Emerson started daycare last week, which has likely been more devastating for me and her Babah than for the little lady herself. Wanting something extra-yummy to put in her lunch box — yes, she is 19 months old and I now need to pack a lunch box — I baked up a version of the amaranth date-nut banana bread I wrote about in December.

A teeny grain, amaranth offers the most protein you can get in a non-animal product, plus offers a nice crunch. But the recipe above also makes a rather dense loaf. To lighten it, and insure it didn’t travel back home with her, I added an extra egg, which rather amazingly did the trick. I made muffins and mini muffins and both were spongy and moist. Because I though it would complement the hot-weather dates and bananas, I also added about 2 tablespoons of shredded, unsweetened organic coconut, which was all that was left in the bag I had.

I also had a block a cream cheese in the fridge, which I didn’t want to spoil but generally have little use for, so I thought I’d make some cream cheese icing. I’d never made it before and had no idea 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar would be called for. Normally this is where I’d reach for the agave or honey, but I was out of both. After a moment of lip chewing, my eye landed on a way-overripe banana in the fruit bowl — the perfect sweetness and flavor to boot. 

The icing wound up being roughly half a package of creamcheese, about 2TB of butter, half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, about 1/2 cup of confection’s sugar and half a black-on-the-outside-by-fine-though-mushy-on-the-inside banana. Blended with a handmixer, it came out the perfect consistency.

Emerson ravaged nearly two plain, large muffins after her morning nap. Later, when I gave her an iced mini muffin, she licked off every molecule of icing, put down the muffin and looked for her next victim. Point taken. Don’t mess with a good thing.