Nutella Banana Cream Pie and My Secret Shame

My husband’s schedule changed this week and it seems to work out that I can bake ALL Sunday afternoon!  Not that I can’t when he is home but he is usually sleeping during the day and our room is right above the kitchen and our room can get unbearably hot if I have the oven on all day.  So even during the summer when it gets unbearably hot in the entire house, I can send the kids outside and bake till I am blue in the face.  That is what happened this past Sunday, however, all I had the ENTIRE afternoon were baking fails.  I couldn’t get this one recipe I was adapting to work and I made it twice and then something else failed later on.  Ugh, first Sunday baking day wasted.  However, an epiphany struck just before I fell asleep but after the husband came home.  I actually got to spend a bit of time with him before bed without little voices yelling at us or each other.

I hate folding, laundry or otherwise. I don't have the patience. In this case, though, totally worth it.

Anyways, I had written my epiphany down and got straight to it on Monday morning.  It was actually pretty simple.  I only had to bake the pie crust (and if you want to buy a ready made crust instead, I won’t tell) plus I was looking for a graham cracker one that wouldn’t just break apart once I cut it and now I’ve got one.  I just adapted a peanut butter cream pie recipe using Nutella and added a very special ingredient…my FAVORITE thing to go with Nutella (as evidenced by my Nutella Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Banana Bread) …bananas!  Then I topped it with more Nutella, whipped cream, hazelnuts and more bananas.  Other than layering the Nutella cream and bananas a second time or maybe adding some hazelnuts inside, (I REALLY liked the hazelnuts on top, it really made that flavor pop.  I wasn’t sure about adding them.) I wouldn’t change a thing.

Before pouring on the filling...

So on to my Secret Shame which will lead to my GeekyLinks.  It is not your sterotypically “geeky” thing but something that I really Geek Out about!  Something that some of my family knows about me (O my poor kids!) but I have only shared with a few outsiders.  I LOVE and by love I mean LOVE!!! Disco music.  There I said it.  I felt it was safe to admit it now partially after the Saturday Night Fever episode of Glee but as one who really enjoys disco, I would have to say that I was SOOOO BUMMED that the episode only focused on music from that movie.  There is so much more!  My favorite compilation is The Last Days Of Disco: Music From The Motion Picture which is what I was listening to while in labor with my first child almost 9 years ago.  My nurse said to me, “Aren’t you a little young to be listening to that?”  after asking what I was listening to.  I was 25 at the time.

Pie in your face.

So are the younger generations not allowed to listen to the classics anymore?  Yes, classics.  Dance music nowadays is OK (not that I go dancing much) but if I am home and baking (my Disco Pandora station is what I was listening/dancing to while making this pie) or want to have an impromptu dance party with the kiddos…Disco it is (or really most music from the 70s).  Give me Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King, The Jacksons, KC and the Sunshine Band, Sly & The Family Stone, or Chic any day!  It just makes you feel good!  I will now and again listen to music from the late 80s and early 90s but the music I want my kids to know and dig (yes, I used the word dig) is music from my mother’s Motown era, that she sacredly passed on to me, or music from the 70s that I discovered a love for all on my own.  Ok, my mom did have siblings younger than her that may have exposed me to it and maybe one was obsessed with Abba, however, my uncle that is only 10 years older than me certainly exposed me to metal but I am NOT fan of that.  

So pick up an album or buy some songs, get your groove on, and make some pie!

I am also entering this pie into this month’s AlphaBakes Challenge, hosted by Caroline Makes….. and The More Than Occasional Baker.  The letter for April was “b”.  Check out the recipe roundup for April on The More Than Occasional Baker‘s site on May 1st!  And thank you to her for letting me get it in just under the wire!

Nutella Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Banana Bread for World Nutella Day

I am here today to celebrate with you, no not the Superbowl, something much, much better.  It is February 5 and that means it is World Nutella Day!

Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso have hosted this event since 2007 to celebrate the chocolate hazelnutty goodness that is Nutella.  And O, it is SO GOOD.  I am relatively new to the pleasures of it.  I have probably only been eating it for about two years.  Last year, I followed World Nutella Day on Facebook and I was overwhelmed when World Nutella Day came along and I saw the myriad of things that you could make with it.  I was super bummed that I didn’t have anything to share or even if I did, that I couldn’t because I didn’t have a format to share it.  Also, this is the first time I have ever written a blog for an event like this.  I missed out on the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap because I was a great big chicken.  I had only about two months of blogging under my belt and I was way intimidated.  I wasn’t going to let that happen again.  I knew this was coming up and I wasn’t going to miss it.

To be honest, this is actually my first time baking with it.  I am not sure if it is because I do just love the simple joy of Nutella spread on some wheat toast (sometimes with sliced bananas) and I kind of feel like baking with it might spoil that for me or because if I decide to bake with it that I will end up having to buy the double jumbo size jars at Costco and then end up not baking with it but just eating it!  Either way, I think I am just going to have to do it more.  I think next time I want to whip it into a frosting for something.  There really is SOOO much you could do and it all sounds fabulous so like them on Facebook or check out World Nutella Day in the next few days to get all the recipes and really, just get your Nutella on!

This is right before I realized that I forgot the eggs. Thank goodness I realized!

I decided to start simple and adapted a Peanut Butter Banana Bread from Joy the Baker (who else?).  I replaced the peanut butter for Nutella, added a little cocoa powder, added a bit of vanilla,  almost left out the eggs and then almost added too many, then of course, topped it off by adding chopped hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips.  Awesome!

The GeekyLinks for today are just a couple of nerdy posters.  I decided to keep it simple today.  First, some Batman and the history of the Batsuit (click on it to make it bigger) and then some Star Wars Movie Posters For Other Movies which speaks to the movie nerd in me.