Banana syrup(!?) and Tiramisu

I was at the store recently & happened upon this:

Banana syrup??  I was skeptical at first, but I read the ingredients list: white grape juice concentrate, banana puree, and xanthan gum (thickener).  I love bananas & thought this stuff would be excellent on pancakes (or ice cream!).  So I purchased said banana syrup, excitedly ran home, & the next morning whipped up some pancakes to try with banana syrup.  Below is the final product:

It was delicious!  I heated up the syrup & poured it over the pancakes, topping off with some walnuts.  Very tasty & a great way to add a lil' something different.

My next adventure was tiramisu for a beer-tasting party at a friend's house.  I found this recipe & decided to give it a go.  Steve had the excellent idea of replacing the coffee with his recently kegged homebrew stout - what an excellent idea!  We were going to a beer-tasting, so it was only appropriate to bring a beer-inspired dessert.  I also managed to find mascarpone & lady fingers at Safeway.  In our podunk town of Sheridan, WY, I was mighty surprised.  Especially for the mascarpone find.  A few pictures from the making (of course I forgot to take a picture of the final product, although it looked like the exact same as the website):

I think the lady fingers kind of look like fat worms in the top picture.

Close-up of second layer of ladyfingers before last topping of the mascarpone mixture (which, by the by, is de.li.cious.)

As our "kids," the pups get to help clean the beaters every so often.

Yum yum yum.

Overall, I was very happy with the recipe.  Guilty side note:  I ended up doubling the amount of the cream mixture but used the same size pan.  :)  Let's just say I didn't feel the first layer was quite enough, so I kept adding more until I had to make a whole other batch of the cream.  Also, you'll see I was using a springform pan.  Not for any particular reason other than I don't have any baking dishes.  Note to self: put baking dishes on wedding registry.

The only complaint I have stems from the lady fingers & I'm almost 99.9% positive the issue came from the quality of lady fingers.  I think they weren't great quality - they already looked wilted &; pathetic in the packaging.  Instead of blending seamlessly with the cream mixture, they kind of tasted like soggy cake & I barely dipped them in the stout/Irish cream mixture.  They definitely should not have tasted as soggy as they did after such a quick dip.  I'm fairly certain a better quality lady finger - one a bit drier & perhaps less "puffy" - would do the trick.

However, this dessert was very easy to make, and that, I like.