Makin' bread on the weekend

Bread is really fun.  I have found a few really easy recipes that turn out pretty much every time and are big crowd pleasers.  I'm adding this one to the list.  This recipe was a little off for me, I had to add a significant amount of white flour to the dough to get it to come together.  I added 1/4 cup at a time and probably added about one additional cup all together.  I also had to throw away my first starter because my yeast didn't turn out.  It didn't foam so I had to start all over.  No biggie I just hate to waste all that honey.  Anyway...

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Raisin Bread
Recipe adapted from Naturally Ella

Ingredients:

• 1½ cup warm water
• 1 package yeast
• ½ cup honey
• 3 tablespoon canola oil
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1½ cup whole wheat
• ½ cup white flour (plus more)
• 1 cup raisins

Method: 

Start by placing water, yeast, and honey in the bowl of stand mixer. Stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve yeast and honey, let sit for 5-10 minutes or until mixtures begins to foam. (If this does not happen your yeast was either old or your water was too cold or hot or your yeast was no good.)  Once yeast is ready, add oil, salt, oatmeal, and 1 cup of the whole wheat flour.  Add raisins.  Begin to knead with dough hook, adding the rest of the whole wheat flour and white flour as needed until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.  I had to add about 1 cup of extra white flour at this point, this may be different for you so don't take my word for it (dough should still be kind of soft, just not sticky.)  Continue to knead for 10 minutes.  Once done kneading set in a warm spot to rise.  If there are no sunny spots outside I turn the oven on to the lowest degree for a few minutes and then turn it off and make sure it's just warm and let it rise in there.  Let dough rise until doubled in size- usually about an hour.  Turn dough out and shape into a loaf or some rolls and place on a parchment-papered baking sheet. Again, place in warm spot and let rise until dough doubles in size-this is usually about 45 minutes.  Heat oven to 375˚, spray loaf lightly with water, sprinkle oatmeal on top, and spray with water again. Bake for 45 minutes or until bread is golden on top and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool and slice.

Lots of fruit lying around...

Strawberries, a couple of aging peaches, and half of an apple that no one ate...  I haven't made muffins for a while.  So I looked up a strawberry muffin recipe and then basically didn't follow it.


Strawberry Muffins
Recipe adapted from Sprinkle Charms

Ingredients:

• 1/2  cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup or more soymilk

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup ap flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt

• 1 pint chopped strawberries
• 2 mashed peaches
• 1/2 apple (chopped)

Method:

Wash and cut all of your fruit into one bowl, set aside.  Preheat oven to 430 and paper a 12 cup muffin tin.  Combine all wet ingredients in a bowl, mix, set aside.  Combine all dry ingredients in a separate bowl, mix, and add to the wet ingredients.  Mix until almost combined, add fruit and then mix just until combined.  Divide into prepared muffin pan and bake on 430 for 7 minutes.  Lower temp to 400 and bake for another 13 or so minutes, until muffins bounce back to the touch.  

Maida Heatter fan

Finally!!  Someone who likes Maida Heatter as much as I do.  She's the chocolate goddess of the baking world.  I recently made her Palm Beach Brownies and it is by far the best brownie I've ever made or tasted.  She knows how to make a rich decadent dessert like no one else.  So imagine how excited I was when I came across this blog where this guy is baking only from Maida Heatter's cookbooks!!  I have been bookmarking every other recipe.

For whatever reason I decided to make these chocolate chip wheat germ cookies.  The germ intrigued me.  I switched the ap flour to whole wheat and used egg yolks instead of a whole egg.

Chocolate Chip Wheat Germ Cookies
Adapted from Maida Heatter's Great Book of Chocolate Desserts via Mad About Maida

Ingredients:

The last lonely cookie

• 3/4 cup unsifted whole wheat 
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 lb (1 stick) sweet butter (softened)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats (not instant) oatmeal
• 3/4 cup untoasted wheat germ
• 2/3 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

Method:

Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with foil and set aside.  Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.  Cream the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat in the vanilla and two sugars. Add the egg and beat well. On low speed add the sifted dry ingredients, scraping the bowl and beating only until mixed. Mix in the oatmeal, wheat germ and coconut. Stir in the morsels.  Make walnut-sized balls of dough and spread about 2 inches apart on tin foil-lined baking sheets.  Bake two sheets at a time for 12 - 20 minutes (depending on your oven), reversing the sheets from top to bottom and front to back midway through baking. When they are done, the cookies will be lightly colored and the tops will spring back when lightly pressed. Do not under bake - make sure they are crisp on the edges and bottom when cool.  (If baking only one sheet at a time, use the upper rack).**

**Note:

I definitely left mine in a bit longer than the average cookie.  I wanted these to get nice and brown so I waited until they were thoroughly darkened around the edges and on top.  This cookie can't get overcooked.  It can only get more flavorful the browner it gets. Plus we like slightly burnt cookies over here.  

Twisted sister pastries take two

I made these dinishy pastry things once before, it's one of the best doughs I've ever worked with.  This time I decided to change the filling because the plain cinnamon vanilla butter filling that I did the first time was a little boring.  I had to drown them in danish glaze to make them interesting.  I also subbed some whole wheat flour this time because I ran out of white.  I thought that was going to be the kiss of death and the dough would come out weird, but I think this second try was a winner.

For the fillings I did a raspberry jam one and a chocolate one, both had brown sugar, butter, and almonds too.  And then I made a very thin danish glaze with skim milk and powdered sugar and drizzled it over the top.  Rather than hardening on top like a drizzle it acted more like a glaze that soaked in and made the pastry moist and sweet.

Twisted Sister Pastry with Chocolate and Raspberry Fillings
Adapted from Ask Chef Dennis

Ingredients:

(dough)

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons lukewarm water
• 3/4 Tbsp. granulated yeast
• 3/4 Tbsp. kosher salt
• 1 cup ap flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

(raspberry filling)

• 3 Tbsp. raspberry jam
• 1/2 stick melted butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• handful of pulverized raw almonds

(chocolate filling)

• 1/2 stick melted butter

• 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup pulverized semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Method:

(dough)

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly.
Lightly beat the eggs in a small bowl.
Add honey and melted butter to beaten eggs. Gently and briefly mix together then set aside.
Combine lukewarm water, yeast and salt together in your stand mixer and mix a little. Add eggs, butter, honey mixture. Mix together briefly.
Add ap flour and mix to combine. Add whole wheat flour and mix until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough will be damp and sticky. This is a no knead dough so just get all the flour mixed in and you’re done.
Place dough in a warm spot, covered but not closed (you want air flow) for three hours. The dough will rise and be full of air pockets. Perfect!

**Once the dough has risen you can assemble your twisted sisters, I suggest looking at the original recipe for pictures on how to twist the dough etc.  It's not hard but you really need to look at the pictures to get the idea.  

(raspberry filling)

Melt the butter, pulverize some almonds in the cuisinart, and mix with the brown sugar and raspberry jam.  

Spread a fre tablespoons of the filling on the dough before you roll them up to make the pastry.  

(chocolate filling)

Melt the butter and set aside.  

Pulverize the almonds and chocolate chips in the cuisinart, then mix in the other ingredients.  

For this filling, leave the butter separate and brush it directly onto the dough, then sprinkle the nut and chocolate mixture over top before you roll up the pastry.  

After you have assembled your pastries bake them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until they get a little brown on top and are hard on the outside.  With the pastries still warm I spooned a mixture of powdered sugar and skim milk on top.  I used about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and added skim milk a little at a time until the glaze was as thin as I wanted.

Whole Wheat Orange Olive Oil Rosemary Muffins

From a random fruity cake recipe- that looked delicious- I was inspired to make this muffin. I was just going to bake the cake in muffin tins, with peaches or something, but muffins with fruit in them don't hold up more than a couple of days in the fridge. They start to get soft and mushy from the water in the fruit.

The inspiration came from The Eccentric Cook's apricot breakfast cake. Interestingly enough, I just read an article in Lucky Peach Magazine about how terrible the commercially grown apricots that are available to us taste compared to the ones they have in Europe and Asia. Ours look really pretty but are completely tasteless. So I got rid of the fruit all together, backed off on the sugar, used half whole wheat flour, olive oil instead of butter, OJ and milk instead of just milk, and threw in some rosemary from my garden to compliment the orange. Also, I have perfected the baking temp to get the ultimate crusty muffin.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup OJ
1/2 cup milk
zest from 2 oranges
zest and juice from 1 lemon
big handful of brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups ap flour
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt

big handful of fresh rosemary, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 450, grease 12 cup muffin pan.
Mix all wet ingredients in one bowl and all dry in another bowl.
Add dry to wet and stir til almost combined.
Add rosemary and mix the rest of the way.
Pour batter into muffin pan and bake on 450 for 7 minutes.
Turn oven down to 375 and bake about 8 more minutes, until muffins are done in the middle- check with a knife.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes

Sunday morning pancakes!! This recipe comes from The Little Red House.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons sugar
3 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1/8 cup wheat germ
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Water to thin batter

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients (2nd paragraph), set aside.
Mix all wet ingredients (1st paragraph).
Add dry to wet and mix just to combine.
Add water enough to thin the batter to thick soup consistency.
Heat and butter pancake griddle and ladle out your tester pancake, once it really starts to cook you can ladle the rest.

Whole Wheat Honey Cinnamon Cornbread

I'm still trying to use up my Masa flour. This recipe used 3/4 cup and came out really well so I will be adding fruit to it in the future in order to use up the rest of the bag. Blueberries are the obvious choice. This recipe could also have a little bit more honey or sugar in it and be a nice cake. I would double the recipe and put whipped cream in between and fresh berries or something.

This recipe comes from Edible Perspective.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup fine-medium ground cornmeal
3/4 cup masa harina
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup low-fat buttermilk
5 Tbsp honey
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 9x9 square pan.
Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl, set aside.
Combine wet ingredients in another bowl.
Add dry to wet and mix just til combined.
Pour batter into pan.
At this point I sprinkled some oats and more cinnamon on top just for fun but blueberries would be nice sprinkled on top as well.
Bake for around 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean from the center.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes

It's Sunday morning, let's make pancakes!! The party's not over the day after a BBQ. I have to make pancakes for the neighbors and my mom and sister.

Ingredients:

1 1/ 4c whole wheat flour
1/2 c cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 c buttermilk
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

water to thin batter

blueberries

Method:

Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl and then all wet in another bowl, pour the dry into the wet and then thin the batter to thick soup consistency with a little water.
Heat pancake pan and melt a little butter on there to grease it.
After you pour out the pancakes onto the pan add a few blueberries to each one, then flip them.

Vegan Whole Wheat Oatmeal Cookies

I had a BBQ last night. Very fun. I made these cookies for my vegan friend Ben and everyone else ate them all!! They are so easy to make and you know I love that there is no mixer required. I guess that's the upside to not using butter, it's the same method as making muffins- mix dry together, mix wet together, combine them. This is also the first time that I have used a flax egg in a cookie. I have tried it in muffins before but not in a cookie- I think it worked well, the cookies are crispy on the outside and a bit chewy on the inside from the honey.

The recipe is from What Would Cathy Eat? I did change it a little: honey instead of molasses and walnuts instead of toasted pecans.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons water

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 ¼ cup rolled oats (old fashioned, not quick)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Scant ½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

½ cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons unsulphured molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup organic canola oil

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350.
Make your flax seed egg by mixing the flax seed with the water and microwaving for 30 seconds, set aside.
Combine all dry ingredients and walnuts in a small bowl (2nd paragraph), set aside.
Combine all wet ingredients in a larger bowl (3rd paragraph).
Add dry to wet and stir to combine.
Spread cookies (about 1 tbsp balls) on 2 cookies sheets and then squish them down a little flat because they don't spread and melt quite like regular cookies.
Bake about 15 minutes or until they are set and crisp on the edges.

White Chocolate Chip Mocha Cookies

Doesn't that sound good? Coffee and white chocolate in one cookie! White Chocolate is a funny thing isn't it? Not really chocolate, just oil and sugar right? But they are on sale at Acme right now so I got an opportunity to play with them.

This recipe comes from Bake Girl. I made a few changes: I subbed in a little whole wheat flour, bumped up the instant coffee, used all white sugar and a little molasses instead of brown sugar, aaaaaaaand for the first time ever I used chocolate extract that I bought a million years ago from Whole Foods.

I also finally stopped using my phone to take pictures of my food. It broke. So now I am using a real life digital camera and I think it is quite an improvement.



Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
4 tablespoons instant coffee granules
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar plus 2 tbsp molasses
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon chocolate extract extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix all dry ingredients in bowl and set aside (1st paragraph of ingredients)
Cream butter, sugar, and molasses in stand mixer until light and fluffy.
Add eggs and beat in between.
Add choc extract and beat.
Add dry ingredients in a couple of additions, it will fly everywhere because of the cocoa so add it when the mixer is off and pot a towel over it when you turn it on.
Add choc and white choc chips and combine.
Divide between 3 baking sheets and bake for about 15 mins, I like mine more well done so if you like them soft take them out sooner.

Baking with Maxine

Oh my lord these cookies are good. I haven't made peanut butter cookies for a long time but Maxine really wanted to try them out. The whole wheat flour really makes this recipe. The flavor is so intense and rich.  We subbed more butter for the yogurt because I didn't have any yogurt left in the fridge, and again I used egg yolks instead of whole eggs. The batter was a little crumbly but once we got them baked and cooled they held together nicely.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe adapted from Cait's Plate

Ingredients:

• 9 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup natural peanut butter
• 2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350.
Mix flour, b soda, and salt in small bowl, set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer cream butter and sugars.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix.
Add peanut butter and mix.
Add bowl of flour etc. to mixer and combine.
Make 2 tbsp sized balls, squish them flat with your hand or the bottom of a drinking glass and then make hatch-marks with a fork.
Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until cookies are set.
Let them cool completely before handling too much, they are very crumbly before they cool, but they will set up nicely.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes

It's waaay too hot to bake. But not too hot to make pancakes for Jenn and Natalie.

I like anything that involves bananas because I always have a lot of them lying around. I put just one banana in this recipe and it gave it just a hint of flavor. I think next time either 2 bananas or add in some sliced banana with the chocolate chips.

This recipe made enough pancakes for 4 or 5 people. You can definitely half it for 2 people unless you want leftovers. Again I used egg yolks in here because I alway have them lying around too.

This recipe comes from Leanne Bakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
dash of salt

1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup soy milk
1 mashed banana
5 egg yolks or 2 whole eggs
1/4 cup canola oil

water to thin batter

a few handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips- added after the pancake has been poured in the pan but before you flip it.

Method:

Combine all dry ingredients in 1st paragraph in one bowl, set aside.
Combine all wet ingredients in 2nd paragraph in another bowl.
Add dry to wet and mix.
Thin batter with a little water until it is the consistency of thick soup.
Heat your pan and melt a little butter on it.
Pour out a tester pancake and when that starts to really cook begin cooking the rest.
Add chocolate chips after you pour the batter on the pan and then flip them over. You would do the same thing for any addition like berries etc. to ensure equal distribution.

Pancakes keep really well in the fridge and are good toasted in the toaster oven the next day or just eaten cold from the fridge.

Whole Wheat Pear Walnut Muffins with Poppy Seeds

8 am and I'm baking muffins. I really like my lazy mornings. I was supposed to garden today but it got cancelled so I have the whole day to bake and study. Baking takes priority obviously.

This recipe comes from Bon Appetite. It was originally a tea cake but I changed out the butter and subbed whole wheat flour for the almond meal.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup 2% buttermilk
1 1/2 cups
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup soy milk

1 ripe pear, cut into small cubes
1 cup chopped walnuts

Method:

Preheat oven to 450.
Mix first paragraph of dry ingredients, set aside.
Mix second paragraph of wet ingredients, set aside.
Add dry to wet and mix until almost combined.
Add pear and nuts and mix until just combined.
Divide batter into prepared muffin tin and bake at 450 for 5 mins.
Lower baking temp to 400 and bake for another 12 mins or until muffins bounce back to the touch.

Vegan Whole Wheat Peach Pancakes

Cousin Arthur brought Marie some maple syrup back from Vermont so I made pancakes again!!

I think I said once before, pancakes are very easy and they're very vegan friendly. This recipe comes from She Bakes Here. I made a few changes like using whole wheat flour and adding soy milk.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Dash of salt

1 tbsp white sugar (for vegans, make sure there is no bone char)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2/3 cup of soy milk

1 peached- sliced

water to thin batter

Method:

Mix first paragraph of dry ingredients, set aside.
Mix second paragraph of wet ingredients, set aside.
Pour dry into wet and combine.
Add sliced peaches, mix to combine.
Thin batter with water until it is like a thick soup.
Heat skillet and brush pan with oil.
Start with your tester pancake, when it really starts to cook you can begin cooking the rest of the pancakes.

Whole Wheat Banana Walnut Nutmeg Pancakes

I'm getting so into pancakes lately!! This morning I woke up and said to my mom "if you make the coffee I'll make the pancakes". And pancakes are pretty easy to make vegan. You just need the liquid, the flour, and the b powder. No eggs, no butter or milk necessary. They are so versatile and so much fun to cook. I'm perfecting my flipping technique. Needs work.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Dash of salt

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup of water- more as needed to thin the batter to the right consistency
1/4 cup buttermilk or regular milk or soymilk

2 Bananas- cut up
Handful of walnuts- chopped up

Method:

Combine all dry goods (1st paragraph of ingredients) in one bowl, set aside.
Combine all wet ingredients (2nd paragraph) in another bowl, set aside.
Mix dry into wet, just til combined.
You may need to add more water at this point to get the right consistency. It should be like thick soup.
Add bananas and walnuts and mix til just combined.

Heat your skillet to med-high heat and melt some butter on the pan.
Drop on a small tester pancake and wait until it starts to bubble, then flip it and let it cook for another 20 seconds or so, when it comes free of the pan easily it's done.
Now you know your pan is properly heated and you can cook the rest.

Photo Credit: cuizoo

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Pancakes

I made these awesome pancakes for my family yesterday morning. They were really tasty and very very easy. I made the batter very early in the morning and just left it in the fridge until they arrived. They were so good they didn't even really need syrup. Just a little butter and yummmmm...

Original recipe from Eatliverun, it had chocolate chips which I left out but that would be awesome too. I doubled the original recipe because I was feeding several hungry people. Also next time I'm adding either vanilla or molasses. It seems to me that pancakes are just more liquidy muffins, so you could probably put all kinds of nuts or seeds or the zest of an orange, or fruit in them.

Ingredients:

3 small sweet potatoes- peeled and diced, microwaved to cook and then mashed
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 cup milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice

water if the mix is too thick

Method:

Mix all the dry in one bowl and all the wet in another bowl while you are microwaving your potatoes.
Mash your potatoes and mix them in to the wet ingredients.
Add dry to wet and mix just until combined.
At this point you would add your chocolate chips or what have you, then possibly a bit of water if the mix is too thick.
Heat up your skillet with a little oil or butter and test out the dough to see if the pan is hot enough.
When the test pancake is really getting cooked properly you are ready to start cooking the rest.

Mocha Banana Muffins

This recipe comes from The Happy Housewife. My aunt Nan left some chocolate milk in the fridge so I needed a muffin that would go well with it. I didn't add any sugar to this muffin because I added the milk (Wawa brand), which has sugar in it. I beefed up on the bananas and put in some instant coffee to give it an extra mocha kick.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
3/4 cup chocolate milk
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup strong black coffee
2 mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tsp instant coffee (add to wet so it dissolves)

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 425. Mash the bananas in a large bowl and then add all of the other wet ingredients plus the instant coffee. In a separate bowl mix all of the dry ingredients and then add them to the wet ingredients. Stir just til combined. Then add your chocolate and coconut, again, mix just until combined. Pour batter into muffin tins, sprinkle with a little coconut for fun, and bake for 3 minutes at 425. Then turn down the temp to 400 and bake for about 12 more minutes or until muffins bounce back to the touch and a knife comes out clean.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

Today I bring you one of my favorite Night Kitchen (my mom's bakery) faves. Actually I think that this was my favorite cookie that they made. What sets this whole wheat cookie apart is definitely the powdered milk. It gives it a distinctive flavor that you can't really describe. But it brings back memories....

Ingredients:

1 stick margarine
i stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp b soda
1/3 cup powdered milk
2 1/5 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup walnuts
2 cups chocolate chips

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350
Beat the butter and marg with the brown sug and add the vanilla. Then add the eggs and beat again. In a separate small bowl combine all the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the butter and beat until combined. Add the walnuts and chocolate and beat again. These guys should fit on two baking sheets covered with foil and bake about 12 to 15 minutes depending on how hard or soft you like. Honestly these guys can stay in for a while it's hard to overcook them. We actually like them a little on the burnt side.

And while I was making the cookies these guys were taking a nap...

Whole Wheat Rubarb Raisin Muffins with Nutmeg

So I figured out a way to use up all of the rhubarb... I took this Armenian Nutmeg Cake and made it into a muffin of sorts. I added rhubarb, raisins, orange zest, made it half whole wheat and half white flour, and accidentally added some cardamom. I backed off on the sugar and changed the cooking time and temp.

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup buttermilk or you can sub applesauce
2 tbs hot water

1 cup ap flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup polenta (to add crispness)
Just under 1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cardamom
½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbs ground chia or flax
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup raisins
rhubarb- as much or as little as you like- I used more than 2 cups
zest of one orange

Method:

Preheat oven to 400.
Mix all wet ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer.
Mix all dry ingredients in a separate small bowl.
Pour dry into wet and mix just until dough comes together.
Stop mixer and add rhubarb, raisins, and zest.
Turn on mixer for like 5 seconds just to incorporate.
Pour muffin mix into paper- lined muffin tin.
Bake about 20 ish minutes until muffins bounce back to the touch and have a little color on top.

Muffin Thursday: Strawberry Rhubarb Whole Wheat Corn Muffins

I picked up a huge bag of rhubarb this week at Produce Junction!! What to do with it? Obviously strawberries have to be involved, and I think it was Marie who suggested the corn muffin part. We have been trying to think of ways to use up the huge bag of masa corn flour that has been sitting on the shelf forever.

I used this recipe for the muffins but added about 1 1/2 cups of strawberries and 1 1/2 cups of chopped rhubarb. I made a few other changes to include the masa flour and balanced it out with whole wheat. I changed the butter to oil and instead of using all milk I threw in some buttermilk that I found in the fridge and a little skim too. I cut back on the sugar and used a giant muffin tin to bake them. I also doubled the ingredients from the original recipe because I wanted to use as much rhubarb up as I could and I still have some left sitting in the fridge.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup masa corn flour
2 Tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup canola oil
scant 1/4 cup sugar
2 egg
1 1/4 cup butter milk
3/4 cup skim milk
1/2 pint strawberries, chopped
4 stalks or so rhubarb, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS
Stir the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Stir the sugar into the oil.
Add the eggs and milks.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir, just to combine.
Pour in strawberries and rhubarb and stir just until dispersed.
Divide into 6 greased giant muffin cups.
Bake at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are crusty and the muffins bounce back to the touch.
Let the muffins cool for a while in the pan- the masa flour makes them very brittle, if they look like they're going to stick heat the bottom of the pan and use a knife to loosen around the edges. They taste great even when the tops fall off!