Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One-Hundred Forty-Two (Special Person Day: Banana, Applesauce, Orange Juice Spelt Cake)

This special recipe is for special person day.  

Last week we had special person day for the 4^th graders at Olivia’s school.

She had a hard time choosing between her dad and me, but finally came to the conclusion that we both warranted a “special person” title.   I felt privileged!  As special people, we were treated to a personalized reading session, a tour of the classroom, and being served treats by our daughter.  I was moved that the feature in Olivia’s Newspaper was about Spelt Right Baking Company.  Despite her protestations about the time I spend on the company, there seems to be a special place in her heart for this  family endeavor. 

 All in all it was a pretty special day.

Here is the cake we made for special person’s day. 

Banana, applesauce, orange juice spelt cake.  So moist!

1/2 cup soft butter

1 cup brown sugar (we use organic)

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups whole grain VITA SPELT flour
1 teaspoon aluminum free baking soda

1/4 cup orange juice

1-2 ripe bananas

1/2-3/4 cup applesauce (we used this because we ran out of bananas and it turned out to be a fantastic modification to the recipe)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs.  Add dry ingredients, and then mix in mashed bananas, applesauce and orange juice.   Mix well.  Bake in 9 x 12 well butter glass pan, or in loaf pan.  Bake for 30-40 minutes in glass pan or 45 min-1hr in loaf pan.  Enjoy!   This is really really moist, and surprisingly light for a whole grain cake.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Forty-Two (Bananas and Pizza Dough??)

Thanks to Olivia, we have a very unique Lunch Box Chronicle for Day Forty-Two (though posted a day late). Olivia was on the computer and we were trying to persuade her to get off, which usually results in some sort of fit or another. Her response to divert our attention from her computer pursuits? "Just use a banana." "A banana?" I said, "Let me think, we need something else too, maybe date paste." Well the date paste was some sort of strange trigger. We convinced her to get off the computer, but she started hurling epithets at dates. "I hate date paste. It's the worse. It's like onions, in everything!! Everything always has dates in it! I hate dates! This isn't fair!!" "Really???" So not to be bullied by an 8 year old, I sent her outside so I could make the banana date dough wrap, only to later learn that it was really FIG PASTE, not date paste that I used. She calmed down, but a frightening scene followed. Olivia somehow convinced 84.5 year old grandma to get in her red wagon so she could pull her around and down a slight incline. All is well that ends well. We have spared you the photos.

RECIPE: Baked bananas with fig paste (not to be confused with date paste) (wrapped in Spelt Right Pizza Dough).

INGREDIENTS: Spelt Right Pizza Dough, fully thawed and risen. (We used only a few pieces for this experimental recipe and the rest for pizzas). One not too ripe banana. Fig paste (you can get it from Whole Foods or international food stores).

DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut a small piece of dough, roll out until very thin, spread fig paste on dough, place a half a banana on the dough, roll, bake either on pan or on pizza stone at 400F for about 10 minutes.

RESPONSE: Olivia wouldn't try the one with figs (because she thought it had dates), but she did try the one sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Yes, I capitulated a bit by making one of the recipes with cinnamon and sugar rather than fig (date) paste. Spencer inhaled one that was so hot that he could barely taste it, but definitely gave it a thumbs up. Emma thought it was pretty good. Grandma, up from her wagon journey, thought the wrapped baked bananas were quite good. Grandma's quote, "I never would have thought of it, but it's not bad."