granola bars at last

I can't tell you how many recipes for homemade granola bars I've tried over the past decade. Peanut butter granola bars, chocolate granola bars, healthy granola bars, unhealthy granola bars. We have a serious love of granola bars in our house. They, along with frozen yogurt tubes and popcorn, are my go-to snacks. And of the three, the bars top the list since we are always a-going, and they are the perfect last-minute-throw-them-in-the-bag snack for my constantly hungry children. Unfortunately most of my attempts have ended in one of two ways. Either they are totally inedible, or they are good tasting yet crumble to pieces. Part of the reason I always seem to have a canister of granola floating around. It often starts out it's life trying to be bars only to be crumbled into a jar and tossed on yogurt. (Which isn't a bad thing, of course, but still..)

You'd think I would have given up by now. Really, how hard is it to just buy the silly things. But I have a strange addiction to making things for myself (ricotta anyone?) and so I persist. And finally, finally, I've found a recipe that actually works. Yay!

This started out it's life as "The Sweet Bar" from Homemade Pantry and it's seriously good as it is, but on my second go round I made a few tweaks per the suggestions of Briton (where are the raisins? can they be thicker?) and ended up with a good, solid (not particularly healthy but not horrible) yummy granola bar.

Maple Syrup Granola Bars

1 stick of butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup maple syrup (or equal amounts of honey and syrup, I've done that one as well)
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cup puffed rice cereal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins or chopped hazelnuts (or both)

In a pot (or microwavable bowl if you want to use the microwave) melt the butter in with the sugar and syrup (and honey if you are using it)

Stir in the oats, salt and dried fruit and mix then add the puffed rice, 1/2 cup at a time, until you have a nice sticky but slightly spreadable mixture. You don't want it runny, but it shouldn't be a solid mass either.

Press into a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until the edges are just barely starting to darken. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool all the way before cutting. I like making 1 inch by 4 inch bars, but squares work too. Whatever floats your boat. We have been keeping these in a lidded Corning-ware pot between sheets of parchment (reused from baking them) and then put what we need for the day in a baggie.

Do you have a granola bar recipe that really, truly works? I'd love to have more recipes for variety.

baking

I've been spending part of the mornings, in between multiplying fractions and explaining the many uses of the dash, making goodies. Candies, some from a list of recipes I inherited from Will's dad, who inherited them from his mother, and some that are just favorites of mine.
Yesterday I pulled them all out from their various cupboard/fridge/freezer hiding places, along with one of my fruitcakes, cut into cubes, and boxed them up, ready to give out during a little (big, long, seeing lots of friends and family) trip we'll be taking in the next few days. Cranberry bark, truffles, rum balls, fudge and of course, fruitcake. Yum.
Now if I can just stop myself from nibbling on them.
What's your favorite holiday cookie or candy? Where did the recipe come from?

it's the melted butter darling

A few weeks ago Evie and I made a bath of chocolate chip cookies. I had kind of gotten out of the habit of making cookies every week. I mean, for one thing, even if I intend to restrict myself from eating the actual cookies once they are all baked, I still have to taste the dough, right? And also that all important first cookie out of the oven, well, I have to make sure they are fit for consumption. That's my job. And sometimes a second cookie is required, after they've cooled a bit and...well, you get it. I eat them. But it's hard to resist your youngest child when she asks to bake cookies with you. And they were soooo good. Sooooo good. We ate them all in one day. (the four of us that is, geesh, you didn't think just Evie and I ate them all did you? Ok, well, we could have, but we were nice).
So I made some more. And again, they were so freaking good. And not just good, they were pretty. Like bakery cookies. Now I love to bake but I'm no professional, so I knew it wasn't me, it had to be the recipe. I started thinking about what it was that made them so yummy.They do have a lot of chocolate. Really, a lot. And anything with a lot of chocolate has got to be better than just some chocolate. But it's wasn't that. It was the chewyness and the fact that, if they managed to stay around for more than four hours, they were still chewy. But not cakey. Then I realized that, unlike the old chocolate chip cookie recipe, this one didn't use softened butter, it used melted butter. And then I realized that several of the recipes I've tried in the past few months have had melted butter. I wish I could get all science-y on you here and tell you why, but I can't, so I'll just tell you. It's the melted butter darling. (The chocolate doesn't hurt either!)

This recipe started out as Smitten Kitchen's Crispy Chewy Recipe but has a few minor changes. First, I usually use unsalted butter and then salt in baking and I did with the first batch, as is called for in the recipe. But I found that the cookies actually had a slight salty aftertaste. I think it's because we use Kosher salt and maybe the salt crystals were just too big and so you can really taste them when you run into them. The second time I made them I tried adding the salt to the melted butter, and also reduced the salt. And that was better, but not my favorite. The third and fourth times I used part salted and part unsalted butter and left out the salt allotgether, and that was a winner. The other change is that in addition to the chocolate chips I also chopped up a bunch of semi-sweet baking chocolate and added that too. So you get chips and chunks and little speckles of choclate in pretty much every bite. I think the chucnks really make the thing shine. And how could they not, I mean, it's chocolate. I also weighed the ingrediants because that works better for me from batch to batch.
OK, health concious people, look away. No, I mean it, look away. This recipe is not good for you in ANY way. But it's yummy. So I'm going to share it.

So Much Chocolate Chip/Chunk Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

5 ounces salted butter
1.25 ounces of unslated butter
190 g dark brown sugar
100 g white sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk
350 g of flour
1/2 baking soda
5 ounces chocolate chips (milk chocolate)
6 ounces baking chocolate (semi-sweet) broken into chunks

Melt the butter in a saucepan and alow it to cool slightly. Using a hand beater, whip in the sugars and eggs until you have a creamy looking, light brown mixture.

In a large bowl sift the flour and the baking soda together. Fold in the wet ingrediants and mix just until incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and chunks.

The mixture will be a little loose at first but will harden up in a few minutes so it's best to give it a second before starting to scoop it out.

Roll rounded tablespoons-full of dough between your hands lightly and then space about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone sheet or parchment. Bake at 325 for 11 minutes and then allow the cookies to cool slightly on the sheet before removing.

And that's it. Pretty basic recipe, just melted butter. Have you had any baking revelations lately?

The Solstice Cake is a-Baking

And we are almost ready (just a few rows left to knit if I can distract the recipiant for a half an hour!) The first time we had a Solstice Cake, we were living in Ireland where, no matter what you believe in terms of religion, the shortest day of the year was significant. That far north it's far more noticeable just how short the days get in December, and having that behind you, knowing that brighter (but still rainy) days are ahead, is a welcome relief. Our first cake was bought from our local bakery, a wonderful place that was totally responsible for the fact that I lost no weight while we lived there despite our almost two year stint without a car. EVERYTHING was good. EVERYTHING was tempting. You could pack on a few pounds just passing the purple painted door. So when they offered Carrot Yule Logs, of course we had to try one. Why carrot? I have no idea. Weirdly they sell carrot roll cakes in the freezer section of the grocery store here so it must be a thing. In any case, we were hooked and other than a few odd years when I've tried something else, carrot yule log is a must.
This year, with the help of my trusty assistants, I'm trying out this recipe (oh please let there be a food processor under the tree, 3 cups of grated carrots were not going to happen and the dreaded mini chopper was not very efficient). Although, to be honest, Briton didn't assist much other than filling me in on a new theory involving a time when Dinosaurs and Dragon's coexisted on this earth. Sadly the Dragons felt the Dinosaurs were encroaching on their half of the planet and so sent a giant ball of dragon fire, i.e. a meteor, to kill off the Dinosaurs. Which is good to know, you know, in case I'm ever on Jeopardy.
Tonight we'll eat cake, light candles and pass around some of our homemade gifts and the rest of the week will be taken up in the swirl of Christmas so I'm planning on signing off until Monday. Have a wonderful, restful, joyful Holiday everyone.

Gillian

Freakishly Healthy Banana Muffins

I've made a lot of banana bread in my time. In fact, I think it's a requirement of motherhood that you make banana bread at the very least a dozen times a year. This is, or course, because children love banana's. I've never met a kid who didn't. Banana was, sort of, my first word. I say sort of because I called them "das" so I'm not sure if it really counts as a first word, but my parents knew what I meant. But the reason that banana bread is a fact of parenting isn't because kids love bananas, since if they really loved them, their wouldn't be bananas left to make bread from, but because children love to mess with your mind. The LOVE banana's one week, so much so that the next week you buy three pounds of them so that your child can have all the banana's they want. And that's when they decide they don't care for bananas after all. It's just a law of life, right about the time you think you have something figured out, it changes. Thus banana bread.

The other things about banana bread is that it's almost healthy, sort of. At least healthy enough that you don't feel totally guilty giving them a few slices for their snack (or meal, who are we kidding), much better than, say, that bright blue gogurt they wanted at the store (why would yogurt makers think it was a good idea to make neon blue yogurt? It just screams BAD FOR YOU! But I digress).

So I've made a lot of banana bread. And because I really like to tinker and toy and try out new recipes, I've tried several different versions. I had high hopes for Molly Wizenberg's recipe. It was good, but not as great as I'd hoped. The kids weren't too nuts about it. But this version, they seriously love. I mean, gone in a second, they don't want anything else for lunch but banana bread when I make it crazy for it.

And the best part is -not that I would ever tell them because then they'd probably turn their noses up at it - it's by far the healthiest version I've ever EVER made. Or even come across I think. Maybe they aren't really freakishly healthy but they are pretty darn good for you. I've made this as a loaf but I think it's even better as muffins, so that's how it works in our kitchen. Super (shhh..healthy) good banana muffins.

4 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Splenda (or sugar if you don't like Splenda)
1 can pear halves (I use the packed in juice variety)
2 eggs
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose white flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 T cinnamon

Mash the bananas and pears in a medium bowl with a potato masher before stirring in sugar, Splenda and eggs. Sift in dry ingredients and fold gently until combined. The batter should be slightly lumpy with chucks of pear and banana.

Scoop 1/3 cupfuls into lightly greased muffin tins and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and allow to cool slightly for a few minutes before serving.

As soon as these are cool I put them (what's left of them that is) in a Pyrex dish with a lid to keep them moist. But I don't think we've made it through the end of the day without eating the whole batch, so I've no idea if they keep longer than that :).

Grocery Overabundance

I can excuse getting to the grocery store and not knowing if you have this or that, buying it only to find that yes, you had plenty at home. I really can. Who hasn't done that many times? But my friends, there's no excuse for the fact that my refrigerator, my very small so I can't buy crap I don't need refrigerator currently holds 3 pounds of butter, three dozen eggs and enough pepperoni and mozzarella to make an army of pizzas.

I've waxed poetic about Retail Relay before. I use our local grocery delivery company so much that they actually came to my house to ask my opinion on how things were going. And they brought gifts. And they told me they could tell that I, unlike most of their customers, seem to do absolutely all of my shopping with them (many people buy staples from them or have occasional deliveries) which is kind of scary. But why oh why would you leave your house and schlep your children up to a grocery store when it can all come to you? Why?)The long and the short of it is that I do do all my grocery shopping with them. Save an occasional mad dash out for milk or bread or a stroll down to the nearest market for fresh french bread for dinner, I'm an online girl. Which is why I am shocked at my own behavior.

I'd like to say I had planned some big baking extravaganza and thus needed all that butter and eggs. Or that we were having a pizza party. But no, the truth is that I sat on the couch, 20 feet from the refrigerator, and ordered on automatic. Lazy sot. Actually I must really have been zoning out, I have absolutely no recollection of ordering a giant bag of large carrots (the kids only eat baby carrots, and yes, I know baby carrots are just big ones shaved down, but now I have to do the shaving) No do I remember why I felt the need to order only three bananas. That's not even one per person! We need at least five at a time in this house so that Evelyn can "accidentally" feed one to the dog and then try again. And I now have so much toilet paper I'm not sure where in my little house I'm going to put it all. But no paper towels to speak of. Let's just chalk it up to one big evening brain fart.

So now I have a whole lot of eggs and butter, and in an unrelated shopping event, two kinds of flour to deal with. Which, you know, is a little bit like telling a pirate you really need to get rid of a couple of gallons of rum. It's not really a case of what to bake, it's what not to bake. I've been trying to be good and not churn out cakes and cookies "for my family" which in the end really means "for me to eat while they are all at school or work." But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. The fridge is full to bursting. I must bake.

I have this craving for Pavlovas but that doesn't really take care of the butter issue. Strawberries are officially in season (canning post ahead!) so pound cake might be fun. I'll probably spend the afternoon cruising around Smitten Kitchen and Chocolate and Zucchini to see what tempts me. Anyone have a fabulous dessert (well of course it has to be dessert! What else are butter and eggs for?) I should try? Send it my way! My Kitchen Aid is ready to go!



Oh, and in totally unrelated news...heaven help us all because I've agreed to be one of the co-presidents of the PTO. Hang on to your hats!

And in more unrelated news... if things go well, we should have chicks in the next day or two. We're trying to set up a webcam for the big event but since none of us knows how to set up a webcam, that may not happen in time. But we'll give it a shot. Peep peep!

What Flavor is Vegan?

There is a snippet of lore in our family that never fails to make me laugh till my sides hurt. My husband, who is the subject of this much told tale, bears our laughs with good humor, in fact, I think he laughs these days as much as I do over it.

Will and I have known each other a long time. No, really, you think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. We met when I was 13 and he was 15... at the mall. He was helping his best friend pick out a gift for a girl who happened to be my best friend, so I was there to make the final call on the gift. (I wish I remembered what we chose. If I had to hazard a guess, it was probably a James Avery Charm, since we were nuts over them that year, but that's just a guess *edited to add - it was a Things Remembered ID bracelet. Man, you gotta love facebook for finding old friends who have better memories that you!*).

Actually, we met the year before that, although we didn't realize it until after we were married. I was "going out" with this guy named Stu Pendus (I kid you not) and was at his birthday party when I wandered out back where a cute boy was playing basketball. I flirted, he flirted (in that almost-a-teenager, awkward way, I'm sure) and then a decade or so later I married him. Not that we dated, or even knew each other that whole time, but still. I remember when he had his entire head shaved except for overly long bangs and he has a truly embarrassing faux Glamor Shot of a 13-year-old me. We keep each other entertained.

Anyhoo, after three years of living in different states and not having anything to do with each other, Will moved to Eugene, Oregon when I was a sophomore in college there. Now think about that. A 21 year old man moves from Dallas, Texas to Eugene, Oregon (right at the height of it's hippyness I might add. Before it was cool to be crunchy but when The Merry Pranksters were still alive and bumming around town and when people like Mason Williams showed up to teach a journalism class to play the kazoo - true story) All I can say is the guy was in culture shock (Will, not Mason Williams. I doubt much shocked Mason Williams) .

There were smelly people and naked people and a guy who rode a unicycle around campus in a hot pink unitard and a silver cape. The Rainbow people came into town and took up all the parking spaces with their crazy cars and a man named Frog sat on a corner and asked everyone who walked by if they had read The World's Funniest Jokebook (and woe to anyone who answered no).

So on the day of our story, my future husband, still fresh out of Texas and reeling slightly from the shock that was Western Oregon, walked into a coffee shop with my father. The coffee shop was well known for it's excellent bagels, interesting cream cheese flavors and damn good muffins. Will scanned the case, looking for something good and pointed at one of the muffins. Turning to my dad he asked,

"What flavor is vegan?"

Now I wasn't there, but legend has it that the entire shop went silent. And I can just imagine the reaction of a bunch of 20 something granola kids (I can say that, I was one!) when a tall drink of water with a southern accent asked such a question. He's lucky he got out of there with his leather shoes unharmed.

As you can imagine, anytime the words "vegan" and "baking" appeared in the same sentence in our family it has been met with laughter and cringes, never serious consideration. Until I read this recipe over at The Kitchn and found my mouth watering at the descriptions.

It's good folks.

In fact, I may never bake a non-vegan cupcake again. And that's big because I love to bake cupcakes of all kinds. But seriously, these are some of the yummiest cupcakes I've come across. I think they might just be my new go-to cake recipe of choice.

So now we know what flavor vegan is - yummy.

Just one note, I used a mini-cupcake pan which made the perfect sized treat in my humble opinion, but this recipe makes a lot of mini-cupcakes. Because I didn't want to have 60 delicious cupcakes hanging around the house at one time, I froze half the batter, in the pan, and later popped them in the oven - still frozen - at the same temperature. Worked like a charm.

Also, who needs cupcake liners when you can just cut squares of parchment. Duh.

Brioche Cinnamon Rolls

While I'm still spending as much time as I can on the garden before the rain comes (please no, give me one more day...more compost needs to be spread, onions need to go in the ground. Please, please, pretty please!) I did have a chance (excuse) to do some baking this morning.

Actually, I started last night. Because it was a school morning, and I am not waking up at the crack of dawn to give a yeast dough enough time to rise for breakfast. But starting last night and letting it rise in the fridge, well that I can do. Once in a while.

I've actually made this before. The dough is based on the Brioche dough in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day with a few alterations (starting with making a lot less) and the technique is based on one I learned in one the the Avoca cookbooks. And by technique I mean that, unlike regular cinnamon rolls, I pressed 1/4 of the dough into the bottom of a spring form pan. This does two things. One - it keeps all the gooey stuff from getting stuck on the bottom of the pan and Two - all that gooey stuff caramelizes in the buttery dough on the bottom, which is a good thing.

Usually when I make these I go nuts on the filling, double what this calls for. And in that case you get a really gooey, sticky, wonderful cinnamon roll. Today I used a more conservative amount of filling because, well, really I was more in the mood for Brioche with some cinnamon roll filling than cinnamon rolls that taste a little of Brioche. So it's your call. Double the filling or leave it as is. I like it both ways. Evelyn seems to too as I caught her sneaking her second (and they were big) cinnamon roll when we came in from digging.


Brioche Cinnamon Rolls

3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 T yeast
1 T salt
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks melted butter(reserve wrappers for greasing pans)
3 cups unbleached flour

Mix the water with the yeast, salt, eggs sugar and butter then work the flour in with a wooden spoon. It will be lumpy and sticky and ugly. Let it rest for either 3 hours or one hour and then in the fridge (covered with a tea towel) overnight.

In the morning preheat the oven to 350 degrees and cut roughly 1/4 of the dough off and press into the bottom of an oiled pan (how much dough exactly really depends on the size of your pan, I like my 9 inch spring form or a 9 inch pie pan)

Roll the remaining dough out into a large rectangle and spread with a mixture of

1/2 stick melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 T Pumpkin Pie Spice

Roll it up and slice into eight rolls. Space these out evenly on the bottom layer of dough in the pan, they will puff up in the oven so don't worry if there seems to be a lot of space between them.

Bake 25 minutes.

Sometimes I make a glaze for this but it doesn't really need it. Like I said, if you want them to be really sweet, make more filling. It occurred to be while I was rolling out the dough that this dough would make a good monkey bread. Not that I've made monkey bread before, but it seems like it would be a good fit. I mean brioche, cinnamon, butter, sugar, basically cinnamon rolls but in little stuck together ball form. Humm....

Holiday Baking: the final edition (well, maybe)

The last two days my mom and I have been baking up a storm. Although I love to cook with the kids, it's even more fun to bake with an adult, especially an adult who like to bake as well. My countertops, which have always seemed plentiful, are looking crowded as pans of sugar cookies cool and strips of wax paper hold drying treats. The marshmallows that I made back in August reappeared, this time dipped in chocolate or rolled in toasted marshmallows, or sometimes both. Will's new favorites were made again, this time in larger amounts. Sugar cookies, thumbprint cookies, lemon butter cookies, two kinds of fruitcake, brioche.... the amount of butter used is almost embarrassing. Almost. But not quiet.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, or Happy Winter, or Joyful New Year, or whatever you celebrate. Have a happy one. And eat lots of sweets.

Christmas Baking: Chocolate Dipped Orange Peel

A couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at candied orange peel and ever since, the three big mason jars of sparkly peel has been glaring at me every time I take out a platter or jar of jam from my basement pantry. "Why aren't you eating us? You know you want to!" they scream. And of course, I do want to eat them. They are a perfect blend of sour peel and crunchy sugar, sweet but not overwhelming. But I've resisted (for the most part) I wanted to save them for dipping in chocolate.

I talked before about the Christmas my family spent in London when I was a tween. Although I'm sure my parents version of that trip bares little resemblance to my memories of a charming, Dickensonian (in a good way) city, dusted with snow and filled with the wonders of Harrods Food Hall and Fortnum and Mason's colorful displays, I know that we all came away with an abiding love of Terry's Chocolate Oranges.

Back then you couldn't find a Terry's Orange in the states for love or money and so we were all mezmorized by the foil covered confection. My brother, who would have been about five at the time, thought it was great fun to get to bang your candy on the table as hard as possible. Smashing thing with the full permission of your parents is probably every five year old boys dream. But the real wonder lay in the magic combination of chocolate and orange. Who knew such a fabulous thing existed?

Now a days you can find Terry's Oranges in every Christmas Candy section from Safeway to CVS.I still look forward to finding one in my stocking every Chrismas morning, but I also love to try other versions of that same magical combination. Last year it was Nigella Lawson's Clementine Cake topped with Chocolate Ganache (which I made again last week, you cant go wrong with it!) and this year it will be chocolate dipped candied orange peel. A few go a long way so starting with those 4-5 large oranges and taking into account a few snacks and bloopers, you should have enough dipped peel for about 15 little baggies of treats.

Melt your chocolate (I like the dark chocolate made for dipping available in craft stores) in a double boiler, stirring as you go and removing from heat (but leaving over the hot water) once you have a smooth consistency.

Dip each piece of peel about half way in the chocolate, checking the sides to make sure the coverage is pretty even. Shake or tap off the excess chocolate and set on waxed paper to dry. Depending on how warm your house is that could take anywhere from five minutes to 15, I let mine set for about half an hour before bagging just to be sure they chocolate was nice and hard.

Because they will keep, dipped for a week or two these are great to make on a quiet afternoon to have ready for a quick holiday gift, if you can keep yourself from eating them in the meantime. So far, keeping them in a paper bag so I cant SEE them every time I walk by is working for me, but you never know when temptation might strike.

Gingerbread

Yesterday I spent the afternoon baking gingerbread. Well, re-baking gingerbread. Last week our cub scout troop made gingerbread in a jar to take home as a Christmas gift. And can I tell you that baking with four boys (and a three year old sister) offered all kinds of hilarity. We learned some valuable lessons, such as what happens if you turn the mixer on to the highest setting while someone is dumping in the flour and what cinnamon tastes like if you eat it on it's own.

After they left I put them in the oven to bake so I could hand them out this week. When I came back to check on them I found the oven off and the cakes half cooked. The power had flickered at some point and the oven had not come back on. So I scooped out the gummy mess, washed the jars and set them aside to make a new batch in time for the next meeting. This was only my second foray into baking in a jar, which I thought was a fun little holiday gift, and my first attempt at baking gingerbread.

I don't actually remember eating real gingerbread as a kid. Cookies, yes, but not the bread. In fact the first time I remember having it was the first Christmas after Will and I were married. We had driven up to Mt. Hood for some snowshoeing around Triangle Lake and were wet, cold and starving when we stopped at a tiny little restaurant called The Soup Spoon. The menu had two or three kinds of soup and gingerbread for dessert. It was warm and gooey and sweet and spicy and perfect after a long day of tromping through the snow.

After that we always tried to go to The Soup Spoon on our frequent treks into the mountains but rarely found it open. And in the year since I'd almost forgotten about gingerbread until I was fiddling around with the whole cake in a jar thing. Now I'm on the hunt for the perfect gingerbread recipe (the one I made with the kids was good, but not very spicy since I didn't think the boys would like that).

As for the Cake in a Jar, they turned out very cute. You can really bake any quick bread or cake recipe (or boxed mix) in a canning jar. In my limited experience, the straight sided style is better since it makes removing the cake easier. Just mix up your batter, grease the jars, fill them half way and bake as directed. If they poof up over the top a little you can ease it back down a bit and use wax paper with the ring instead of the metal lid that comes with the jar. Top them with fabric and ribbon and poof! Insta-gift for coworkers and neighbors.

Again with the Bread!

Back in our Dublin days, we were car-less, and except for Will who rode a bike, pretty much completely wheel-less. Well, unless you count the stroller, and the bus, and the train. OK, so we weren't wheel-less. But we didn't have our own personal form of transportation. Which led to a lot of walking. Fortunately we lived in a little village in the middle of Dublin that had just about everything we could want within a few blocks of our flat.Actually, we lived smack in the middle of three little villages. Every day Briton and I would walk down to the center of Rathmines to the grocery store and then up the road to Rathgar to the butcher and the bakery and then home again with out haul. But there were times when walking even a few blocks with a tired toddler and the pouring rain was just too much, which meant we often shot across our square to the little convenience store.

Now when I say convenience store, I'm not really talking about the grungy 7-11's we're used to here in America. These were actually closer to very very small grocery stores. You could, and we often did, buy everything we needed for dinner at the local SPAR. They had sandwich bread (including half loafs of sliced bread which I never got over laughing about, who buys half a loaf? OK, we had no storage so we did but still?) and french bread and pasta and sauces and pizza and milk and a pretty decent selection of cheese and even some meat. It was a little more expensive sure, but if you needed to, you could live pretty well off of just food from SPAR.

My favorite thing to get at SPAR however, was the brioche loaves. It looked like sandwich bread, it cost about the same as sandwich bread, but oh, it did not taste like sandwich bread. I'm not sure at that point I'd ever had brioche before and later when we went to Paris I had REAL brioche which was, of course, a different beast altogether, but this SPAR brioche was pretty darn fantastic. They also sold little packs of brioche buns, with and without chocolate chips, which were one of Briton's all time favorite snacks.

Now you know me, I get all nostalgic for things as time. And when it's gray and rainy and cold out, well, I get a little homesick for Ireland. And since I'd made a batch of Brioche dough for our supper clubs camping trip over the weekend (yum) and still had a little left, I decided to make a batch of chocolate chip buns for the kids for an after school snack. Well OK, I ate one too. Just right with a big steaming cup of tea.

Brioche Buns - Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

(this makes a LOT of dough. Two large loaves and two batches of buns. You can cut the recipe in half or freeze the dough after the first rise, defrosting and baking later)

1 1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T salt
8 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
3 sticks melted butter(reserve wrappers for greasing pans)
7 cups unbleached flour (the original recipe called for 7 1/2 but it has been so moist here I've been reducing the amount of flour in the bread to get a good wet dough)
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix yeast, salt, eggs, honey and butter with the water in a large (5 quart or bigger) bowl. Add the four and mix without kneading, using a spoon and/or wet hands until you have a nice wet dough. Cover and allow to rise at least 2 hours then refrigerate until ready to use. (You need to refrigerate it even if you are using it that day so that the dough is workable)

Using about 1/4 of the dough, mix in the chocolate chips and divide into 1/2 cup sized balls, shaping them into flattened ovals. Allow the buns to rise for about 30-45 minutes then bake for 20 min at 350. I brushed them with a well beaten egg so the top would be glossy but you wouldn't have to do this for it to turn out great.

For a larger loaf, put 1/4 of the dough into a loaf pan and allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours, baking 35 minutes at 350. I added chips to one of the loaves as well. Both were delicious.

So the BREAD!

The Bread. The bread was seriously good, especially after it had cooled enough to allow for a crispy crust but was still hot inside. If there were any leftovers I'd be eating them now but, well, there weren't. Especially after a certain seven year old snuck down and swiped the last slice a good hour after he was supposed to be in bed.

The book is called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It's full of delicious sounding recipes that I can see are not going to help my diet any, but hey, you only live once. Besides, who can resist Brioche? Not me. That's next on my list for sure.

Basically, the recipe makes enough for four one pound loaves that you mix all at once, let rise and refrigerate until you need it, up to two weeks. Then you cut off a chuck, do a little shaping, let it rise a but more and bake. Bread at your fingertips. My idea of heaven.

The "Master Recipe" is for a basic french bread that can be altered in a variety of ways, too numerous to go into, you'll have to go get the book for that, but for the basic, yummy round "boule" here's the drill

3 cups of lukewarm water (about 100 degrees)
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T Kosher salt
6 1/2 C All purpose flour (not sifted, they ask you to "scoop and sweep, meaning that you scoop out of your flour bin and gently sweep off the top so you don't compress the flour. Funny, that's how Ive measured flour for years, I always thought I was lazy but it turns out I was ahead of my time!)


Now they recommend using a pizza peel and a baking stone, neither of which I have, so I'll tell you how I did it and you can do it my way if you are tool challenged and their way if you aren't!

In a five quart bowl mix the yeast into the warm water, don't worry about getting it to dissolve. Mix in the flour with a wooden spoon, or, if it gets too difficult, with wet hands. You aren't kneading, your just trying to get a uniform wet dough consistency. This should only take a few minutes.

Cover the dough (not with anything that make the container air tight though) for about 2 hours, I let it rise for more like three because my house was FREEZING yesterday and it was a little slow on the rise. Pop it in the fridge until about an hour and a half or so before you want to eat. You can use it right away but it's pretty sticky so having it cold makes the next step easier.

When your ready to get going on it again, sprinkle flour or cornmeal on a piece of parchment and a little flour on the top of the bowl of dough. grab about a fourth of the dough and cut it off with a serrated knife. Form it gently and quickly into a smooth ball by pulling the edges under then plop it down on the parchment and let it rise for about 40 minutes. Halfway thorough the second rise (it will rise just a little, don't expect it to get huge) put a cookie sheet and a broiler pan into the oven (different shelves) and preheat both the pans and the oven at 450.

Dust the top of the ball of dough with flour and slash it with a serrated knife, I used the "scallop" style of slash marks but an "x" or a "tick-tack-toe" works too. Slide the parchment and the bread onto the hot sheet pan and pour a cup of hot water into the broiler pan, shutting the door quickly to trap the steam. The steam is the trick to the whole crusty outside, chewy inside thing it seems. Who knew? Bake for 30 minutes and then let the bread rest for a bit to allow for the crust to get nice and crispy.

The rest of the dough can be stored in a lidded (not airtight) container for up to two weeks. I actually made a half batch and have the remaining pound of dough in a yogurt container in the fridge which seems to be ideal. You can buy a larger food grade bucket and do all your mixing and storing in it if you have the room. Sadly, I don't. Which is probably good because then I wont be able to have the bread ALL the time, just MOST of the time.

Let me know if yours turns out well too, I'm curious to see what others think of this method, I think I might even like it better than "no knead"! Blasphemy!

Holy French Bread Batman!

Yum. Now that is one great book!















Excuse me while I go stuff myself with more bread.

Christmas Baking, Part Two

When I was twelve we spent the winter holidays in England for a real English Christmas. Or at least, I thought it would be a “real” English Christmas. Even at twelve I had read too many books featuring Victorian House Parties or windswept winter moors. Needless to say, we did not spend our afternoons tromping through the woods looking for Yule logs or listening to a caroling party. Instead we tromped though the wet streets of London, spending our afternoons entranced at the Christmas displays at Harrods and Fortnum and Masons. Which was just as enchanting. WE ate fish and chips wrapped in greasy day old newspaper. We went on a tour of the Parliament building where a guard gave my brother a rubber band “the Queen’s Rubber!” which awed a five year old Garrett into silence. And when it was almost Christmas Eve we drove out to Cornwall, at trip that , despite being only 250 miles took two days and one overnight stop in a little village where we stayed at the Bear Inn which I was convince was haunted, (someone gave me Jamaica Inn to read on the trip, maybe not the best idea for an over imaginative child)

Cornwall was rugged and beautiful and magical. My great Aunts house was, well, not. My overwhelming memory of that house involves being made to eat multiple helpings of Bubble and Squeak, which to this day gives me the willies to even think about. And I have no memory of eating a Christmas Pudding, although I can’t imagine that was left out. The boiled, mashed and fried brussel sprouts probably just overwhelmed all other food memories.


It wasn’t until we were living in Ireland that I had a real Christmas Pudding. We spent Christmas day with a group of friends having a pot luck dinner. Roast turkey, bread sauce (oh, I have to remember to make that this year! That was good!) “Chuffed” potatoes, cranberries in port, (we brought Frenches Green Bean Casserole just for kicks, it wasn’t particularly well received. “What are those shriveled brown things on top?”) and to finish it off, a flaming plum pudding with brandy butter dripping down the sides in a glorious golden pool.

So all this is leading up to the fact that the Christmas Fruit Cakes are mixed, baked and tucked away in their foil to wait till Christmas, and now I’m trying to decided if I want to make a Plumb Pudding as well.

I have all the fruit (leftover from the fruitcake extravaganza) I LOVE plumb pudding (although I think I'm really the only one) but what I don't have is a pudding mold. Every year I flip though the molds on ebay and waver over buying one. It isn't that they are expensive, I could pick one up for under ten dollars probably. The problem lies in this. One) do I need yet another pan in my cupboard, particularly one that gets used once a year? And Two) since I will probably be the only one eating it, do I really need the calories that would come along with it, especially with the brandy butter. The answer to both is of course, no. But still I waver. Yes I could use a bowl and cover it with parchment and foil, but where's the fun in that? Yes fruitcake is pretty much the same thing and yes I could slather brandy butter on that, which I probably will anyway, but there's something delectable about a Christmas Pudding. The dome of sticky brown cake with a sprig of holly tucked under the edge, the flames, the, oh, have I mentioned the brandy butter? No? Well, yummmm, the brandy butter. You see the dilemma I'm facing, don't you?


Well while I ponder I'm going to give you my grandmothers fruitcake recipe. BUT you have to promise to keep it sacred. Don't, you know, go and put it up on the web somewhere. It will be our little secret. And also, don't you dare give a slice to those naysayers. They don't really need to know what they are missing anyway.

Diane's Christmas Fruit Cake (altered a little bit by her granddaughter)
1 cup of rum (I like to stick a vanilla bean skin or two in my rum to soak for a few weeks before)
10 eggs
1 C molasses
1 cup grape juice concentrate
1 cp of VERY strong tea
2 cups sugar, 1 white and 1 brown
1 box of raisins
1 medium container of candied pineapple
1 large and one small container of candied cherries
1 small container of candied lemon or orange peel (or both if your feeling frisky!)
1 large container of candied mixed fruit (you will only use abotu 2/3 of this, but they don't come in smaller containers I've found)
1 pound of butter
4 cups of flour
2 T baking soda
2 T milk
4 t pumpkin pie spice (or a mix of cinnamon, mace, cloves and nutmeg will work)

optional (as in, if you must)
1 package slivered almonds

Mix all the fruit (and nuts if you are a nut person) in with the rum, grapejuice, molasses and tea and let it sit AT LEAST overnight (covered, and try not to pick out too many cherries to much on as they soak)

When they've soaked enough, cream the butter and sugar and add in the eggs one at a time. Sift in flour and baking soda gradually. Mix in the milk and the fruit mixture and stir till combined.

Grease 6 loaf pans and line with parchment. Pour batter in pans and bake at 275 for two hours. As the cake cool, sprinkle with sherry or rum. When completly cool, remove from the pan, keeping the paper on, douse again and wrap tightly in foil. Store in a cool place (the freezer works well but a pantry will do) until Christmas, dousing it every week or so with a little more rum or sherry.

*** Edited to add - After the first two weeks of wrapping and unwrapping for dousing I switched tactics and put all the cakes in deep brownie pans lined with foil and gave them an extra good dollop of rum and sherry then wrapped the whole thing up in more foil. Nice and rummy and just in time for the Christmas season! ***

Christmas Baking, Part One

Yep, I said it. Christmas Baking.

No I'm not insane. Well, I might be insane but not in this instance. Yes, Christmas is more than two months away but when it comes to Fruitcake, the longer it has to settle in, the better it is.

Oh yes, Fruitcake.

Now before you cringe and click away, hear me out. That fruitcake you've had, those cellophane wrapped logs from the grocery store, those overpriced loaves from Harry and David? Crap, all of them. The problem with fruitcake is there is SO MUCH bad fruitcake out there.

This is not that kind of fruitcake.

This is my grandmothers fruitcake. My honest to goodness, English granny's fruitcake (she would have hated to be called a granny though I bet, not her style at ALL!) My grandparents met in England after the War. If my memory serves me correctly my grandmother was a waitress at a bar my grandfather, who was on leave from his posting in Germany, was visiting. After my father was born they moved to California where they raised two sons and where my grandmother made fruitcake every Christmas.

After she died my grandfather carried on the tradition and in the last years of his life he passed the recipe onto my dad and I. The first time we made it was, ummm, interesting. Let's just say some changes must have been made over the years that were not added to the recipe and some frustration ensued after which I became the fruitcake maker of the family. I've had a few years to try out some of the changes that I think were made and last year I think I came pretty close, the cake was rich and dark and sticky and perfect with a cup of tea. But it needed a little more time to sit in the back of the cupboard doused in sherry. So this year I'm giving it an extra month of soaking.

So far it's just a big old pudding basin of fruit soaking in rum and grape juice and molasses and REALLY strong tea, but by the time December rolls around, ummm, it will be perfect. Just you wait.

Isn't It Fall?

Last weekend, Briton made one of those, melt your heart, I love you so much kind of statements you get to hear when your a mom. "Mom, your the best cook EVER! Your even better than the television cooks! Can you make me some of your pumpkin bread because it's sooooo good."

Now before I go on I should clear two things up. First. I am NOT the best cook ever. And I am no where near those gurus of the cooking channel. Last night I screwed up a chicken. A chicken! I'm still mumbling over that one. All I can say is it sucks when your instant read thermometer go haywire on you.

And second, my son is the ultimate complimenter. Don't get me wrong, he's a genuinely sweet little man. We've worked hard to teach him to be kind and loving and to always try to say nice things to people. And he's taken to it like a duck to water. He compliments women's shoes, he tells people they are wonderful. He used to kiss babies and shake hand when we got on planes. For a while we feared that he was heading toward politics with his smooth attitude. He;s good. He's very good. And when he frames a request for something with "your are the best!", it's hard to refuse.

So, with my boy in mind I went to the grocery store to get myself a can of pumpkin yesterday and found...none. Now, I know it's still September and so we are not officially into pumpkin season but, seriously? No Pumpkin? It's FALL PEOPLE! My kid wants pumpkin bread!!

I looked everywhere, I asked and got shrugs, I even went to a second store. No luck. In the end I had to buy a boxed pumpkin bread kit. That is how much I love my son. I'm willing to make boxed bread.

Now along with his request for pumpkin bread came this little nugget of hilarity. "And mom, can you add your secret ingredient? Because it makes it the Best!" Well yes, yes I can. My secret ingredient being zucchini. Which he knows very well. What kid asks you to add zucchini to his food? I know, weird isn't it?

And they were pretty good, for a mix that was all powder (I thought for sure there would be one of those little cans inside the box, what do they do, freeze dry the pumpkin and bash it to a powder, ugg!) it worked out surprisingly well. The chocolate chips helped of course (another secret ingredient, hey, it can't all be healthy!)

But really, grocery stores of Charlottesville, bring out the pumpkin! I'm ready to get down to some serious autumn baking!

Ummm...Pasties

Last night, while Will was working late and the kids were up in bed (well, in their rooms at least) I realized that, although I had fed the kids, I had neglected to feed myself, and with Will bound to come home starving after a marathon call to clients in Australia, I did what any wife would do on a Virginia June evening. I made Cornish Pasties. Ok, so no one else in Virginia was probably making pasties at eight thirty at night in the middle of June. But the truth is, it has poured down rain all day and was actually a little cold, or maybe my AC was just on too high, either way, pasties sounded just the thing for a late night dinner with an even later night meal for Will.

The last time I had Cornish pasties I was, well, I was in Cornwall, and I wasn't even old enough for a driving permit much less my own stove, so this was my first go round with the recipe. And I can't really claim that they were authentic since I used sweet potato instead of regular potato, but whose counting?

For the dough I turned to my new best friend Joe's Pastry (really, really great place for anything pastry related) where I had noticed on one of my earlier visits that he had not one but two different versions of dough for these little darlings. I chose this one, which I'm not going to repeat here since he does such a great job of explaining.

After pulling together the dough, which was surprisingly fast, I shredded some cabbage, thinly sliced a sweet potato and chopped half an onion and four slices of breakfast steak, a relatively cheap cut that we buy regularly from our butcher since it cooks quickly and is pretty versatile.

Seasoning each layer, I piled the fillings in and sealed them closed. And as a side note, after my first two I realized that I could use a plate to cut perfect circles for a more attractive finished product. Of course that mean slightly less yummy buttery crust to nibble when they were fresh from the oven. The dough recipe is supposed to make five pasties but I chose to make four generous ones, two for dinner, two for the freezer.

The end result was delicious, light but filling and just right for a late night dinner. The crust, which is really very close to a pie crust, was flaky without being crumbly and I think I've realized that my aversion to using shortening is the reason I never like my own pie crusts. Since I had shortening on hand, which I normally don't, I went with the half butter, half shortening proportion the recipe called for and now I may have to try the pasty dough as a pie crust next time I make quiche. Or maybe I'll just be normal and use shortening in pie crust at last.

I do think that next time I'll experiment with the crust. Much as I liked it, I remember pasties having a dense and slightly chewy crust to them. That may have just been the pasties I ate, or my faulty memory, but even if that's the case, I like the idea of a chewy versus flaky hand pie, so we'll see how that goes.

I had planned to have another for lunch but since today is crazy humid and hot, it didn't seem quite as appealing as a big glass of iced tea and a cold sandwich. Ah well, it'll be there for another day...