Things to Do During Ramadan # 8: Make Date Banana Bread

On my quest to use dates in as many things as I can, I made date banana bread yesterday. My family loves banana bread so I decided to try to make it with dates for the first time. It was delicious, alhamdulillah.

My base recipe came from Banana Date Nut Bread from the Deenbros.com site.

I basically followed the directions except:

Sugar: The recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. My oldest daughter said it sounded like you'd get diabetes from that so I only used 1/2 cup of sugar. You could probably use even less than that as dates and bananas can be very sweet on their own and I did see recipes calling for no sugar.

Butter: The recipe calls for butter but in quick breads, I generally use vegetable oil, which is what I used. 

Dates: The recipe calls for chopped dried dates, but I used our moist medjool dates. I put them in a bowl of water and microwaved for about 2.5 minutes, then I let them stand in the water til they were even mushier.  After that, I put the dates and water in the blender. Now, the next time through, inshaa Allah, I won't add in all the water that I had in the bowl as it made the date-water mixture very soupy. But I still poured it in the banana bread mix and it came out moist and delicious!

Now with my Date Banana Smoothie, I am 2-0 on date recipes this Ramadan!

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Things to Do During Ramadan #6 - Make Crescent Shaped Cookies!

Yesterday as we prepared for Ramadan, the kids and I made crescent moon and star shaped cookies. It was a fun activity. I always mean to do it every Ramadan but it's been years since we have gotten around to making them again.  The kids had fun!

We used a soft cutout sugar cookie recipe from one of my favorite recipe sites, Sally's Baking Addiction. I imagined that they were going to be difficult to make, but they were pretty easy.

The ingredients were pretty basic things I generally have on hand:

• 3/4 cup  unsalted butter, slightly softened to room temperature
• 3/4 cup  granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (I didn't have this, but they were still very tasty!)
• 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

You can get the recipe from the link above. One of the things that she stressed was to make sure that you chill the dough, and she recommended rolling it out first before chilling.

I had originally intended to ice them with colored frosting but I couldn't find the colors that I wanted, so we colored the cookie dough!

We ended up making stars as well (because I had a star cookie cutter). For the crescent moons, I used a plastic biscuit cutter.

We made the crescents by using the round cutter and overlapping circles (my daughter's idea)

Then it was time to ice them. I rarely frost cookies so I happened along another site that suggested making an outline shape with the icing first, filling in some of the inside and spreading with a knife.

Our finished products!

It was mostly my teenage daughters, seven year old daughter and I making the cookies, but my 11 year old son joined in to help ice a few as well.

I hope, in shaa Allah to do more baking this Ramadan as the kids really enjoyed it.

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Half Moon Cookies

Source: In Our Kitchen

HALF MOON COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper

Makes approximately 30 cookies

Cookie Ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
2 cups cake flour
3 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder � the better the powder the better the cookie
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk

Cookie Preparation

1. Cream the sugar, brown sugar, and shortening.
2. Add egg and mix until combined.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder until cocoa is distributed throughout.
4. Add this to the wet ingredients and alternate with milk a little at a time and mix until thoroughly combined. This mixture will resemble a thick cake batter.
5. Scoop and drop onto lined cookie sheet. If you shake each cookie slightly is will allow the batter to settle down.
6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes and remove from oven. Before placing on a wire rack to cool let the cookies sit on the pan for a minute or two.

FROSTING INGREDIENTS

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 cups confectioners� sugar
3 tablespoons hot milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, melted (reserve this for the chocolate frosting)

FROSTING PREPARATION

1. Combine all ingredients except the cocoa.
2. Beat until smooth.
3. Divide this mixture in half.
4. Add melted chocolate to half of the frosting and stir well.
5. Keeping  the frosting slightly warmer than room temperature allows for easier spreading.

• Half Moon Cookie Recipe 2 (Saveur.com)

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Moon Ball Cookies (No bake cookies)

Source: Space Place NASA.gov

(No baking)

Measure the following ingredients into a big, big bowl:

1/2 cup wheat germ
1-1/2 cups peanut butter
1-1/2 cups honey
3 cups dried milk
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

Mix everything together first with a wooden spoon. Now use your hands to shape the dough into small round balls or moons. Or you can shape crescent moons too.

Roll each moon in powdered sugar. They are ready to eat!

If there are any left over, keep them in a covered bowl in the refrigerator.

Makes about 5 dozen moons.

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Crescent Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
•  1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•  1/4 cup ground blanched almonds (or use pecans)
•  1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
•  Confectioners' sugar

How to Prepare:

1.Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla, mixing well. Add almonds and flour, thoroughly incorporating.

2.Using walnut-size pieces of dough, shape into a crescent and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 20 minutes or until slightly brown on the edges.

3.While still hot, roll in confectioners' sugar. Re-roll in confectioners sugar when cool and store tightly covered

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