When Cooking and Computing Meet......

I felt like I was living under a rock when I first heard about Biscoff.  All of a  sudden bloggers were posting about Biscoff cookies and cupcakes and cakes and..... well...... you name it. And I had NO CLUE what they were talking about.  So of course I had to find it online and order it.  That is the normal response, right?  So Amazon came to my rescue and it a few days I was able to sample this new (to me) taste treat. And those are the perfect words - taste treat.  I tried the cookies first and they were good - naturally good with brown sugar and cinnamon baked into them.  Crispy and yummy.
But then I moved on to the spread and if I had not had a lot of self restraint I could have eaten spoonful after spoonful of the contents of the jar. Good thing I ordered two jars.  For the next few days I made toast for breakfast just so I had a reasonable excuse to pull out that delectable jar and savor it first thing in the morning!!  Pretty pathetic but very satisfying!!!

So next on my list was to actually experience  baking with it .  Trying the Biscoff Banana Bread with Biscoff Cookie Streusel from Two Peas and Their Pod seemed like the perfect candidate for me as it used the spread AND the cookies.  So if one form of Biscoff was good, two HAD to be even better!

The recipe was pretty straightforward and the ingredients were similar to basic banana bread, with the addition of the Biscoff!

Now if you cannot find it locally or do not want to order online, run don't walk to your nearest Trader Joe's and grab their Speculoos Cookie Butter (and it comes in crunchy now)-- it's a great substitution and more economical too.  Here is what you are looking for (and I forgot the brown sugar in the photo above so it was a good excuse for a second photo!)

One  thing I learned (and really should have known) is that when you do a streusel topping that is SO thick on top , you really should press it down into the batter so it stays in place when you turn the bread out of the pan.  I think next time I might try to put half of it in the center of the bread and the rest in top so more bites will be full of that cookie mixture - it was yummy!  But I wasn't too upset when I just HAD to clean up the crumbly topping that fell off,  and of course I sampled it... just a little!!  I knew instantly that this would be  a recipe I would try again.

Just look at that scrumptious topping - Biscoff cookies, brown sugar, butter and flour!

Fresh out of the oven - minus a bit of streusel on top!

Can you see how moist and wonderful it is??  Trust me!

And while I am talking about recipes, I would love to share my new kitchen companion with you.  I have been looking at tablets for a long time. I have the Kindle Fire which I really love and it's great to grab to read books, peruse cookbooks, or even answer email - but I couldn't actually "work" on it - at least not easily. With all of the blog recipes I am saving, I am creating quite a collection!

So to make life so much easier, I am welcoming the Sony Vaio Duo tablet into my life!

Oh how I love this toy!!  Yes I am a techie junkie too!   One of the best things is that I save all of my favorite blog recipes to Microsoft One Note.  And because my computer and tablet are all synced through Office 365, I can instantly pull up the recipe on my tablet and bake or cook to my heart's content!!  I love the ease of use and the convertibility and that I can do all that I need to do on it.  It's a perfect fit for me!

That's it for now! Pin It Now!