A post with no name or reason! or Banana bread two ways with a Peony Tutorial!

I had a few bananas start to turn towards the dark side so I thought I’d try a few different recipes.  First one is banana pumpkin and the second is banana chocolate chip.  I know, not terribly off the charts exciting, so I also decided to play with gum paste flowers again!

The breads were delicious and the recipe will follow, I promise.  However, today I thought I’d show you how I made my peonies.  It’s way easier than you think!

So here we go:

You will need some gum paste coloured, peony cutter, ball and veining tool, ziploc bag, rice krispie treats, roller, forming mat and some shortening.

1. Roll the RKT’s into a 1” to 1 1/2” size ball.  I like to coat it with shortening to help the gum paste stick.

2.  Roll out some gum paste as thin as you can get it without ripping.  I like to rub shortening into my work surface to prevent the gum paste from sticking.  You can see the sheen :)

3. Cut out your petals. If you don’t have this cutter, you can also use a non-fluted 5-petal cutter.  Place the cut flower into a ziploc bag that you’ve slit down two sides so it opens like a book.  You can close it up so you can cut out more than one flower at a time.

4.  Now, I’ve tried both ways. You can either take the petals out to form/thin, or I like to keep them in the bag.  With the ball tool, push away from centre to elongate the petals.

5.  Take a small brush and brush water to outsides of petals.  This will help the gum paste stick to each other.  If you have too much water on the brush, just wipe with paper towel and your gum paste will get sticky.

6. Place RKT ball in centre of petals.  Fold two leaves over centre.

7. Use the vein tool to give the remaining three petals some texture.Wrap remaining petals around the ball and overlap the petals making sure you cover the seams.

8.  Take another 5-petal and continue to wrap all 5 petals. 

9.  You can keep adding until you get your desired size.  Make the petals tighter or looser.  It’s all about your favourite look.  Here are the orange ones with 3 layers.  They aren’t perfect but what flower is?

10.  You can also make the open look peony as well.  I just dried them in a small bowl lined with aluminum foil.  Dry them for at least 2-3 days because if they are still still soft, they will break so easy.  Always make a couple extras!

They didn’t quite dry before the cake was eaten :)  But they did turn out great!  As promised here is the bread recipe.  It was delish.  Rob took the cakes into work and said they didn’t last through lunch.

Banana Bread Recipe:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree (1/4 cup butter)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
• 1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

1. Mix pumpkin, eggs, sugar, vanilla and yogurt. 
2. Add in bananas
3. Add in dry ingredients.
4. Mix until combined.
5. Bake at 350 until toothpick comes clean.
6. Enjoy!

I iced it with some leftover vanilla bean butter cream and used this awesome technique from Melissa at MyCakeSchool.com 

Thanks for looking!