Banana Layer Cake by Vince (slight adapted from here) with slightly sweetened marscapone whipped cream and fresh bananas My dad always buys more bananas than we eat so we always end up having more super ripe bananas than to do with. Solution? Make cake. I made slightly more than the recipe with a few mods here and there. I baked one sheet and just cut in half to make layer cake. The cake is really edible by itself but I just wanted layered cake. :) Ingredients for cake: 3/4 of of all purpose flour 1/8 cup of ground up almonds (almond meal will do) 1 & 1/2 TSP of baking powder 1/2 TSP of salt 1/4 TSP of baking soda 2 ripe bananas 2/3 cup of sugar 3 TB of brown sugar 4 TB of butter (room temp/softened) 1 egg 4 TB of buttermilk 1 dash of vanilla extract bit of cinnamon bit of nutmeg Ingredients for filling: 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream 1-3 TB of powdered sugar (depending on who sweet you want it) 1/4 cup of marscapone cheese 1 sliced banana Directions for cake: Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter your selected baking wear. Mash up your bananas with a fork. Whisk it after you mash to get it relatively smooth. Transfer to stand mixer with whisk attachment. Combine your dry ingredients in a large bowl to get ready. Add sugar and eggs to your mixer, mix.  Add softened butter to mixer, mix until creamy.  Add buttermilk mixer, mix until combined. Change your attachment to the mixing paddle, and on low, add your dry mixer to the mixer bowl. Combine well. Pour into baking wear. Bake for 35-40 mins or until a tooth pick comes out clean from the center. Directions for layer filling: Whip your heavy cream in a stand mixer with your sugar until stiff peaks Change out the whisk attachment for the paddle. Make sure your marscapone is more smooth by swirling it around in another bowl (or in its own container as I did) before adding in.  Starting very slowly, mix to high to combine the whipped cream and the marcapone.  Taste test for sweetness and add more sugar if you please. Remix. Don’t do it so much because the whipped cream will lose its fluffiness.  Once your cake is completely cooled, slice it half so you have two big sides. Level off the tops and apply a good heaping layer of the cream.  Slice bananas and layer over it Spread another layer of cream and top with your other side. Cream on top and you’re ready to serve. (I didn’t because I’m storing mine for tomorrow)

Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting #24 I made these with my brother for our cousin’s wedding shower this weekend. She loves coffe, chocolate, and Baileys. A perfect combination for a cupcake! Recipe can be found here. 

Basic French Toast for 2 by Vince I love French toast and so does Dennis, and I regularly make it for one since we’re currently long distance, but today my cousin is over so I decided to make this little treat for breakfast. A little indulgence in the AM. You can use this for any bread! Ingredients: 4 slices of thick cut bread (I used raisin apple bread from Andersen Bakery) 4 eggs 1/4 cup of milk 1 teaspoon of cinnamon 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (I used this. It’s worth the cost.) 1 teaspoon of sugar the smallest pinch of salt ever butter for the pan powdered sugar to dust warmed maple syrup Directions: Crack 4 eggs into a shallowish bowl (you don’t want to the bowl to be too wide or else your bread won’t soak up the egg properly) and add the rest of the ingredients. Whisk well to combine. Make sure you whisk to break up the egg whites. You’re not making scrambled eggs. You want a pretty flowly liquid. Taking each slice of bread, place it in the bowl with the egg mixture on each side for about 10 seconds until the bread is soaked. Do each of these one at a time so you get maximized soakage. Transfer each egged bread onto a smaller dish. The last slice of bread should soak up the last of the egg mixture.  Heat a medium sized pan (enough for two slices at a time) with medium-low heat and add in a little butter to coat pan. Once the pan is heated thoroughly, place two slices in there and wait until the bottom is browned. Be patient. Do not use higher heat to achieve the browning as the outside will burn before the egg inside the bread is cooked.  Flip when one side is browned and golden to do the same to the other side.  Repeat with the remaining to slices Plate and dust with just the tiniest bit of powdered sugar. Serve with warm maple syrup and enjoy!

Easy Spaghetti alla Carbonara by Vince Basic recipe for a quick and easy dinner. I’ve been doing this differently each time (to accomodate who I’m feeding. My dad wanted a more “saucy” pasta so this version reflects such a request.) Feel free to add any precooked proteins (mostly going to be chicken for us) to this for a really full meal. Tonight, we ate this with some chicken marsala and mushrooms made by my brother. Ingredients: how ever much spaghetti you want to eat (sorry no help here really) olive oil to coat the pan 3 chopped cloves of garlic 5 slices of thick-cut bacon sliced into half inch sections red pepper flakes  half a white onion chopped parsley  3 eggs a splash of milk salt and pepper to taste grated parmesan cheese to taste  Directions: Boil a big pot of water with a heaping palm of salt and splash of olive oil Add your spaghetti and cook until al dente (read your box or bag of pasta for that time) When the pasta is boiling, coat a large pan on medium heat with olive oil and add your bacon to render all the bacon fat. Add your onions to get them start cooking. Once they’ve turned relatively clear, add your garlic and red pepper flakes to taste and lower the heat as not to burn your garlic! Keep on low heat.  Beat three eggs, add salt and pepper to taste, and add a splash of milk to make it more liquidy. Add your parm to taste and set aside. Quickly chop up some parsley and set aside. Once the pasta is done, reserve maybe four or five ladle fulls of the cooking water and essentially temper and cook some of the egg mixture by whisking in some of the hot water. (This was the “saucy” part that I changed to fit today’s dinner. Normally, I just beat three eggs, salt, pepper, and a little milk, and some parm.) Add your still steaming pasta into the pan with the bacon, onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Mix well, and take the pan off the heat. Add your egg mixture and mix well, making sure the egg mixture coats the spaghetti evenly. The egg will continue to cook around the hot pasta and and in the pan. MIx in your parsley and empty the pan out into a dish. Garnish and enjoy!

Generally in summer, it’s just such a hot time and it’s not a time you really want to be eating soups or just anything warm for that matter. You just want something refreshing that not only tastes good but also is great for you. There are so many ingredients that give such fresh flavors that never need heating at all. I know sometimes the go to cold recipe would be a gazpacho but it’s good to sometimes make things different and one of my favorite ingredients would have to be mango. Mango can be super refreshing and is a great fruit because of the sweet taste with a small sour kick to it. Mango can be commonly found in desserts such as cheesecakes or parfaits due to its creamy texture without being overly sweet. But how about trying to make salads with mango instead? As opposed to resorting to apples always for salads in order to bring out a crunch and sweet taste, mango serves as a great alternative. Something I might recommend is mixing mango with salsa and eating a fish taco with that salsa. It’s super easy! All you have to do is dice up some mangos and just mix with some store bought salsa and mix thoroughly. I would say make sure to add a bit more mango than you do salsa so you can have a thick salsa that brings out the sweetness. I would say it’s a great way to beat the heat. Clicking the picture above will lead to a great recipe to a gluten free mango pasta salad. The salad can easily be made with regular pasta but it gives a great option to those who are allergic to gluten.

Eggy Custard Cake Half recipe, adapted. I really like straight up egg custard tart so I thought I should make something in cake form.  Ingredients: 1 cup self rising flour 1 packet of Jello Flan custard powder (not the caramel packet) 1 cup of granulated sugar 1 stick of unsalted butter 2 eggs + 2 egg yolks 1/2 cup of milk (any will work) Directions: Mix everything up in a big bow (dry then liquid) with an electric mixer. Pour into a buttered a 9-inch round and bake at 325 F for about 45 minutes or until the middle comes out clean with a toothpick. Cool on a rack and slice up when you’re ready to eat. The top wil be extremely custardy and almost wet moist. The cake is wonderful just room temperature, but I enjoy it warmed up in the microwave topped with some ice cream, whipped cream, and/or fruit. It’s really a eggy basic cake for any flavors and temperature. Note: This was already posted from my personal blog, but it belongs here. :)

Introductions

So we decided to make a cooking blog for the upcoming year! Hopefully this will become a success or at least moderately popular in that we can get our favorite recipes out there. Some recipes we will just try online and who knows, maybe we will be innovative and think of things on our own. Let’s just hope Boyfriends Who Bake (and cook) will start off with a bang, right? I suppose it’s time for an introduction, but we are Dennis and Vince. We’re both students who currently go to NYU for Undergraduate. We’ve been dating for almost 10 months and we just can’t get enough about food. Although clothes are always great to shop for (and we do share a magnificent mutual closet), we’re just weird in that we like to look at stand mixers or retro refrigerators as things to buy in the future.

I’m Dennis and I’m 20. I’m going to be a Junior and I’m a Psychology major geared towards Pre-Medicine with a Business Minor. I’ve always loved cooking and food. Ever since I was a little kid, while I would watch Saturday cartoons, I’d always be watching food network and travel channel to see all these different recipes and different types of food. I always thought it was so amazing how some of these cooks could think of things on their own and that’s what I started to do. I just started to experiment and started to see what flavors I thought would taste well. I will probably be cooking more than baking since baking is definitely the boyfriend’s expertise.

Hi. I’m Vince, and I’m an incoming sophomore studying Economics and East Asian Studies double major with a Business Studies and Media, Culture, & Communication double minor. I’m a big fan of food, and I love trying new things. I don’t watch much television, but when I do, it’s almost always Food Network or Cooking Channel watching chefs and personalities do what they love best and drooling half the time over the amazing and delicious food they make. What can I say? I love food, and to make matters worse (or better), I have a massive sweet tooth (unlike Dennis). I love all sorts of desserts, and I could eat them all day. Make me s’mores anything, dark chocolate mousse cake or caramel bread pudding and I’m yours. 

Welcome to our food-filled life. Enjoy.

Click on the pictures for the recipe!

College couple trying to record our adventures in baking and food (we also cook) in a small New York City apartment.

Dennis:
If you put apples, cinnamon and caramel on any dish, you can pretty much guarantee my face will already be in it.

Vince:
I love eggy custardy goodness, peaches, and berries. Bread pudding forever.