make it yourself: morning glory muffins

I've been interested in getting back into baking more regularly. I used to bake constantly, but as I've tried to stay away from excess sugar, it's become harder to justify making cake after cupcake after cookie. So I've turned to our King Arthur Whole Grain Baking book for some healthier alternatives. 

This weekend I tried morning glory muffins - made from whole wheat flour and a melange of other healthy ingredients. More than I've ever tried to pack in a muffin before, certainly!

The dry ingredients are just whole wheat flour and some brown sugar, plus the usual leaveners and salt, and ginger and cinnamon for spice.

The most time consuming part of this - even more than the baking itself - was grating 2 cups worth of carrots and a cup of apple (I used braeburns from our CSA). The chickens were pretty happy with the carrot shavings and apple peels!

Added to the carrots and apples (plus some raisins which were soaking in hot water, but were gross looking from the murky water and thus not really picture-worthy), were walnuts, coconut and sunflower seeds.

Wet ingredients were canola oil, orange juice, vanilla and eggs. No butter, which helps keep the calories and fat down, too.

The batter was quite thick and chunky. It definitely wasn't an airy muffin, since it was hand mixed and less air was worked into the batter.

The cookbook said this made 12 muffins, but I'm thinking they meant the large muffins, because it made 24 standard size, coming in around 176 calories each, with a lot of fiber, protein and fruits and veggies. 

These are great breakfast muffins, because they are hearty enough to keep you full for longer than a typical sugar packed muffin would. And probably would make good snack muffins as well, since they aren't going to give you a sugar rush in the afternoon.

If you're interested in baking with flours other than regular refined all-purpose flour, definitely check out this book. Every recipe I've made in this cookbook has tasted good, and it helps you remember that whole wheat doesn't have to taste like cardboard! I plan on trying out some whole wheat honey biscuits next - they are calling me!


I wasn't paid or perked by King Arthur Flour to say good things about their cookbook. They have no idea who I am. And the link for the cookbook was for your convenience, not an Amazon affiliate link. Full disclosure.

spreading holiday cheer with cookie boxes

The first Christmas Mark and I were together, we combined our baking super powers to make assorted holiday cookie/treat boxes for friends and family. The tradition grew over the next few years, each year upping the ante and making the box bigger and badder. Last year, because of Maggie's surgery and its associated expense, we had to forego the cookie boxes. This year, we prepared to resurrect the tradition and got our plans together, including the necessary three days off of work it requires. And then Maggie passed away the morning we were supposed to start.

We decided there would be no better way to work through our sadness than to spread some cheer and joy, so we forged ahead. Two and a half days later, we had 16 cookie packages ready to be sent across the country and hand delivered to family and friends. And our dining room looked like Santa's workshop exploded.

Mark has a family recipe for fruitcake that actually tastes good. It's such an intense job to make that it has to be mixed in a food grade bucket, but it's worth it.

My grandma Taylor was known for her cookies, and the molasses cookies she always made came from her mother's recipe. They are amazing chilled in the freezer, dipped in hot coffee.

I am slowly becoming a biscotti fan, and after I made chocolate peppermint biscotti with candy canes and white chocolate for our 2011 boxes, I had to repeat it this year.

I also experimented a few years ago with homemade marshmallows, and they made an appearance as well. This recipe is even good as they dry out, and they go great over a mug of cocoa.

Mark made batches of a classic favorite - white chocolate cranberry oatmeal.

Shortbread is one of my favorites, so I tried a new recipe for vanilla sables, which was delicious (and also didn't crumble like a lot of shortbread does).

Mark made eggnog fudge, which was a hit even with people (like me) who don't like traditional eggnog. 

I can't bake anything without considering at least one item that includes peanut butter, so I tried a classic Good Housekeeping recipe for toffee peanut butter rounds. Not the prettiest cookies in the world, but definitely the kind where you can eat 4 without even thinking.

Two boxes got a special addition, due to these particular family members having an affinity for them - vanilla coconut macaroons.

And last but not least are my favorites each year - sci fi gingerbread. Being geeks to the core, we love our Star Wars and Star Trek cookie cutters. (The Star Wars once are from Williams Sonoma and the Star Trek ones were custom-made for me by an Etsy seller, though Think Geek sells some now.)

In the interest of time, we used white royal icing and colored sugar instead of coloring all of the icing and filling in the cookie details. But they still turned out awesome and close to the right colors (Chewy got close with orange).

I particularly love the red symbol of the Klingon empire. The warrior's cookie of choice.

Star Trek: Delta shield, Vulcan salute, Klingon empire

Star Wars (light side): R2D2, Yoda, C3PO and Chewbacca

Star Wars (dark side): Darth Vader, Storm Trooper, Boba Fett, Death Star

We even had enough grape jelly that we could share a half pint in each box!

make it yourself: indoor smores and chocolate chipper champs

My grandma was the cookie queen. While everything she made was delicious, her cookies were a specialty. She’d make up care packages for me in college and even when she included date cookies, I scarfed them up. (And I don’t even really like dates!)

So when my best friend asked for one of my grandma’s desserts for her birthday, I knew I had to choose cookies. I picked two kinds: indoor smores and chocolate chipper champs. Mark made homemade vanilla ice cream and we had cookies and milkshakes to celebrate!

First up, indoor smores. This is a great no-bake recipe that you can make in about 10 minutes. I think all of us have at one point scrambled to find something easy to make and bring to a picnic in the summer or a potluck at church. This recipe is great for those situations!

I bake with organic chocolate chips if I can’t get fair trade. (For an explanation of why, see this post on chocolate.) I also used Three Sisters graham cereal, since it’s made with no artificial ingredients (and my friend is allergic to yellow #5). Whole Foods has their own brand of marshmallows in the bakery section, which are also artificial ingredient free. Add some corn syrup, vanilla and butter, and we’re off.

Melt the butter, corn syrup and chocolate in a saucepan and bring to a boil, constantly stirring. 

Add the vanilla off heat and then dump the mixture over the cereal in a large bowl. Mix and add marshmallows. (I reserved some on the side for a final topping.)

 

Press into a greased 13 x 9 and add the rest of the reserved marshmallows. Let it sit. 

Later, get out your propane crème brulee torch and go to town, toasting the top marshmallows. (Mark was the torch master in this photo.)

Indoor smores - all the deliciousness of smores without the campfire!

Next up, chocolate chipper champs. (What a great name for a cookie!)

The ingredients for these are the basic brown sugar cookie recipe, but with extra chocolate! I used the same chocolate chips as in the indoor smores, but added Sunspire chocolate candies. Sunspire makes fair trade chocolate and they don’t use artificial ingredients in their candies. Since my friend loves M&M’s, but can’t eat them because of the artificial colors in the shells, these are the next best thing!

Most cookie recipes have you cream the sugar and butter together first before adding eggs and vanilla, but grandma’s recipe says to just dump it all in the bowl, so that’s what I did. 

Forgive the gratuitous batter shots. I just love batter.

Add in the dry ingredients until you have a thick cookie batter, and add hearty amounts of chocolate chips and chocolate candies. (So much that your paddle on your mixer starts to groan.)

Scoop into drops on a cookie sheet. We use Silpat mats on all of our cookie sheets – a fantastic investment that I highly recommend if you do a lot of baking. Easy clean-up and the cookies come off the mat seamlessly.

Grandma’s recipe notes that after dropping the dough on the sheet, you take two candies and push them into the top. No idea why, but if it was good for her, it’s good for me.

About 11 minutes later, you have chocolate filled ooey gooey candy cookies. Or chocolate chipper champs, as grandma called them.

(If you’re interested in the recipes for these, let me know. I’m happy to share – grandma always did!)

make it yourself: a simple bundt cake

It's not all food politics and railing against big agriculture at the Next Gen House. We spend a lot of our time cooking and baking (at the moment we have cookies cooling in the dining room, venison stew on the stove and refried beans in the crock pot). My family celebrated my sister and dad's birthdays this weekend, and I made an often requested family favorite - lemon bundt cake with cream cheese glaze. 

I find baking to be very calming and actually quite beautiful. How you can take some simple ingredients and with a little measurement and effort make a dessert that makes people roll their eyes back in their head with joy? Magic.

I am a huge fan of Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen for recipes that stand the test of time. The bundt cake I made was from the ATK family baking cookbook. 

I love that cakes in particular have a very specific order of operations. Dry ingredients mixed up first.

Wet ingredients separately, in this case buttermilk, lemon juice and vanilla.

Creamed butter and sugar.

Four eggs given from the ladies in the backyard, stolen from under the rump of a broody hen.

Zest of lemons for a citrus flavor.

ATK recommends brushing a flour and butter mixture into your bundt pan to get it to release properly. It worked really well!

 Beautiful, thick cake batter with a buttermilk and lemon scent.

 An hour later, perfection.

Whip up a glaze with cream cheese, confectioners sugar, vanilla and milk. Drizzle liberally. Just glop it.

Take gratuitous shots of the cake and glaze. That way you can remember what it looked like before hungry people devoured it.

The next time you reach for a box of cake mix with a list of chemical ingredients a mile long, think about making your own cake. There's a great joy to be found in making delicious foods for your family - birthday cakes included!