Playing catch-up - Classic Apple Crisp

A couple weeks ago, I was in the mood for apple crisp, and thought I'd try something new.  I found this recipe at King Arthur Flour.   I love anything with streusel, and this one is quite tasty.  I also like the addition of both boiled cider and regular apple cider to the filling.  We originally ate the crisp for dessert, but it also makes a great breakfast.

Can't catch me...

I'm not sure when I became so fond of the flavor of ginger.  My favorite cookies are these Double Ginger Crackles.  While I don't like the flavor of cinnamon with chocolate, ginger is okay.  I like visiting my family in the northeast, because I can get individual bottles of ginger ale (near impossible to find around here, since people drink icky Dr. Pepper instead).  My favorite chai tea is heavy on the ginger flavor.  I've been thinking about making my own crystallized ginger, but haven't found the time yet.

I wasn't sure whether I should do this post, since I had one about granola last month.  But as my friend Phyl put it, "It's gingerbread. It's granola. Of course it deserves its own post!"  I have a tendency to become slightly obsessed with a food and make it repeatedly, in different variations.  (See Jeni's ice cream. =) )  That seems to be the case with granola right now.  Eventually I'll go back and make my favorites again, but right now I'm having fun trying out different flavor combinations.

Since I've made granola a couple times now, I was comfortable with the process.  The only thing I needed to figure out was how I wanted to change it up.  Even when I first made the granola recipe, I debated whether to use the honey, since I'm not a big honey person.  My usual substitution is to use golden syrup in its place.  But I tried the recipe as written, and it was okay.  For the second batch, I used maple syrup, and I really enjoyed that batch and will definitely make it again.  My next thought was to play around with the spices.  I didn't want them competing with the maple, so I decided this would be the time to try golden syrup.  Then I had the idea to make a gingerbread version of the granola.  I added a bunch of ground ginger to the dry ingredients, increased the cinnamon a bit, and also added a bit of cloves and nutmeg.  Since most gingerbread recipes incorporate molasses, I ended up going with a tablespoon of mild molasses and 3 tablespoons of golden syrup.

Once the granola was in the oven and nearing the end of the baking time, I could tell I'd have a winner--it smelled amazing.  Once it was out of the oven, I couldn't resist sampling it while it was still warm, but also wanted to try the granola again once it cooled so I could see what the final flavor would be like.  I could taste the ginger, but was in the mood for more.  I ended up finely dicing some crystallized ginger and adding it along with the dried fruit.

The verdict?  When I tasted the granola the next morning, the ginger flavor was definitely more prominent, thanks to the chewy bits of candied ginger.  If you don't like a really strong ginger flavor, you might want to leave it out.  Overall, I'm really happy with the way the granola turned out.  I think the amount of molasses was just right (I didn't want it to be overpowering) and I like the combination of spices that I used.  I encourage you to play around and figure out what's right for your taste!  Here's my version if you'd like to try it.

Gingerbread Granola
(adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures)

4 cups (340 grams) rolled oats
1 cup (115 grams) pecans, broken into pieces
1/2 cup (100 grams) packed light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of cloves
pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1/3 cup (70 grams) canola oil
1 tablespoon (20 grams) mild molasses
3 tablespoons (60 grams) golden syrup
2 tablespoons (25 grams) vanilla sugar (or plain granulated sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
generous 1 cup (125 grams) dried cranberries
2 - 3 tablespoons finely diced crystallized ginger (optional)

Preheat oven to 300º F. Line a rimmed 13" x 18" baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the oats, pecans, brown sugar, salt and spices in a large heatproof bowl and stir to combine.  Put the oil, molasses, golden syrup, and granulated sugar in a small saucepan.  Place the pan over medium heat and bring to a simmer, then turn off the heat and mix in the vanilla extract. Pour the hot oil mixture over the oat mixture and use a rubber spatula (or dough whisk) to mix until the ingredients are well combined.

Spread the granola on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the granola is golden brown, stirring every 10 minutes. Let the granola cool then add the dried cranberries and crystallized ginger (if using) and stir to incorporate. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Makes about 8 cups.

Warm and toasty

So I said that more information would be coming on how I want to focus on my blog this year.  It took me a few days to come up with a plan that I think will work well.  My initial problem was that there are so many things I'd like to do.  I have a ton of cookbooks, and I don't use them nearly enough.  Ditto with the cooking magazines that I read regularly.  I have lots of baking pans these days, and don't use them enough either.  I have lots of great cooking tools, and interesting ingredients.  When I started to think about all the possibilities, I didn't know where to begin.  That's where the focus idea comes in.  I started to make a list of ideas, and here's what I came up with:

Cookbooks

Magazines

Friends (featuring a recipe from a friend's blog)

Kids (cooking with, or stuff they would like)

Ingredients (maybe seasonal?)

Pantry (using what I routinely have on hand)

Bread (I want to make at least one new one a month)

Pans (I have lots of interesting ones, and lots of different sizes)

Tools

I stopped there--nine is my favorite number, and nine seemed like a reasonable number to fit into a month's time.  Some recipes may fit into more than one category, but I'll post at least one for each separate category each month.  I'm not going to do them in any particular order, since I don't need that much pressure.  This idea appeals to me because it's sort of like a puzzle.  Some categories may be easy to cover in a given month.  Then I'll have to see what I can come up with to fill in the blanks.  For January, I've already done Tools (my balloon whisk) and Magazines (the fudge cake was from Fine Cooking, one of my favorites).  I've got ideas for all but Kids and Pantry, but it's fun to try to figure out what to make for those categories.  This post is going to take care of Cookbooks.

I thought I'd go with one of the new cookbooks I got for Christmas.  The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook is quite the tome, and contains all the best recipes from 20 years worth of magazine issues.  I love my website subscription to CI when I'm searching for something, but I really enjoy browsing through a physical cookbook--that way things can jump out at me that I might never think to search for.  In this case, I knew I wanted to make scones for breakfast because when I ask the girls what I should make, the answer is always "Scones! With chocolate chips, please!"  I wanted something a bit more interesting than a plain scone.  As for the chocolate chips, I'm not always in the mood the way they are, but it's pretty easy to divide the dough (usually two-thirds for them, one-third for me) and add in different things.  I settled on the Oatmeal Scones--never hurts to sneak in some fiber when the girls aren't paying attention. =)

The thing that intrigued me about this recipe is that you toast the oats before you start mixing things together.  I never would have thought to do that, but it makes sense that, like with nuts, it would add to the flavor.  There are several variations at the end of the basic oatmeal scone recipe.  I love maple scones, so I went with that option.  In place of the granulated sugar, you use maple syrup (I used grade B).  I also toasted some pecans to add to my part of the dough and I put a mix of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate chips in the rest so I wouldn't have to listen to B&G complain. =)  I think the substitution of the maple syrup made the dough stickier than usual, and I didn't think I could pat it out without having to use a lot of flour.  So I made drop scones instead.  I used my #16 disher and got an even dozen.  I baked them for 12 minutes, but could probably have left them in a minute or two longer to get a bit more browning on top.  Once the scones had cooled for a few minutes, I drizzled them with maple glaze (just some maple syrup & powdered sugar, with a bit of water to thin it out).

The verdict?  Who would have thought that toasting oats would make such a bit difference in the taste? These are my new go-to scone.  Brianna and Gillian loved them with the chocolate chips; I thought they were terrific with the pecans.  They weren't at all dry; I'm sure the maple syrup helped with that, as did the high baking temp and shorter baking time.  

If you'd like to give these a try, you can, of course, find the recipe in the new Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  It's also in Baking Illustrated, and can be found online here if you have a membership to the CI website.  

I'm excited about blogging again, so I think my focus idea is going in the right direction.  I've added a tab at the top of the blog where I can keep track of the different categories each month.  I'm also tagging the individual posts (e.g. this one is labeled with "cookbook focus" among other things) so they can be searched that way.  Next up, another new acquisition--my 6-cup Bundt pan!

Evolution

I was really excited to see this week's Tuesdays with Dorie pick!  Patricia of Life with a Whisk chose one of my favorite recipes in the book--Oatmeal Nutmeg Scones.  This recipe is a good example of why I love to bake and why I love Dorie's books.  One of the best things about her books is that she gives so much more than just recipes.  I love reading all of the stories and tips that she puts in the headnotes.  And almost every recipe includes one or more variations to "play around" with.  I love playing around. =)

The first time I made this recipe was not long after I got my copy of Baking From My Home to Yours and joined the group.  While unofficial, it appears to have been the sixth recipe I made from the book.  My first attempt is shown here, from way back in March 2008.  That was the first time, but there have been many more since.  My girls especially like it when I make them with chocolate chips.  My favorite variation has probably been the cinnamon chip ones.  Besides the chips, I also used white whole wheat flour in place of some of the all-purpose.  There have been times when I didn't have buttermilk, so I substituted yogurt.  And while the version in the book is plain, we almost always top our scones with something, either coarse sugar or most often glaze.  

The glaze came in handy when I made the scones this morning.  I decided that I was going to make them again just for this post, and was going to go back to the original recipe.  It wasn't until I was looking at some of the comments on the Leave Your Links page that I realized that I'd never tried the Playing Around idea for this recipe.  My girls love "dried plums" so that sounded like a great addition.  But I was so busy snipping up prunes with my kitchen shears and supervising Gillian as she mixed the dry ingredients that I totally forgot to add the nutmeg!  Glaze to the rescue--I grated the nutmeg into some powdered sugar, added a bit of vanilla, and added enough milk for a thick glaze.  

One more thing--besides the variations in ingredients, I found it interesting that I've changed one other thing over time as I've played with this recipe.  In the first post mentioned above, I used volume measurements for the ingredients, same as in the book.  By the second post, I'd switched to using weights, in ounces.  Here's the latest incarnation of the ingredient list...

Oatmeal Nutmeg Scones

1 large egg

115 grams cold buttermilk

225 grams all-purpose flour

135 grams rolled oats

70 grams vanilla sugar (or just regular)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (unless you forget)

140 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

dried plums (I forgot to weigh them)

Oh, and the verdict?  I really enjoyed these with the prunes.  Gillian did as well, after she got over her disappointment at the lack of chocolate chips. =)  They were well-received at work, too.  I'm sure I'll make these many more times, and who knows what other variations we'll try.

If you'd like to make these for yourself, you can find the recipe on Patricia's blog.  And to see what everyone else did with these scones, check out the Links!

Milestones

Any parent can tell you that there are all sort of milestones that you look forward to with your children.  As babies, you are excited about them learning to crawl and walk and talk and--very important, this one--sleep through the night.  As they get older, you mark different occasions, such as the first day of school and the first loose tooth.  As the mom of an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old, I've been through all of those.  But then last week, I got to make note of a new milestone that I wasn't expecting.  I don't think they have a spot in the keepsake book for your child's first x-ray. =) 

Yes, thanks to my younger daughter Gillian, I've now had the exciting experience of taking my child to the urgent care facility to have her foot x-rayed.  Thank goodness it turned out to be just a bad sprain, no broken bones.  I just really hope that this isn't going to be a trend with her.  I didn't have my first sprain until I was in college, and was even older when I got my first stitches.  Honestly, though, that's pretty surprising, since I've always been quite a klutz.  I've mostly just had lots of scrapes and bruises that I can't remember acquiring. =)  I have to say, it worries me that Gillian is starting all this at 4.  *sigh*

I did have some other, more enjoyable, new experiences over the weekend, thanks to this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  Sarah of teapots and cake stands picked Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp for us to make this week.  I was happy because this gave me a chance to use my new baking pan that I got recently from King Arthur.  Phyl got one recently and recommended it, and I really like the pretty green color.  Even better, it was on sale!  (and might still be)  

Another new thing with this crisp was the idea of using part of the crumb mixture to make a bottom crust, then using the rest for the top.  I've done that for bar cookies, but not for crisp.  I also like the new idea of adding crystallized ginger to the crumb mixture.  One last new thing--I don't think I've ever used strawberries in crisp, since they can get watery when cooked.  Cooking and thickening the strawberry part ahead of time took care of that problem.  I did make one change to the recipe.  I'm not a big fan of rhubarb, so I didn't use it.  I thought about using cranberries to get some tartness (a good idea from Kayte), but then Nancy suggested using apples to get the same sort of bulk as the rhubarb.  I used some fairly tart Macintosh apples, which worked nicely.  (Oops, just realized that I made one other change--I left out the nuts so my girls would eat it.)  (Okay, last one--I also reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup since I thought it might be too sweet without the rhubarb.)

The verdict?  Yum!  This crisp was really delicious.  The combination of strawberries and apples was very good, and I love the chewy bits of crystallized ginger in the crust/crumbs.  Ginger and strawberries is a great flavor combination that I'm going to have to remember.  Both girls liked it, as did Jamie (though he couldn't quite place the ginger flavor at first).  I ate mine without ice cream, both for dessert and breakfast the next day.  I enjoyed the texture of the bottom crust, and will have to try the same technique with other fruits.  

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, head on over to Sarah's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of this week's selection, check out the Links.

Drop in for breakfast

I don't use maple syrup very much.  When I was growing up, my dad was the only one in the house who used real maple syrup on his pancakes, etc.  The rest of us used pancake syrup (not the same thing at all).  Dad got the real butter, too, rather than margarine.  It wasn't until I was much older that I realized what a good thing he had going. =)  To be honest, my kids eat Log Cabin and like it just fine, but I don't know how much of that is just because they haven't had the real thing.  I'm kind of afraid to find out.  

I definitely associate maple syrup with breakfast, but hadn't thought past drizzling it on top of things.  Sure, I've encountered recipes that used it, but nothing that really grabbed my attention.  Nothing, that is, until I got my copy of Joanne Chang's Flour cookbook.  The very first recipe in the book is for Oatmeal-Maple Scones.  Yum.  I don't like to eat oatmeal as hot cereal (can't stand the texture), but I love it in baked goods like scones.  And these scones are really easy to make, even when you aren't quite awake yet.

These are drop scones, meaning that you scoop them out onto the baking sheet, rather than patting out dough and cutting it into shapes.  So the dough is rather sticky.  The only sweetener is the maple syrup; it also provides moisture in the dough, along with cream and an egg.  For the dry ingredients, there's a mix of all-purpose flour and rolled oats, along with baking powder, baking soda and salt.  The recipe calls for nuts, but they aren't very popular in baked goods around here, so I left them out.  I've used raisins in these a couple times, but for the most recent batch, I went with cinnamon chips.

I was a bit surprised by the baking temperature of 350ºF, since most of the other recipes I've made call for baking scones at a higher temperature (usually 400ºF).  To go with the lower temp, the baking time is longer.  I didn't bake mine for quite as long as the recipe said, only 25 minutes instead of 40.  That was partly because I made mine smaller, but if I'd made them the size in the recipe, I still don't thing they would have taken that long.  

We had to have the glaze, of course.  To be honest, I usually kind of wing it on the glaze.  I put some powdered sugar in a bowl and whisked in a couple tablespoons of maple syrup along with just enough water to make thick glaze.  Rather than brushing it all over the scones, I drizzled it on top--I prefer how it looks that way.  

The verdict?  Well, I've made these scones three times already, so that should give you an idea of how much I love them!  I liked them just fine with raisins, and so did Gillian.   But Brianna was very happy that I finally made a batch without dried fruit.  (She liked to eat it straight up, but not in baked goods.)  These scones also went over well at work.  

If you'd like to try these for yourself, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of Flour.  But in the in meantime, you can find the recipe for these yummy scones online here.  Unfortunately, the article only gives the volume measurements, which frustrates me to no end.  One of the things I love so much about this book is that every recipe includes weights in grams in addition to the volume measurements.  So I'm listing the weights of ingredients for you here.

Oatmeal-Maple Scones

(adapted from Flour, by Joanne Chang)

210 grams all-purpose flour

125 grams rolled oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

80 grams cinnamon chips (or raisins)

113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces

80 grams cold heavy cream

160 grams Grade B maple syrup

1 cold egg

115 grams powdered sugar

2 tablespoons Grade B maple syrup

up to 1 tablespoon water

I used my #16 disher (which holds 2 ounces, or 1/4 cup) to scoop out my scones.  I got 12, rather than the yield of 8 in the recipe.  I baked them for 25 minutes at 350ºF.

Beard on bread

Isn't technology great?  The photo above is a picture of my breakfast, as it was sitting next to my laptop one morning.  There's a card table in my living room, which is the home of whatever jigsaw puzzle Brianna is working on at the moment.  It's also the most common resting spot for my laptop.  I love wifi, and the flexibility of being able to move my computer around the house--especially onto the kitchen table. =)  (Our desktop computer is also in the kitchen, but isn't quite as convenient.)  I recently bought myself an iPod touch, and already I'm spoiled by the fact that it's even more portable than the laptop.  I'm still trying to make the most of it, though.  Any good suggestions for apps that I really need to have?

Speaking of things we need to have, good bread for toast is definitely high on the list.  I don't really like typical "sandwich bread" for sandwiches.  Give me some ciabatta or slices from a sourdough batard.  But those loaf pan breads with a soft crumb are the ones I reach for when making toast.  I have several that I really enjoy, but I like trying new recipes as well.  Thanks to some of my Twitter buddies, we're all trying new things, in fact.  We decided to focus on a different chef each month and make some of their recipes.  We're posting pictures of the things we've made as our Twitter avatars for the month.  Since I blog about baking, I'm looking for baked goods from each of the chefs.  For February, Nancy picked James Beard.  I was happy to find that there are a lot of his recipes online.  It didn't take me long to narrow down my choice to some sort of bread.  As it turned out, my final pick was from Beard on Food, rather than Beard on Bread.  

Since I was thinking about toast and breakfast, Oatmeal Bread sounded like a really good idea.  I hate eating oatmeal as cereal (it's the texture that I don't like).  But oats in baked goods are fine.  The recipe is pretty straightforward, and it gave me a chance to use my dough whisk.  I did make a few adjustments.  I only have instant yeast on hand, so that's what I used, reducing the amount to 10 grams.  I used a weight of 125 grams per cup of all purpose flour.  The recipe calls for 9"x5" loaf pans, but I used my 8 1/2"x4 1/2" Pyrex pans.  The recipe makes two loaves, and I added a cinnamon raisin swirl to one.  After patting the dough out into a rectangle, I sprinkled it liberally with cinnamon sugar and raisins.  Then I rolled it up and put it into the loaf pan.  I also sprinkled the top of the loaf with more cinnamon sugar before putting it in the oven.  The baking time of an hour seemed a bit long to me, and sure enough, my loaves were done sooner.  The plain loaf took 40 minutes, and the raisin one baked for 50 minutes. 

The verdict?  This is definitely excellent toast bread.  I especially enjoyed the raisin version.  Gillian was happy to help me eat it, too.  As I expected, Brianna liked the plain version better.  None of us liked it all that much for sandwiches, but that's okay.  More for toast that way. =)

Want to try this one for yourself?  You can find this recipe (and lots of others) on the James Beard Foundation's website.  

Moody blues

I know I'm really in a grumpy mood when not even chocolate helps.  Unfortunately, I've been in this grumpy mood for the past couple of weeks.  I really need to do something to shake it.  I almost wanted to skip this post, but I haven't written about the last couple of Tuesdays with Dorie recipes (though I did bake one of them).  Yes, it's guilt that's really getting me going here, but at least something is moving me in the right direction.  You know things are really bad when not even this lovely Valentine's gift from my husband really broke through my bad mood:

That means it's time to bring out the big guns--chocolate with peanut butter.  I'm not ashamed to admit, I have a bit of a Reese's addiction. =)  (We're even coming up on my favorite time of year, when the Reese's Eggs are out!)  And I found a way to work it into my TWD assignment.  This week's recipe?  Chocolate Oatmeal Drops, picked by Caroline and Claire of Bake with Us.  That's right, no peanut butter in the original recipe.  But several of my Twitter buddies commented that they weren't that excited by these cookies.  I figured, what the heck, it can't hurt to throw in some peanut butter chips along with the oatmeal to liven things up!  

The cookie batter is pretty easy to mix up.  I just made half the recipe, since we already had lots of chocolate treats around here.  First you melt together butter, brown sugar, bittersweet chocolate and a bit of water.  (I used the microwave.)  Once all of that is melted and mixed together, you whisk in a egg.  I also added a bit of vanilla, in place of the cinnamon called for in the recipe.  (I don't care for cinnamon with chocolate.)  Next, you stir in the dry ingredients--flour, cocoa powder (I used natural), baking soda, and salt.  (I kept the full amount of salt even though I halved the recipe.)  Finally, you mix in rolled oats, and in my case, the peanut butter chips.  (85 grams, which is about half a cup.)  The batter isn't very stiff; it's more like brownie batter than most cookie batter.  I used my #40 disher to scoop it onto parchment lined baking sheets, and baked the cookies for 11 minutes.  I got 21 cookies from my half-batch.

The verdict?  I really liked these with the peanut butter chips.  The cookies are very chocolatey, and the oatmeal adds some nice chew.  They were a big hit at work.  One of my bankers said they were (the latest) best thing I've ever brought.  I think he was exaggerating because it was almost lunchtime, though. =)  Still, the compliment definitely improved my mood a bit. 

If you'd like to give these a try, you can find the recipe on Caroline's and Claire's blog.  To see what everyone else thought of these cookies, check out this week's Links.  

Almost fall?

It's hard to believe that Brianna heads back to school in less than a week.  I'm still not used to the idea of school starting in August--we always went back after Labor Day.  I think of the beginning of school as the start of fall, and the weather here is anything but fall-like.  I think we're pretty much ready, though.  School supplies are all purchased.  (That whole thing still bugs me--I'm amazed at the amount of stuff that parents are expected to supply at the beginning of the year.)  A new backpack is ordered and should arrive by the end of the week.  (We're trying one from Lands' End this year; the ones we've bought in the past don't last long enough.)  She has a new outfit for the first day. (Just one for now--all her spring/summer clothes still fit and it won't be cool enough for fall/winter stuff for quite some time, by which point she may have grown some more.)  She even has new shoes, thanks to my wonderful husband.  I've finally learned my lesson--no more attempting to shop for shoes with just me and the two of them.  That never ends well.  We split up this time; I took Gillian shopping Sunday morning, and Jamie took Brianna Sunday afternoon.

Besides finishing up the back-to-school stuff, I did get a chance to do some baking this weekend.  Sandwich bread, cookies, and a new focaccia recipe (hopefully to be blogged soon; I need to make it again and follow the directions correctly this time...).  I was on the fence about whether to make this week's TWD recipe.  Natalie of Oven Love picked Oatmeal Breakfast Bread for us to make this week.  It just didn't sound all that appealing to me, despite the fact that I really like "fall" flavors like apples and raisins and cinnamon.  I might have just been a bit tired of oatmeal, too, since I've made several things with it lately.  I asked for opinions on Twitter, and everyone responded positively.  I decided to sleep on it.

Monday morning, I decided to go ahead and make the recipe to take to work with me.  I decided to go with muffins so I'd be able to get them baked before I had to head out the door.  As with most quick breads, the batter is fairly quick and easy to mix up.  For the applesauce, I actually reverted to using a couple of the single serving cups I had in the pantry.  For the fruit, I used regular raisins, since I like them with anything apple-y.  The only change I made was to the topping--I substituted the streusel from our new favorite plum cake (using pecans).  I scooped the batter into my muffin tin, and had enough for 12 muffins plus a bit left over, which I put in a mini loaf pan.  I baked them for about 24 minutes, then let them cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them to a rack to cool.

The verdict?  I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed these muffins--though I shouldn't have been, since I like all the things that went into them.  And they were a huge hit at work--everyone was surprised to learn that they're fairly healthy (lots of fiber from the fruit and oats and not a lot of fat).  I did leave a few at home so the girls could try them this morning.  Gillian liked the muffins except for the nuts on top.  Brianna took one bite, discovered the raisins, and requested toast for breakfast instead.  Oh, well, can't win them all.  =)  I'll definitely be making these again. 

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it here on Natalie's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of this week's selection, check out this week's links.  

In the eye of the beholder

As I was eating one of the granola bars I made last weekend, the combination of chocolate (thanks to B&G insisting on adding chocolate chips) and oatmeal reminded me of something.  It took me a minute to figure out what it was.  The taste was reminiscent of some cookies that I used to make with a junior high friend of mine.  Her family called them ugly cookies, because, well, they were not very attractive to look at.  But the taste?  Fabulous.  Chocolate and peanut butter, with some oatmeal to hold everything together.  I made them at her house a bunch of times, but for some reason never wrote down the recipe for myself.  It wasn't until I was in college that I encountered them again.  My first husband Nate (then just my boyfriend) had a bunch of recipes from his mom.  One of them was for something called no-bake peanut butter cookies.  It wasn't until I actually made the recipe with him that I realized that these no-bake cookies were my old favorite ugly cookies!

These aren't traditional cookies, as you might guess from the title.  They're more like peanut butter fudge, with some oatmeal mixed in.  Not that that's a bad thing.  You boil together sugar, cocoa powder, milk and butter, then mix in peanut butter and oatmeal.  I did tweak the recipe slightly from the original that Nate had.  I added more cocoa (more chocolate is generally good) and a little salt.  I've tried making these with rolled oats instead of quick oats, too.  It works, but I find that I have to add more oats, since the quick oats seem to bind the mixture better.  I used to spoon the finished mixture onto foil, but now I use parchment paper since I have it around all the time.

The verdict?  Brianna and Gillian seemed to like these, although they both complained about the oatmeal a bit.  It does tend to give the cookies a very chewy texture at first.  The oatmeal softens a bit by the second day, though.  As always, I loved these, and Jamie agreed that it had been way too long since I'd made them.  The only question now is whether to take some to work.  I might have to, to remove the temptation of eating them all myself. =)

Ugly Cookies (aka No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookies)
(adapted from Laverne Morrison)

400g (2 cups) granulated sugar
20g (1/4 cup) natural cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
110g (1/2 cup) milk
110g (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into several pieces
130g (1/2 cup) smooth peanut butter
225g (about 2 1/2 cups) quick oats

Line two sheet pans with parchment paper or foil and set aside.  In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, and salt until no lumps of cocoa remain.  Whisk in the milk, then add the butter.  Heat the mixture over medium heat until it comes to a boil, then boil it for one minute.  Remove the pan from the heat.  Whisk in the peanut butter, then stir in the oats.  Drop the mixture by tablespoonfuls (I used my #40 disher) onto the parchment lined pans.  Cool until fully set, 1-2 hours.  Makes about 2 dozen.

DIY

Lots of people would probably think I'm crazy, but I really like baking my own stuff.  Not just the usual sorts of stuff that lots of people bake, like cookies or cupcakes.  No, I'm talking about the more interesting (some might say difficult) stuff, like croissants and bagels.  Part of it is certainly that by making my own, I know exactly what goes into it.  But it's also fun and gives me a sense of accomplishment to say that I did it myself.  I guess that's why other people work on their own cars and build stuff around the house. =)  I just prefer working with flour and sugar.  

I've been doing the BYOB thing with bread for a while, and plan to continue.  Over the past couple of years I've tried my hand at a lot of non-bread things, too.  It's funny--I've been taking the girls to the farmers market fairly often this summer, and they like to sample prepared foods (including a lot of baked goods) from the various vendors.  I think they're a bit disappointed when I tell them that I'm not going to buy something because I can make it myself at home.  But they're happier when I offer to let them help.

This morning's project is a good example of that.  They were bugging me in the grocery store last night, asking if I would buy them granola bars.  Problem is, the ones they really like (and I'm willing to feed them) are rather expensive and I can only get them at Central Market.  Most of the stuff on the shelf seems to be more candy than healthy snack.  (Not that I'm anti-candy, but there's a time and a place...) I've been meaning to try making my own for a while, and decided to finally do it.  I figured they'd be a good snack to take with us to the splash park this morning.  I did a bit of searching in my Google Reader and found a few recipes that might be good to try.  I put out a request on Twitter for ideas, and Nancy suggested looking in the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book.  I was feeling lazy and checked the KAF website instead.  Sure enough, I found what looked like a great recipe for Chewy Granola Bars.  

I had one small problem--the recipe calls for KAF Sticky Bun Sugar, which I don't have.  But there's a helpful substitution for it in the sidebar, so I went with that.  I'm not a big honey person, and wanted a brown sugar flavor in the bars, so I used golden syrup both in the sub for the sticky bun sugar and in place of the honey/maple syrup.  I used melted butter in the substitution and canola oil for the main part of the recipe.  For the nuts, I went with cashews, since I knew the girls would happily eat them.  I let them pick out the rest of the mix-ins.  They started by pulling all the dried fruit they could find out of the pantry.  I didn't realize we had so much--raisins, plums (aka prunes), apricots, peaches, cranberries and mangos.  They settled on dried plums (a favorite for both of them) and apricots.  And of course we had to add chocolate chips.  Since I don't like cinnamon with chocolate, I added dried ginger instead.  To try to make it easier to get the baked bars out of the pan, I lined it with non-stick foil, and baked the bars for 25 minutes.

The verdict?  These were quite delicious.  The girls agreed.  In fact, Brianna kept asking if she could have more while we were still at the park, but since these bars have a lot of calories packed into a small package, I told her she'd have to wait until later.  I did have a little trouble with the granola not wanting to stay together in bar form, though the bits were nicely chewy.  (The granola stuck to everything else though, including the non-stick foil!)  There may be a couple reasons for that.  One could be that I didn't have the KAF sticky bun sugar.  I may have to finally break down and place an order from them.  Also, after I made the bars, I realized that the recipe called for quick oats, which I didn't have.  I typically use regular rolled oats for everything.  I'll have to pick up some of the quick oats when I go shopping and see if that makes a difference.  But I really like the combination of flavors that Brianna and Gillian picked.  And I can't wait to try some others.  

If you'd like to try these for yourself,  you can find the recipe here on the King Arthur website.  

Pantry raid

One of the reasons we picked the particular floor plan for our house was the kitchen.  After living in apartments for many years, I was incredibly excited at the prospect of having more than enough kitchen cabinets and a fantastic pantry area with plenty of shelves.  When we moved into the house, I had quite a bit of kitchen gear already, but was looking forward to actually having room for more.  Well, eight years later, I've done a pretty good job of filling things up. =)  In fact, my old cookbook shelf is now home to some of my more interesting to look at stuff (madeleine pans, tart pans, etc).  And thanks to blogging--and especially being part of groups that challenge my skills and get me to bake new things)--these days my pantry is also filled to overflowing. 

Bread baking alone has dramatically increased the variety of flours and grains that I keep on hand.  All-purpose, bread, whole wheat, white whole wheat, rye, semolina, oats, cornmeal...the list goes on.  And then there are the various sugars and other sweeteners.  Don't even get me started on the chocolate!  Then there's the category that really came in handy this week--I have quite a variety of dried fruit.  I never would have guessed that I'd use it so much in baking all sorts of things, and the girls love to eat it, too.  The reason the fruit was so good to have on hand is that this week's recipe (chosen by Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet) is Chockablock Cookies.  As you might guess from the name, these cookies have all sorts of great stuff mixed in.  No problem at all for someone with a well-stocked pantry. =)

I did make a few changes this week, both with the method and the ingredients.  I took the easy route in making these cookies, and did the mixing by hand with a wooden spoon.  That's my favorite method for mixing up cookies, especially drop cookies.  As any long-time reader of my blog could predict, the first thing I ditched from the recipe was the coconut.  It's not allowed in my house, except under extremely special circumstances. =)  I also decided to leave the nuts out, since I knew Brianna and Gillian would be more likely to eat the cookies without them.  I don't mind nuts in some things, but wasn't in the mood for them, either.  I decided to go for a variety of dried fruit, thanks to the abundant supply in the pantry.  I used half a cup each of chopped dried mango, dried cranberries, and chopped prunes.  Yes, prunes.  My kids love them (to the point where I really have to make sure they don't eat too many, as that would have unfortunate consequences), and thanks to Dorie, I've discovered that they're great with chocolate.  I know a lot of people substituted for the molasses, but I like it, so I kept it, using the mild stuff.  I also used all butter, rather than a mix of butter and shortening.  After mixing up the dough, I used my #40 disher to portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  I ended up with a total of 40 cookies, and baked them for 16 minutes.

The verdict?  Pretty good.  There are a few more things I'll change if I make these again, but they were good.  I like molasses, but it seemed like these needed something more.  I don't like cinnamon with chocolate, but I think I'll add some ground ginger next time, since it pairs well with the molasses.  Along those same lines, I think some chopped crystallized ginger would be a good addition, too.  B liked the cookies, but isn't a big fan of the cranberries, so I'll probably leave those out.  The mango was great, and I like it with the chocolate.  It was hard to detect the prunes, but I'd probably leave them in, especially since my kids are big fans.  All in all, a fun cookie to play around with some more.

If you'd like to try these for yourself, I highly recommend getting your own copy of the book.  For this particular recipe, you also find it over at Mary's blog.  And be sure to check out what everyone else did this week, here.  

A jumble of good stuff

When I was a kid, my mom thought nothing of throwing us in the car and driving to my grandparents' house for the weekend.  It was only about a three-hour drive.  I have lots of good food memories from sitting in Gramma's kitchen.  It was even better when there were other people there, too.  One of my favorite people to see was my Aunt Maureen.  She and I share a birthday, nine years apart.  (My mom was the oldest and Aunt Maureen the youngest of seven kids.)  Aunt Maureen liked to bake (still does, as far as I know).  And I think she may be responsible for my tendency to eat baked goods for breakfast.   Not that she let us kids have any, but we saw her doing it.  =)

As I was making this week's TWD recipe, I was reminded of one particular thing that I recall her baking (and eating early in the day).  I can't remember the exact time frame, but it had to be sometime in the 80s.  There was a box mix for something called Jumbles, which consisted of a brownie-ish layer with dollops of oatmeal stuff on top.  They were really good.  And hey, with oatmeal, they qualified as perfectly acceptable breakfast fare, right? =)

This week's pick is from Lillian of Confectiona's Realm.  The title of the recipe is another mouthful--Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars.  I made half the recipe, so I went with an 8" square pan.  To make my life easier, I lined the pan with non-stick foil.  The bottom layer is an oatmeal cookie-like dough, with nuts added.  The recipe calls for peanuts, but I substituted cashews.  Since I know that I don't really like cinnamon and chocolate together, I left the cinnamon out of the oatmeal mixture.  You reserve some of the dough for topping, and press the rest into the pan.  For the middle layer, you melt together sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips and a bit of butter and salt.  Once that mixture is whisked smooth, you add raisins and more nuts.  After spreading the chocolate on top of the oatmeal layer, the reserved oatmeal dough is dolloped on top of the chocolate.  I ended up baking the bars for 25 minutes.  I let them cool until room temperature before sampling.  Dorie mentions that they're good cold, but I haven't tried them that way yet.

The verdict?  Very good, but hard to eat much at once.  I cut the bars small and still had a hard time finishing one.  I enjoyed them a lot, though.  I love raisins with chocolate, so I'm not surprised that I liked the middle layer.  And the oatmeal was a nice contrast with the chocolate.  I'm not always a big fan of nuts in my desserts, but I liked the cashews, too.  Brianna and Gillian both seemed to like these, too.  (Though as usual, Gillian liked them more.)  I figured it would take us forever to eat even the half recipe I made, so most of the bars went to the daycare and B's after-school teachers.

If you'd like the recipe, head on over to Lillian's blog.  And be sure to visit some other TWD bakers to see how they did this week!

12 Days of Cookies - Day 3 - Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies.  Whew--that's a mouthful.  =)  Welcome to Day 3 of the 12 Days of Cookies.  Today I'm featuring the first cookie recipe I tried.  I actually made these the day before Thanksgiving, when I probably should have been making pie crust.  I wanted a cookie that I could mix up and bake pretty quickly, since there was a lot of other stuff going on.  This was also the first recipe that caught my eye when I was first looking through the slide-show.  I'm not sure how everyone else decided what to make, but I started off by checking out all the names and pictures.  Anything with an ingredient that I really dislike in the title was immediately crossed off the list (bye-bye Coconut Orange Snowballs and Pistachio and Cherry Mexican Wedding Cakes).  Then I took a closer look at the remaining recipes to narrow things down further based on ingredients or techniques.  Next, I  looked at the recipes that were left and tried to pick the 12 that sounded most appealing for whatever reason.  The list has changed a couple times, and may yet change again as I see some of the cookies that everyone else is baking.  I was surprised that my (more or less) final list had quite a few roll and cut types of cookies, since, as I've mentioned, they're not my favorite thing to make.  Maybe this whole project will change that. =)

Anyway, back to the chocolate and cranberry cookies.  This is a drop-cookie recipe, and it was pretty easy to mix up.  The three chocolates are dark, milk and white.  Right there I started making changes.  I didn't have any milk chocolate chips, since I've yet to find one that I really like.  So I used two dark chocolate chips--Guittard regular semi-sweet chips and also some of their extra dark (63%) chips.  For the white chips, I used Ghirardelli.  On an amusing note, I made the mistake of trying to chop fresh cranberries by hand--next time I'll use my food processor, since those little buggers kept bouncing all over the place. =) For these cookies, I used my #40 disher and ended up with 32 cookies.  I baked them at 350 degrees F for 16 minutes.

The verdict?  These cookies were quite good.  The white chips weren't that noticeable, which is fine with me. =)  (not a big fan of white chocolate or things like it)  I like the combination of dark chocolate and cranberries.  If I make these again (which is fairly likely), I think I'll add more cranberries.  Okay, make that when I make these again, since Jamie just informed me that he definitely thinks they're a make-again.  I enjoyed the bits of tartness that the cranberries contributed, but would have liked more.  And hey, I might even remember to drizzle the chocolate on top next time!

If you'd like to try these, you can find the recipe here.

And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up for today!

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project