And The Boy Turned Seven

I think I've done a poor job getting birthday news and pix to the blog this past year. Of course we did celebrate and take pictures for each child's special day ... I just don't always get them to press ...

anyway, yesterday was Tobi-Wan Kenobi's seventh birthday. Hard to believe it's been so long!

His day started with Strawberry-Banana bread* with white chocolate chips. Mmmm nummy!

And ended with some presents (cool Spiderman skateboard not pictured) and cake ... a robot cake!

I stumbled across the cake at Instructables.com -- I wasn't familiar with the robot, but he was cute enough and easy enough. I did take some artistic license with him, but less than I usually do.

*The Strawberry Banana Bread with White Chocolate Chips was a hit, so here's the recipe for you ...

Strawberry-Banana Bread with White Chocolate Chips

modified (of course!) from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Strawberry-Bread/Detail.aspx

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound fresh strawberries, sliced -- about 3 cups
3 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 bananas
1 cup butter, melted (hey! it was a birthday treat!)
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans (I used one 9x3 and one 8"x2" heart pan)
2. Slice strawberries, and place in medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle lightly with sugar, and set aside while preparing bread mixture.
3. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and white chocolate chips in large bowl: mix well. Blend banana, then add melted butter and eggs, then mix in strawberries. Add flour mixture into wet ingredients, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Divide batter into pans.
4. Bake for 35 to 50 minutes, or until tester inserted comes out clean. (Heart pan was done in about 38 minutes, 9x5 pan cooked 50 and fooled me, it wasn't quite done) Let cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn loaves out, and cool completely.

Mmmmmm it was very tasty

if I were to do it healthify it, I would probably reduce or even eliminate the butter and add more banana, halve the sugar (bananas sweeten it, too, it was quite sweet), and maybe use half white whole wheat flour. :) And substitute flax for the eggs.

Maybe I'll even do that on Monday.