Plate of Love Part 2: Raspberry Yogurt Cake

As promised... (ahem, nevermind that I promised this months ago) the cake I love to make, using Clotilde's recipe for Gâteau au Yaourt which she makes with raspberries. Of course I've made my own adjustments, since the genius of this French staple is that you buy a tub of yogurt, and then use that as your measuring cup for all the other ingredients. Children love to make it. I've adjusted it to my North American measuring cups and baking habits. But it is essentially the same kind of cake: fragrant, moist, fluffy, and it has raspberries! Which are quite possibly the best fruit in the world. 

I made it in June, with raspberries, and I made it today. 

But today, I fiddled with it. I wanted to save some raspberries, my stash being very-plundered and not-yet-replenished, but I also wanted to make room in my freezer for the glut of blackberries I hope to pick in the next few weeks. And I had no yogurt! 

What's a girl to do? 

Marionberry Buttermilk Cake. Naturally. 

I know, you're shaking your heads at me ("Can't that girl leave well enough alone?"), but I can't help it! Who wants their cake to be the same every time? And I love taking the risk - although it's a very slight risk - of trying something new and seeing if it turns out as well as I hope it will. 

Judging by the fragrance coming from my kitchen right now, I think it has turned out. I'm taking it to a BBQ tonight, and my friends know well enough by now that I only experiment on people I love. 

So today, instead of just one recipe for Clotilde's Raspberry Yogurt Cake, you're getting two. 

Raspberry Yogurt Cake (à la Clotilde)

Preheat your oven to 350˚ Fahrenheit. 

Butter and flour an 8 or 9 inch tart, cake, or pie pan. Set aside. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together: 

1 cup plain yogurt

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oil 

3 eggs

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

In another small bowl, whisk together: 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 - 1/2 cup ground almonds (you can do this in your food processor or blender)

1 Tbsp baking podwer

1/2 tsp salt

Gently stir together both wet and dry ingredients, until full incorporated. Do not overmix. 

Pour half your batter into your prepared pan, and use a rubber spatula to smooth the batter to the edges of the pan. Cover the batter with 3-4 handfuls of fresh or frozen raspberries (or 1-2 cups, if you must measure), then pour the rest of the batter over, once again smoothing it with a spatula. 

Sprinkle a coarse-grained sugar (such as raw cane sugar or demerera sugar) over the top of the batter. 

Bake at 350˚ for 45-50 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden brown, the cake is puffed and slightly cracked, and doesn't wiggle when you shake it. (Trust me, this test does work!) Clotilde suggests that if the top is browning too quickly, then tent it with foil to finish baking. 

Let cool. Serve room temperature, with lightly sweetened, floppy whipped cream. 

Marionberry Buttermilk Cake

Substitute buttermilk for yogurt. 

Substitute marionberries for raspberries. 

Proceed as with the other cake. 

B3 Muffins

This weekend Jordan and I went down to Washington to visit my mom. Before we left, we had a pile of bananas threatening to go completely brown and soft on us, so I did what was only right to save the bananas from their imminent mushy death and our apartment from a new infestation of fruitflies: I baked muffins!

I have made these muffins, in some incarnation, at least a couple times a month for the last year. They're hearty yet light, fragrant, fruity with bananas and blueberries. And, I have the distinct pleasure of knowing how nutritious and delicious they are. They keep well in the fridge for up to a week, but I bet they won't last that long.

I like making them in a couple of sizes. I have a mini-loaf pan, which I bought under the influence of the Morning Glory muffins at the Mix Bakery down our street. These mini-loaves are big enough for a hearty breakfast. And, I also make a "snack size" muffin, either in a regular muffin tin, or a tartlette pan, which is what I used this time.

A number of people have asked for the recipe for these muffins, including my mother. So, Mom. This is for you.

Tora's B3 Muffins (Banana, Blueberry, Buttermilk)
The trick with these muffins is to customize them to your taste and your pantry. I use the ratios of dry-to-wet ingredients as my baseline. Use what you have! If you don't have bananas, use applesauce and make a little cinnamon strudel topping. If you don't have buttermilk, use yogurt. Is it near Thanksgiving? Use cranberries and pureed pumpkin instead of blueberries and bananas. You could substitute any other grain for the flaxseed or soy flour... spelt, quinoa, or amaranth flours would all be lovely here. Your imagination is the limit!


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, stir together your dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup wheat germ or wheat bran (optional... or just use oats instead)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flaxseed meal (optional... I use Bob's Red Mill)
3 Tbsp soy flour (also optional... I use Bob's Red Mill)
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
dash of ground nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves (to taste)
1/2 cup - 1 cup of chopped nuts (optional too... and I like walnuts)


Stir together with a whisk until thoroughly incorporated. (I like to use my hands.) Set aside.


In a separate medium bowl, mix together your wet ingredients:
1 large or 2 small-to-medium ripe bananas, peeled and mashed with a fork (I leave them a little chunky)
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt (if you use sweetened yogurt, decrease the amount of sugar used above)
2 eggs
3 Tbsp oil or melted and cooled butter
3 Tbsp molasses (optional)
1 tsp vanilla


Whisk together until smooth, but do not over-beat! Set aside.

Line your muffin tins with paper liners OR grease them well with butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated. Add 1-2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries to the batter, and fold in. DO NOT OVERMIX or your muffins will get tough, chewy, and lose that lovely tenderness of crumb.

Spoon the batter into your pans, and bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your muffin pans, until the tops are golden brown. (I bake mini-loaves for 25 minutes or more, and the smaller muffins for only 20.)

Set the pan on a cooling rack and let cool for 5-10 minutes before removing muffins from pans.

Serve warm with butter.

Plate of Love Part 1: Spicy Maple-Glazed Pecans

I made this as a snack for Jordan the other day.

I was jealous.

The cake is a Raspberry Yogurt Cake, inspired by Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini, has become one of my favorite summer afternoon tea-cakes. It is light, buttery, spotted with fresh, juicy raspberries, and topped with crunchy, caramelized coarse-grained demerera sugar. Because of the moisture and richness provided by the yogurt added to this cake, it requires a lot less butter than most cakes. And, if you use sweetened yogurt you can drop the sugar level down quite a bit, too.

The crackers are simple rosemary-garlic snack crackers, with a mild enough flavor to support toppings. They are topped with soft goat cheese and last summer's savory-jam-experiment, my Golden Cherry Tomato and Ginger jam.

The strawberries... oh! the strawberries! They were the first organic strawberries to arrive in the market this season, and they are sliced in half and stuffed with the same soft goat cheese. But the crowning piece to this amuse-bouche are the Spicy Maple-Glazed Pecans.

I must have had a particularly inspired afternoon, because these turned out amazingly (and surprisingly!) well in the first attempt. They are sweet, spicy, crunchy, buttery, with layers and layers of flavors that may make you ask... "Is that balsamic vinegar I taste?" I first made the pecans to provide some crunch to a spinach salad that included strawberries, that lovely goat cheese, and a herby vinaigrette. However, as soon as they came out of the oven, Jordan and I started snacking on them, and frankly... we couldn't stop! I trust you won't be able to either. Wasn't it that Pringles ad that challenged, I dare you to eat just one?

This is the recipe you're getting today. I will post my recipes for the tomato-ginger jam and the cake soon.

Spicy Maple-Glazed Pecans

Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Brush the parchment paper with melted butter. (Trust me on this one.) Preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit... basically you will be broiling these.

In a bowl, mix together until smooth:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Fold in, tossing gently so as not to break the halves into smaller pieces:

2 - 2 1/2 cups pecan halves

Broil for four minutes. Stir or turn over the pecan pieces carefully; they will be very hot and bubbly! Broil for one more minute on the other side.

Let the pan cool completely before serving. They will get crunchier as they cool.

a "profound" Carrot Cake Hybrid

Yesterday afternoon we attended a garden party. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze, and we could hear the rides at the PNE as they motored uphill and the screams of gleeful riders as they hurtled, whirled, and dove.

It was Susan's birthday. And she had requested carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, please!

I had made a carrot cake for Jordan's birthday a number of weeks ago, and was pleased with how it turned out. However, as with most recipes, I love tinkering the second time around. I also tend to experiment on people I love, and this was for a dear friend. As usual, I wanted to turn down the sugar and turn up the flavor. Using Joy of Cooking as my basic guide, and More With Less for some inspiration, I came up with a Carrot-Applesauce-Nut Cake hybrid that was incredibly delicious. It was quite crumbly in the center, and didn't hold up terribly well to slicing. However, the tenderness of the crumb, the layered flavors, and the tangy-lemony cream cheese icing elicited "mmm"s from everyone. Kirsten said, "Tora, this is a profound cake."

Profound, indeed. The batter is light and bright, unlike many carrot cake batters that I've encountered, which are dark, oily, and taste syrupy-sweet. Adding extra baking powder and soda gives the cake loft. The applesauce combined with the spices gave the cake a lovely gingerbread-fruity undertones. And the lemon! I simply cannot have cream cheese frosting without lemon zest, forevermore. I trust that once you taste it, you won't go back, either.

Profound Carrot Cake

This recipe makes two 8-inch layers. I think it would also work well in bars, so you could easily pour the batter into one 9 by 13 inch pan. It is also extremely handy if you have an electric mixer and/or beaters to make the batter, and a food processor for the frosting.

Line your pans with parchment paper, or butter and flour them copiously, and especially in the corners. I traced the bottom of my pans onto parchment paper, and Jordan cut them out for me. I put these circles on the bottom of the pans, and buttered the flat sides of the pan. This worked beautifully! The cakes came out easily, and because I kept the paper on the bottom of each cake, they stacked well for transporting.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whisk together in a bowl and set aside:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground or grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt

Shred and set aside:

2 cups shredded carrots (this will take about 2 large carrots, peeled)

In the bowl of your stand mixer (if you have one), cream together:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar, packed

Add to the creamed mixture, and beat until just combined:

3 eggs

1 cup applesauce

Add the dry ingredients to this wet mixture, and beat on low speed until just combined.

Then, add in, stirring again until just combined:

your previously shredded carrots

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup golden raisins

Pour the batter into your cake pan(s). Bake for 25 minutes, until the center of each cake is set (not batter-y), and the top is golden brown. Let cool for five minutes in the pan, then turn out the cakes and let them cool completely on racks. (If you're using a 9 by 13 pan, let the cake cool in the pan. Once it's completely cool, then you can frost it in the pan and cut into bars.)

When your cake is cool, and you are just about ready to frost the cakes, make the frosting.

Pulse in your food processor until smooth:

8 ounces of COLD cream cheese

Add and process until combined:

2 tsp vanilla

Add, and process until combined:

3 cups powdered sugar

Pour your frosting into a separate bowl, and STIR in:

the zest of two lemons

Frost your cake, and devour!

Miriam's Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

Last week when I went strawberry picking with my friend Miriam, she made these cookies to add to our picnic lunch at the berry farm. They were so tasty, I of course asked for the recipe.

My husband loves oatmeal cookies, and since I hadn't baked for a while I decided to give these a try. They looked super simple and called for ingredients that I had ready to go in my kitchen. I made a few modifications (I can't help it!) and popped them in the oven. We had plenty to take to our home group that evening, and lots left over to snack on for the next few days. Although I'm pretty sure I ate about four with my afternoon tea, reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

The coconut gives these cookies a beautiful fragrance and well-rounded taste. The oatmeal, Jordan swears, keeps the cookies soft. There is just enough flour and egg to hold the two predominant ingredients together.

Miriam's Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter, softened (I prefer room temperature, so I leave the butter on the counter overnight or all morning)

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda and stir until just combined. Add the oatmeal and coconut and stir until just incorporated.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving about an inch between each cookie, as they will spread a bit. Bake for 12 minutes, until the edges are just golden brown.

Eat warm with lots of cold milk.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

a sherwood forest of baking possibilities

My in-laws have been visiting this week, and that means lots of good eating. J.'s parents are famous in my book for their fabulous Sunday crepe lunches, where J.'s dad does the crepe-flipping like a pro, and his mum sets out her white sauce, fruit sauce, fruit salad, and of course, the cottage cheese.

Of course, you have to eat something mid-week. So I had prepared some sourdough-type, Amish-friendship-cake-y bread/pastry/quiche/biscuit starter from a recipe given to my from a friend. The dough is cleverly called Sherwood, as the recipes came from a Robin Hood flour cookbook. Little did I know that this bowl of bubbling dough in my fridge would feed us all week and become a staple to this family visit. I have made cheese biscuits... twice. And scones... twice. And a breakfast quiche. All from one batch of Sherwood. And I still had a cup left over to start a new batch.

We took mum and dad kayaking in Deep Cove on Canada Day, and we had a grand time. The weather was perfect for kayaking - clear and sunny, warm enough to kayak in a tee shirt, just enough breeze to keep you cool and to add a little excitement to the kayaking (a wave washed over the stern of our double kayak and down J.'s back!). But, since we had gotten up early and had worked hard for two hours, we came home and promptly took long, Canada Day afternoon naps. Then, I baked these scones for tea.

I wasn't working with a scone recipe... I was adapting a recipe for cheese biscuits. But I thought to myself... biscuits and scones really aren't that far apart on the pastry continuum, how hard can it be? So I took a cup of the 'Sherwood' starter, some oranges given to me from a friend-going-on-holidays-and-cleaning-out-her-fridge, and some dried currants that desperately wanted to be baked into scones, and went from there.

These scones, in my opinion, were my biggest success, because I've always been afraid of making scones. Too much cold-butter-cut-into-the-flour, folding-and-rolling, perfect-temperature fuss for me. But, because the moisture in these scones comes primarily from the liquid starter, it requires a lot less butter-fuss than a traditional scone recipe.

Once you get the starter dough set up in your fridge, the rest of it is easy. The trick is not to forget to stir your 'Sherwood' every day, and to feed it every 5 days. But, it seems to be a forgiving kind of dough. I fed it a day late and forgot to stir it for two days, but each recipe turned out just fine. I'll post the cheese biscuits and breakfast quiche recipes in a future post.

Orange Currant Scones

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

zest of one small orange

1 cup dried currants

juice of one small orange

1 cup 'Sherwood' sourdough starter

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup raw cane or turbinado sugar (as long as it's large grain)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a small bowl, combine the cup of currants with the orange juice. Microwave for one minute, and stir. This will plump up the currants if they are dry like mine were (and not the good kind of dry... but the hard, totally-withered-beyond-edibility kind of dry). Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest. (I used a zester - a little hand-gadget that looks like teeny brass knuckles - to peel beautiful long strips of the zest off the orange, but you can use a box grater or microplane and get good results. But the zester will be prettier.) Add the orange-soaked currants, but reserve the juice. (A slotted spoon helps here.) Stir until all the zest slivers and currants are coated in flour.

Add your Sherwood and the melted butter. Stir until the dough just comes together. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter and knead about 5 times. Pat or roll out the dough into a long rectangle, and cut into scone shapes. (Usually triangles, but you can really do whatever you like. Mickey Mouse heads... snowmen...) Place on an ungreased baking sheet.

Brush the tops of the scones with the reserved orange juice. Sprinkle with a large-grain sugar, preferably turbinado or raw cane sugar.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until the tops are crusty and golden brown. Serve warm, with butter and maybe the slightest drizzle of honey.

Here is the recipe for the Sherwood starter. It's really simple - and you can keep it going indefinitely in your own fridge. You can also share it with friends a cup at a time, with the instructions to go along with it. It's also a good idea to give them the extra recipes for what to do with Sherwood once they have it going. Once you get the hang of all the different things you can do with it, let your imagination run wild!

Sherwood

adapted from Robin Hood Baking Festival recipes

On Day One: assemble the starter.

1 tsp sugar

1/2 cup plus 1 and 1/2 cups warm water

1 package (2-3 tsp) active dry yeast

2 cups all-purpose flour

Proof the yeast by dissolving the sugar in a 1/2 cup of the warm water. Sprinkle the yeast in and let it stand 10 minutes. You'll see it bubbling a bit. This is a good sign - it means you have a live yeast culture!

Add the rest of the water and the flour. Beat it until smooth. Cover tightly and leave overnight at room temperature.

On Day Two: feed your starter.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

Stir until smooth. Cover loosely and refrigerate.

On Day Three: stir.

On Day Four: stir.

On Day Five: feed your starter

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

Stir until smooth and return to the refrigerator.

On Day Six: stir.

On Day Seven: stir.

On Day Eight: stir.

On Day Nine: stir.

On Day Ten: time to have fun!

Take a cup of Sherwood and give it to a friend, with accompanying instructions on how to care for it from Day Two until Day Ten. If you want to have a continuous supply in your own fridge, reserve a cup for yourself and feed it as you did from Day Two until Day Ten. This means you will have two separate bowls going - one that is ready to be baked into amazing things, and another that is getting ready to be baked in about 10 days.

Honey Hazelnut Cake

This morning I went to visit my friend M. for tea. And I always want something sweet and baked to go with my tea. My ideal cake is one that is light, moist, fragrant, filled with subtle flavors, with an interesting texture. Especially if that texture is slightly caramelized and crunchy on top. Going through the cake recipes on Chocolate and Zucchini (Clotilde's recipes never fail!), the Honey Hazelnut Cake filled all these requirements in my baker's imagination. 

Of course, I made my own adjustments. I find most recipes have too much sugar. This one definitely did, since it called for twice as much (yes, you read that correctly) sugar as it did flour. I changed that ratio around, and because of the addition of melted honey to the batter, I didn't miss the sugar one bit. In fact, next time I might try reducing it even more. I also took Clotilde's advice on doubling the recipe and toasting the hazelnuts. 

You could probably make some substitutions to this cake - trying other nuts instead of hazelnuts, for example - but who wants to mess with a good thing? (Apparently I do, blatantly thumbing my nose at even Clotilde!) The combination of toasted hazelnuts and fragrant honey is ethereal and earthy. (You ask me if this is possible, and I say "yes!") The crust is slightly crunchy, and the inside is a moist and cakey. And what a combo... honey and hazelnuts completely infuse the cake, making it absolutely irresistible. 

I would eat this anytime of the day. Breakfast, tea, dessert, midnight snack... you doubt my gluttony? This is what's left of the cake and it's only 5 o'clock! 

I'm pretty sure J. and I will polish the rest off for breakfast tomorrow. I am also pretty sure I will be making this at least two more times this week. 

Honey Hazelnut Cake 

(adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini)

1/2 cup sugar (or 1/3, if you want a little less sugar, like I might)

1 cup flour (of your choice, unbleached all purpose is just fine)

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

2/3 cups whole raw hazelnuts

10 Tablespoons butter (1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp)

6 tablespoons honey

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Have a rack set in the middle of the oven. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Add eggs one at a time, making sure each egg is somewhat incorporated before adding the next one. 

Then, toast the hazelnuts. Rub them in a teatowel to remove the brown skins, which can get bitter. Chop them roughly (I pulsed them a few times in my food processor), and let them cool before folding them into the batter. 

Meanwhile, melt the butter and honey in a small saucepan, and let it cool just a bit before adding it to the batter. Fold in until just incorporated. 

Pour batter into a greased and floured cake pan or tart pan (I did mine in my tart pan, as you can see in the photo above), and make sure the top is level. 

Bake at 350 F for 25 - 30 minutes, until the middle of the cake is set and the top is golden brown. Serve with a little bit of whipped cream, or just as it is, slightly warm. 

I could also see this cake modified a little bit to make a stunning informal layered cake. Reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup, and make a double batch. Bake the batter in two separate cake pans, and layer the cakes when cool with whipped cream flavored with honey, and perhaps a little buttered rum? Go nuts. 

Snowboarding SnackPacks

Okay, okay, I get the picture. Post a new recipe already, Tora!

Last week some friends of ours flew in from Toronto for a weekend of skiing at Whistler. I was more excited to "play mom" than to get my rear end flattened and my knees knocked out by hard-packed snow. This is only my second season boarding, you know. Give me a break. However, being a dutiful wife to my snowboarding husband, I got up at 6.00am with everyone else to drive up to Whistler for a day on the slopes.

Wouldn't you know it? I barely made it down one run. One green run, nonetheless. By lunchtime I was ready to call it a day and go sip cocoa in front of a TV while wearing warm clothes. Oh, and get the feeling back in my toes.

But, the highlights of the day were: beautiful clear blue skies, a comfortable temperature, good friends, stunning views from the Peak2Peak Gondola, and tasty snacks. On the ride up we had blueberry-banana muffins topped with a oaty-cinnamony-brown-sugary streusel, and I sent everyone up the lifts with snackpacks of homemade granola bars and sugar baby mandarins.


So, my friends. Today, as penance for not posting since November 24 (shame, I know), you will get two recipes. For the days ahead of skiing and snowboarding which I hope will come to all of us. I, however, plan to stick to the local mountains (Seymour, Grouse, Cypress) in hopes of mastering the bunny hills by the end of this season so I don't continue this trend of breaking myself attempting to slide down a hill while nailed to a plank of wood, trying desperately to look cool.

Road-Trip Blueberry Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a small bowl, using a pastry cutter, blend the following until it forms pea-sized lumps:

1/3 cup oats
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
dash of cinnamon

Set the streusel mixture aside. In a large bowl, whisk together:

1 large ripe banana, peeled and mashed
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
3 Tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla

Stir the dry ingredients into the banana-buttermilk mixture, until it is just mixed. DO NOT OVERMIX! Fold in:

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins. Top each muffin with a teaspoon of streusel, patting it down gently so it just sticks to the batter.

Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes until the muffins are puffy and the streusel is golden brown and you just can't wait any longer to eat them.

ALTERNATIVE RECIPE:
To make apple-streusel muffins, substitute one cup of unsweetened applesauce for the banana, and add 1 tsp of cinnamon to the flour mixture. Top with streusel and bake just as for the blueberry-banana muffins.


Granola Bars (to make you swear off Chewy forever)
adapted from a forum post on 101cookbooks.com

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, stir together:

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 cup of dried fruit of your choice (I like cranberries, but cherries, blueberries, or raisins would all work fine here)
1 cup of nuts, whole or lightly chopped (I like whole almonds, but peanuts, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, would all be delicious!)
1/3 cup chopped chocolate-covered espresso beans (optional... but highly recommended)

In a pyrex liquid measuring glass, stir together:

1/2 cup butter, cut into chunks
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut or almond butter

Microwave for a few minutes until you can stir it into a smooth mixture. Add:

2 tsp vanilla

Pour the liquid honey/butter/peanut butter mix over the dry oat mixture, tossing to coat everything evenly (this is to ensure your bars stick together!). Pour the mixture into a 9 inch X 13 inch pan, lined with parchment paper (or greased and floured... but you don't really want more grease in these bars), leaving enough paper hanging over for you to pull the bars out of the pan. Press down firmly on the mixture to make sure it will stick together.

Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes. Let the pan cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Then, getting your roommate, husband, or boyfriend to help, grab two opposite sides of the parchment paper while s/he grabs the other side (a large spatula slid under the bars helps immensely), and lift the bars out of the pan and let them cool on a rack (still on the paper) until they are completely cool and set.

Cut into small-ish sized bars and wrap in plastic or tinfoil. I underestimated the richness of my bars, and so cut pretty large ones. Taste a bit of yours before you cut so you know how much you can stand to eat in one sitting. These are pretty packed with energy!

Everyday Granola

I haven't baked in a long time. The last few months have been an uphill slog in terms of energy and motivation to get anything accomplished... although sometimes it also felt downhill, in a bad way. Like a heavily-loaded cart was behind me, threatening to run me over with its weight.

So I'm now seeking solutions to lighten the load, or increase my strength and ability to hold the cart up behind me, to keep it from running me over. One of the first places that brings me strength is my morning breakfast. After a long warm night of being curled up between a heavy comforter and a soft pillow, I need something truly inviting to coax me out of my downy berth. A french press filled with strong, dark (preferably African) coffee spiked with sweet cinnamon and topped off with a generous splash of Avalon cream usually does the trick. Then, a bowl of hearty, slightly sweet, spicy, crunchy granola is just the strength I need for the day.

I've tried a few granola recipes, but the best granola I've made and tasted is the granola that happens to come into being when I'm particularly in touch with the season. In the late summer my friend E. gave me a bag of granola that included dried Moreno cherries, pistachios, and was sweetened by brown rice syrup. But now that we're headed resolutely for winter (and this week is Thanksgiving in the States), I'm craving granola that is creamy, and definitely spicy.

If you, like me, appreciate being able to make your own flavors and permutations of everything, then it's most helpful to know the ratio of the kinds of ingredients, rather than specific ingredients to which you are bound. For example, muffins are about 50 percent moisture, so to a cup of buttermilk, or yogurt, or applesauce, you add only enough flour and egg to hold it together. This recipe is kind of like that. Oats are always a base ingredient. Then, some fat, some sweetener, spices, and whatever nutmeats or seeds you have on hand. Then everything is toasted in the oven slowly to bring it all to a golden perfection. Topped with some old-fashioned yogurt from a local creamery, or a splash of cream... there's nothing better to bring you into the day.

Everyday Granola

3 cups of whole rolled oats (look for oats which still have their oat-like texture)
1/2 cup to 1 cup of any combination of: whole wheat flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, flaxseed meal, powdered milk, or anything to hold the spices to the oats

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of any of the following: nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom
AND if you're feeling adventurous....
1/8 teaspoon of something spicier: cayenne or finely ground pepper

3 to 3 1/2 cups of chopped nutmeats and/or seeds (almonds, cashews, pistachios, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans... sunflower, flax, sesame, pepitas, pumpkin... use your imagination! I usually combine at least three or four kinds of nuts and seeds)

1/2 cup of melted butter or oil (canola, peanut, olive... just make sure that if it's something with a pronounced flavor, like olive, you cut it with something milder)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of sweetener (honey, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, brown sugar... DON'T use plain white corn syrup or white sugar. In addition to being overly processed, it will lose some caramelly flavor.)

up to 1 cup of dried fruit of your choice (berries, cherries, apricots, apples, currants... or, if you must, raisins)

Heat your oven to to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, combine the oats and all of the dry ingredients: flours, ground flax, salt, spices, and nutmeats/seeds. And, if you are using dry sugar instead of liquid honey or another sweetener, add the sugar here. Give it all a good stir to make sure the spices don't all fall to the bottom. Get your hands into that bowl. It's good for you, and for your granola.

In a large glass measuring cup, heat the oil and your sweetener of choice in the microwave. Give it a good stir with a fork or small whisk to combine as best you can.

Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients, and stir until it is all coated well. This is where you will get your first breath of the spices coming alive.

Pour out half of your granola onto a large RIMMED cookie sheet (if you use a flat cookie sheet with no edges you risk losing most of your granola in the process), and spread it out in an even layer. Break up any large clumps.

Bake it for 25-30 minutes total. Every ten minutes, pull out your granola and stir it with a spatula so that none of the granola gets burned. The third time you pull it out and stir, gauge if it needs another full ten minutes. It will usually need another 5-6 minutes.

Once it looks nice and toasty brown, put the granola on another COOL baking sheet to cool. It will crisp up remarkably once it cools. Store in an airtight container, and keep it dry and cool (i.e. NOT in your trunk in the sun on a summer's day... I speak from experience here) until you eat it.

If this batch of granola lasts in your home longer than a week, I take it all back.

Every Day Fruit Crisp

In More With Less, Doris Longacre Janzen ponders the purpose of dessert. Is it to add unnecessary calories to our diets? Is it to lengthen the dining experience? Is it actually a practice of gluttony? She writes that, instead, dessert can be an opportunity to add a few more nutrients to the meal. I would agree, and would also add that it can be one of the best times to truly appreciate the culinary bounty of any season: spring, summer, winter, or fall.

I am a fruit-a-holic. All winter long I feast on bursting juicy oranges. I pine for the summer berry fields - strawberries in early summer, raspberries and blueberries in high-summer, the late summer stone fruits - cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, and the final stretch into fall filled with harvest pears and apples and Saturday morning forays into wild blackberry patches.

You must understand, then, that my go-to dessert, my favorite of all, is one that preserves, even enhances the fresh beautiful textures and flavors of perfectly ripe, perfectly sweet summer fruits. The recipe is for a fruit crisp topping that can be piled on top of any fresh fruit. I've done this with apples, pears, a raspberry-blackberry mixture, and a few weeks ago with peaches. Having filled my freezer with berries, I hope to make a few apple-blueberry crisps as the fall winds its way into winter.

So when my friend Farnaz tasted the peach version of this fruit crisp, she immediately said, "I need this recipe!" However, she immediately followed that with a comment on her inexperience with baking. This recipe is much easier than pie. It's easy enough to make on a whim for a home-cooked meal, and elegant enough to take to a dinner at a friend's house to be topped with floppy whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

So for you, Farnaz, for special days and for every day, my favorite fruit crisp.

Fruit Crisp

1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
3/4 cup large flake oats
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 tsp each cinnamon and nutmeg
(or, any other spices to complement the fruit you are using... like ginger with pears, etc.)
a dash of salt

In a bowl, stir together everything except the butter. Then, cut the butter into small chunks and add that to the dry mix. Using a pastry cutter (or better yet, your hands!), cut the butter into the dry ingredients until there are no big lumps of butter, but the whole mix is about the consistency of peas.

Pour this topping onto 4 cups of chopped fruit, or berries, or any mix of fruit you like. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. Berries may cook more quickly than other fruits such as apples or pears. The ripeness of your fruit will also determine cooking time. The final test, though, is that the top of the crumble is golden and toasty, and the fruit offers little resistance to a fork.

Serve warm, with whipped cream or ice cream.

Cottage Cheese Muffins

There's a Jewish bagel shop named Solly's down the street. J. and I happened across Solly's one day when we were out shopping, most likely getting derailed by kitchen supply stores and funky clothing and home deco shops along the route of our well-intentioned trip. We were in desperate need of a pick-us-up, because we were getting grumpy. J., an insatiable sweet-tooth, always opts for a sweet treat, and I, a borderline hypoglycemic, grabbed the nearest thing to a protein fix I could see: a cottage cheese muffin, the last slouching muffin in the basket.

Solly's saved our shopping lives that day.

The muffin was airy, buttery, creamy, softly textured and the perfect antidote to the shopping blues. I had never had anything like it before. I haven't had anything like it since.

I've spent many hours scrounging online for recipes that might help me to reproduce these tasty morsels, but they're always off-the-mark. Too sweet, too herby, too much flour, not enough buttery goodness... so I decided to try my hand at recreating them from the simple muffin formula of about 50% fat and 90% moisture (thank you, Rose Levy Berenbaum, for your meticulosity that enables us all to be spontaneous).

I took equal parts cottage cheese and buttermilk and added just enough flour and egg to hold it together. A little parmesan for good measure, olive oil to make them pliable, plenty of baking powder and soda to give them a little loft, and some salt. They smelled amazing while they baked and tasted even better. I put in too much salt, though, for the parmesan and the salted cottage cheese I was using, but other than that... after popping one into his mouth straight from the muffin pan, J. mumbled around his mouthful of muffin, "I think you've got it just about right, hun."

So here it is. Cottage cheese muffins a la Solly's Bagelry. Reincarnated in my kitchen.

Cottage Cheese Muffins
(makes 12 regular-sized muffins)

1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
a dash of salt

In a small bowl, whisk together the cottage cheese, buttermilk, egg, and olive oil together until incorporated. (If you wanted to make a perfectly smooth muffin, you could do this in your blender, with a few quick whirls of the pulse button. I prefer a more textured muffin, so I did this by hand.)

In another, slightly larger bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, parmesan, baking powder and soda, and salt. Pour in the wet mixture, working in quick strokes and stirring just enough to make the batter come together. Do not overmix! That would make these beautifully fluffy and airy muffins too chewy.

Spoon into greased (very important) muffin tins. (For additional flavor, you can sprinkle your parmesan on the tops of the muffins just before baking instead of putting the parmesan into your batter. If you put the parmesan on top, you will want a little extra salt in the muffin batter to compensate.) Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the tops are golden. Serve warm.... without butter. (J., who is a butter-aholic when it comes to any kind of baked good, even pronounced these butter-free! Seriously, he would put butter on cookies if I let him.)

These muffins do well for a few days stored in an airtight container. They're lovely when they're warmed in the toaster oven. Perfect alongside a bowl of hearty soup or as a mid-morning protein-filled snack.

- ODG