snack.

Every morning of every day, the first thing that passes my lips is a hot cup of coffee, with two teaspoons of creamer and one teaspoon of sugar. When I have time to linger over it, I love nothing more than to hold that cup lovingly near my nose and inhale its delicious aroma. 

Is there anything more delightful than to wake up to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen or even over a camp stove, while you stretch languidly in bed? I think not. (Unless it is the smell of bacon frying in the same situation. But that is a whole other post.)

I give you a coffee haiku.

Precious elixir

My good reason for rising

Coffee, always. Yes!

This week’s Muffin Monday original recipe was for a cappuccino muffin with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Which could already have been perfect. But we all know that I can’t leave well enough alone. 

What would take this muffin to the next level of perfection? The addition of salted caramel sauce, of course. Best of all, you can’t spill this and burn yourself as you travel to work on a busy train or bus or car.  Think of it as your morning coffee made more user friendly. And more delicious. You are welcome. (And don’t even get me started about how great these smell while they are baking! I feel another haiku coming on.)

Salted Caramel Macchiato Muffins

For the caramel sauce, use store bought or make your own from this recipe at Baked Bree, which is what I did. Make the whole batch.  You won’t regret it.  This stuff is great on everything, if you can stop yourself from eating it straight out of the jar with a spoon.)

Ingredients

2 cups or 250g flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup or 170g vanilla sugar (or sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

1 cup or 240ml milk

2 tablespoons instant coffee granules

1/2 cup or 115g butter, melted and cooled

1 egg

3 1/2 oz or 100g semi sweet chocolate chips

1/8-1/4 cup or 30-60ml salted caramel sauce 

Method

Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C.  Lightly grease 12 muffin cups or line with muffin papers.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all of your flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  

Mix your milk, egg, and coffee granules together.  Stir until coffee is dissolved.  (Don't forget the teaspoon of vanilla extract if you don't have vanilla sugar.)

Add in the melted butter.  Mix well.

Pour coffee mixture into your dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Fold in the chocolate chips being careful not to over mix.

Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

Spoon on about half a teaspoon of the caramel sauce for each muffin and swirl with a pointy knife or a toothpick.

Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.  Let cool five minutes in the muffin pan then place on cooling rack.

 When completely cool, drizzle with extra caramel sauce. 

Enjoy!

Need some more muffin recipes?  Of course you do!

• Banana Bacon Peanut Butter Chip Muffins 
• Cardamom Cinnamon Apricot Muffins
• Double Nutella Swirl Muffins
• Honey Date Pine Nut Muffins 
• Quick Bread Breakfast Muffins
• Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Strawberry Shortcake Muffins