Category: cookies

Hummingbird Cake from Tates Bake Shop Cookbook and a Giveaway

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I love success stories such as Kathleen King’s from Tate’s Bake Shop in South Hampton. Her fans are legion from Gwyneth, Rachel Ray and Ina Garten, who wrote the forward for the Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook.  From tasting the cookies,reading about her and Tate’s, I see Kathleen King is a perfectionist. Her baked goods are Americana, simply. For all the macarons, financiers, and elaborate tortes, there is a simple perfection in American Pastry that cant be rivaled. Tate’s cookies are crisp and buttery , and taste like something I would bake myself. And that’s what won me over.

Thumbing through Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook with a foreword from Ina Garten, I knew I had to make the Hummingbird Cake. I have heard of this cake only recently and was intrigued. A Southern favorite similar to carrot cake , but composed of bananas, pineapple,pecans, and in this particular recipe coconut. It’s a simple,wholesome cake that any banana fan,will love. I took extra liberty and added some rum  to the cream cheese frosting , as these ingredients screamed for it in my opinion.

According to Kathleen…

“All the recipes in this book should take less time to make than it would to go to a store to buy a commercially prepared baked good…”

The Giveaway

I am offering a giveaway for one lucky reader in the United States.Please leave a comment to be eligible.I will chose one winner from a random drawing by Saturday December 4, 2010.

You will have an extra chance of winning if you become a fan of Tate’s on Facebook. Please let me know on your comment here if you did join their Fan Page .

You will receive a gift box of Tate’s Cookies and The Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook.

All of my readers can use this discount  code  “cookie” until December 31 for 15% off any tatesbakeshop.com purchase.

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Tate’s Bake Shop Hummingbird Cake

adapted from Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook by Kathleen King

  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
  • 1 3/4 cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 cups of very ripe mashed bananas
  • 1 8z can crushed pineapple drained
  • 1 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut (Angel Flake can be used if other item is unavailable)
  • 3/4 cup chopped pecans
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla

* I decorated my cake with ground pecans

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Grease two 9×2 inch cake pans. Line bottoms with parchment.
  3. In a large bowl mix together flour, baking soda, cinnamon , and salt.
  4. In another large mixing bowl , beat together oil and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.
  5. Scrape down the sides.
  6. Add the mashed bananas, pineapple, coconut, and pecans, and vanilla.
  7. Mix well.
  8. Add the flour mixture, and scrape down sides to ensure all is mixed well.
  9. Divide the mixture evenly between both cake pans. Fill until almost full, as this cake batter does not rise too much.
  10. Bake cake for 40-45 minuted or until a cake tester or toothpick stuck int eh center comes out clean.
  11. Cool cake in pans for 10 minutes.
  12. Turn them out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.
  13. Ice with cream cheese frosting or whipped cream.

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Daring Bakers Make Gingerbread Houses… Home For The Holidays

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.


For someone who’s into cake decorating , I can say Ive never made a Gingerbread house. It was always on my list. I’m amazed I even got it done with the craziness of December, I can think of no challenge more apropos than this.Linda of Make Life Sweeter, who I meet in Vienna last week insisted I do it as we dined over Wiener Schnitzel in the Nachtsmarket.

Certain Someone is finally home and the holidays will be as they should, warm and comfy in the confines of our home. I don’t want much for Christmas , really….

I remember last Christmas in Germany and hearing the news the late great Eartha Kitt had died. They don’t make stars like that anymore.
Back to the Gingerbread. I had the same issues as everyone else with a very dry dough. I used Ana’s Good Housekeeping recipe and added more cream. After chilling overnight, the moisture expanded and the dough became manageable. Still a dry one compared to to other recipes, but it worked. I m glad I used cheap Flour for this as 9 1/2 cups of flour were used. I still have plenty to make another house if I wish! Here is the template I used.
I had wanted to shingle the roof with some sliced black licorice fudge I had from Denmark. Unfortunately when I was satisfied and turned my back to wash my hands, the roof caved in. I had to scrape the roof and rebuild. Thankfully I had enough powdered sugar to make more royal icing to salvage a messy situation.
My decorations are just piped and painted royal icing (food color gels), pecan pralines I made, some coconut flakes for snow, and edible glitter. I broke some cinnamon sticks to make a wood pile. Certain Someone was impressed and we are bringing this to his bosses house for Christmas later. Although next year he challenged me to make a house like the White House’s Gingerbread House.

Please Check out my fellow bakers. You can find the hostesses recipes and instructions on their sites which I have linked at the beginning.

Certain Someone and I wish you Happy Holidays, Peace, Health and Prosperity.

We Bake Bon Appetit… Day 10 White Chocolate Cranberry and Pecan Cookies


Forgive me. I got sidetracked in my cookie baking. But with the Uncles death, flying to Vienna for three days for the funeral, coming home, other obligations, and the main man Certain Someone returning, it takes a while to get back on the saddle. And that was just in one week! Hard to believe Christmas is here . I posted two savory dishes when I returned just to get acclimated to my kitchen again. Thankfully my baking group is a no pressure group and we all remember this is fir fun, not an obligation.I cranked out these simple , non glamorous cookies for a friends holiday party last Sauturday. Nothing fancy here, but just good wholesome deliciousness. They went over well that evening. The original recipe was for White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies by Tyler Florence. But with almost bare baking cupboards and a more empty wallet due to the unexpected travel, etc, buying expensive Macadamias was not a priority for me . I had tons of pecans from Mississippi just dying to be used, and these made a suitable substitute for a high fat nut. I have seen others using pecans here as well. I also used fresh cranberries rather than dried, as I did in an earlier cookie recipe because I liked the tang it gave. This is an easy recipe to pull together and requires not a a lot of time. You can find the recipe here.
Just two more days to go hopefully by Christmas.!

Be sure to visit the other bakers:

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project


Also this may be of interest to some of you if you like contests.
Enter to win a 12 Place Table Setting For the Holidays!


We Bake Bon Appetit…Day 9 Tea Cake Sandwich Cookies

This was one of the first cookies that caught my eye for We Bake Bon Appetite.The Tea Cake Sandwich Cookie looked so simple and perfect. I kept putting this recipe off as I was trying to knock out the easy, no chill cookies first. This recipe contains no eggs and at first seems dry, but comes together nicely as you blend.The process and chilling times in this recipe can be a little tedious, and I readily admit I skipped over some steps in the rolling out. If you are an experienced baker you know the key is to keep the dough well chilled.

I used a scalloped cutter for these. I am trying to avoid royal icing this year and just stick to sugar sprinkles. I embellished my cookies with various sugars I had laying around. I even made my own sanding sugar with some powdered food color and raw sugar. I plan to play around with that more and more. I found some red glittery edible dust and made a few dabs here and there. All in all a festive platter of cookies. The fillings are Goya’s Strawberry and Passion Fruit jams. The beauty of these is that you can dress them up or down.
You can find the recipe here.

Be sure to visit the other bakers:

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project


Also this may be of interest to some of you if you like contests.
Enter to win a 12 Place Table Setting For the Holidays!

We Bake Bon Appetit … Day 8 Holiday Biscotti With Cranberries and Pistachios

Forgive me. I OD’d on cookies this week coupled with work and family related issues. One of my favorite uncles is not doing well and its just a matter of time. He lives in Vienna Austria, so the distance is stressful on my family here. Thankfully I have another uncle ( paternal) checking in on him and we are getting daily updates from friends. It seems death and illness is rampant with most of my acquaintances lately. So many sad stories lately.So you can imagine cookies were the last thing on my mind these past few days. But baking is always great therapy and a way to unwind.
I chose what looked like an easy recipe to pull together.The appeal of Holiday Biscotti With Cranberries and Pistachios was no chilling time! My dried cranberries didnt look all bright and red like Bon Appetites photograph, but I loved the flavors of anise, lemon, and pistachios mingling with the tart cranberries. I used Anise extract and I didn’t have whole anise seed. I wonder why I don’t use that flavoring more often in my baked goods. My only problem was baking two sheets at a time and the bottom sheet burning a bit when I toasted the sliced biscotti. That was easily remedied by scraping the burnt bits away like toast. I used an off set spatula to aid in the dipping of chocolate as my pot wasn’t deep enough. The offset spatula made the chocolate easy to handle.
You can find the recipe here.

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Be sure to visit the other bakers:

Also this may be of interest to some of you if you like contests.
Enter to win a 12 Place Table Setting For the Holidays!