A Taste of Childhood (Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies)

I am half-Icelandic. I am very proud of this fact, but other than a fascination with ancient Norse clothing and culture and a physique that leaves me looking like I just walked off the set of Vikings, it hasn't had a huge impact on my life. Unless, of course, we talk about Christmas.

The holidays are a time when my Scandinavian background comes to the fore. We open presents Christmas Eve. We always get clothing so the Jólakötturinn won't eat us (that's a demon cat that comes for people who don't get new clothes by Christmas Eve. It's a real thing. Honest). And we eat a few traditional foods. Not Lutefisk. Or blood sausage, though my uncle did make some one year for my Amma (that's my Grandmother). No, we eat things like Terta, which is possibly the best thing in the world. It's a layer cake, with thin layers of cookie separated by layers of cardamom-spiced stewed prunes. I know, it doesn't sound amazing, but believe me it is. I once wrote a poem about Terta. That's how good it is.

Oats. The beginning of so many amazing things. And porridge.

But I'm not going to write about Terta today! That's for another day, perhaps closer to Christmas. No, today I am writing about it's little adopted cousin. These are not an Icelandic food, but they could be. My mum made them up when I was little and we have always called them Terta Cookies.

Best. Cookies. Ever

Basically, they are an oatmeal sandwich cookie with Terta filling inside. It's very simple, but these are my most favourite cookie in the world.
The oatmeal cookies are from a Robin Hood Flour cookbook my mum has had forever. I'm honestly not sure she ever makes anything but these out of it, I don't think I've ever seen her do so. (No, wait, I tell a lie. I just had to go get one of these cookies to eat while I write this and on the way back from the kitchen I remembered a recipe for Oat Bars - also to die for - that came from that book)
I realized while making these that they would be quite easy to make vegan. There are no eggs, the milk is easily replaced with non-dairy milk and I used coconut oil instead of some of the butter and shortening when I made this batch with zero ill effects. Yay vegan recipes! (note: if you live in a climate where your coconut oil is normally a liquid, chill it thoroughly before using it in this recipe and try to make the dough up quickly so it doesn't melt)

Half coconut oil, half butter. All delicious.

I will say this, though: don't try to make it healthy by changing the sugar. The brown sugar is a huge part of the flavour and texture of this cookie. If you were to change it out, they would never be as good.

Now I have the Rolling Stones stuck in my head. Yes, I know that song isn't about baking.

Once you mix up the dough, you chill it. The recipe says "several hours," I accidentally left mine more than 24 and it was fine. DO NOT skip this step. This dough is very very sticky; if you tried to do this at room-temperature it would be a disaster. Even well-chilled, you need a lot of flour to roll them out.

Seriously. I could eat my computer right now.

Rolling out the dough was difficult for me. Not so much the rolling itself, but resisting the urge to just eat it all raw was really hard. This cookie dough straight-up smells like my childhood. I ate way more of it than I'm really comfortable admitting (or even thinking about...).

Aren't they pretty?

Once the cookies are baked and cooled, make sandwiches! I, of course, fill mine with Terta filling (I'll link to that post when I do it next year, promise) but I imagine you could fill it with anything you want, really. Or just eat them plain. This is a spectacular oatmeal cookie, it really is.

Mmmmm... prunes....

Rolled Oat Cookies - makes about 60 2" cookies, or 30 sandwiches
(adapted from Robin Hood Flour cookbook ca. 1975)

1 1/2  cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup Butter/shortening combination (or coconut oil)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 milk (or non-dairy substitute)
2 cups rolled oats

Measure flour into dry measuring cup, add baking powder and salt. Stir well to blend
Cream shortening, butter (or coconut oil) and sugar thoroughly. Add milk gradually, mixing well.
Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and mix well.
Stir in oats.
Chill dough several hours until firm.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Roll out dough on floured surface to 1/8" thickness. cut with floured 2" cookie cutter. Place on lightly greased (or lined with parchment paper) baking sheet.
Bake 16-18 minutes, until golden. Cool on racks.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Popcorn

After supper tonight I asked the kids if they wanted popcorn. To the surprise of no one, the answer was a resounding Huzzah! However, Rowan wanted chocolate popcorn and Willow wanted peanut butter. Ahh, flavor dilemmas... What's a girl to do?

Throw stuff in a saucepan, what else?

Thankfully, as a human on this planet, I am well aware that chocolate and peanut butter often go well together. 

Like, so well.

Yes. I made Reese's popcorn. And it was just as amazing as you're thinking it might have been. 

I couldn't get a picture without hands!

It's not crazy sweet, just enough to make this stuff almost impossible to stop eating. The coconut oil definitely adds a flavour, but it works beautifully with the peanut butter and chocolate. I might try butter next time, though. Or just more peanut butter! In our house, I can't go wrong with more peanut butter.  

This was taken on a high counter.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Popcorn

Ingredients

6 cups popped popcorn (you can do this in the microwave, just make sure it's plain)

1tbsp coconut oil or butter

1tbsp honey

2tbsp peanut butter

1/8-1/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 

2. In a small saucepan, melt the honey, oil (or butter), peanut butter and chocolate chips till smooth. 

3. Put the popcorn in a large bowl. Drizzle the sauce over the popcorn, tossing gently to coat. 

4. Spread the popcorn out on the baking sheets. Bake for 5 mins, remove from oven and stir. Repeat until the popcorn is almost dry. 

5. Allow to cool completely before eating. 

6. Store in an airtight container, should you have any left over. 

Snack time! (Puffed Rice)

This recipe came from Karen Solomon's fantastic book, "Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It." I'm a trifle obsessed with it right now; there are some truly amazing recipes in there. Plus so many "holy crap that's so easy, why am I not doing that every day??" recipes, which are my favourite kind. This one is great, it uses up leftover rice and is insanely delicious.

I think she sums it up really well in the intro to the recipe for corn flakes (the page before the puffed rice): "There come moments in kitchen projectry when one has to ask oneself, "Is this insane? Have I crossed the line from food-craftiness into utter madness, making my own cornflakes?" Search inside your gut and you will find the answer to that question yourself."

Yes, I am mad. But it's a pretty awesome madness, and my family seems to enjoy reaping the benefits.

Puffed rice

Ingredients:

Cooked rice (long grain is better, but I've used short as well)

Oil

Seasoning

Once you've eaten whatever meal the rice was for, spread the leftover rice on a baking sheet. You can either leave it out for as long as it takes to dry completely, or put it in the oven at 180 with the door cracked. Stir it occasionally, breaking up clumps, until it is totally dry.

Line a baking sheet with paper towel and prepare your seasonings. We prefer cinnamon and sugar. 

Looks like it's uncooked again!

Heat a couple of inches of oil in a round-bottomed skillet (a wok is perfect) until smoking hot. Pour the rice in in no more than 1/2 batches and stir. Use a skimmer to scoop them out as they start to get brown, onto the paper towels to drain. 

Season. Eat!

A note on oil: I usually use peanut oil for these. It's a nice, light oil that leaves the rice fluffy. Tonight I discovered to my chagrin that I was out of peanut and I had to substitute canola. Though still good, I find them to be not AS good. The canola oil seems to have made the rice much crisper; almost to the point of painfully so. Also, I don't like the way it makes my house smell and the smoke from canola oil really bugs my eyes. I conclusion, not using that again. Definitely going back to peanut.

Meeting Noms (lime-coconut cupcakes)

We're having a production meeting at our house tonight and so, as I am wont to do, I did some baking. Astro makes this to-die-for lime yoghurt that I'm kind of obsessed with right now and I really wanted to try baking with it, so I decided to make up something that (in my head, at least) sounds divine: lime cupcakes with coconut frosting. All it needs is tequila, right?

I'm really into texture (fabric, food, anything) and I have to say the batter for these was possibly the sexiest cake batter I've ever seen. Like, wow. So excited to eat these!

 

I adapted a recipe from this awesome KitchenAid cookbook I have and the only problem I ran into is that the recipe yields 24 cupcakes but I only have tins for 18. This is only sort of a problem. See photo:

Oops. Oh well. 

The frosting was made using flour, which I've never tried before. It's delicious, but more of an icing. The coconut oil has such a low melting point that it's keeping the frosting rather liquid-ey. I put it in the fridge for a while before putting it on the cupcakes, then only frosted what we were going to eat right away.  The original recipe used butter and shortening; I think I'd like to try it that way next time, but this was still so good!

Recipe (adapted from KitchenAid's The Cakes & Cupcakes Book)

Lime Cupcakes

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup Astro Lime yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla

3-4 tbsp lime juice or to taste

3 eggs

1) preheat oven to 350F. Line 24 standard muffin cups with paper liners

2) mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in electric mixer until well-blended. Add butter, beat at medium speed for 30 seconds. Add yoghurt, vanilla and lime juice; beat for 2 mins. Add eggs; beat 2 minutes. 

3) divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

4) bake 20 or until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Cool in pans 5 mins; remove to wire racks and cool completely.

Coconut Creamy Frosting

1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Dash salt

1 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar

1) combine flour and salt in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in coconut milk until well-blended. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, cool. 

2) beat coconut oil and butter with electric mixer at high speed until creamy. Add sugar, beat until light and fluffy. Add cooled flour mixture, beat till smooth. 

3) ice cupcakes, eat!

Sneaky veggies (Coconut-carrot oatmeal cookies)

I have small children. This means I am forever trying to find ways that they will eat vegetables. I try not to be too sneaky, I want them to realize what they are eating when they enjoy it. Sometimes, though, I just want to be able to feed them something I know they will eat (i.e., cookies) and be happy in the knowledge that they are also eating something healthy (i.e., carrots). 

I toasted the coconut before putting it in. It makes my house smell so good and adds a nice nuttiness to the cookie.

tried to make the recipe as healthy as I could (cutting most of the sugar, swapping out most of the butter for applesauce...) but they are still cookies. 

They aren't a meal, but they're a reasonable snack. 

 

They would probably also be good spread in a 9" square baking pan and cut into bars, too....

Recipe: (adapted from Joy of Cooking oatmeal raisin cookies)

Preheat oven to 350, grease or line two cookie sheets.

Whisk together

2 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp grated or ground nutmeg

Beat together until well-blended

1 cup applesauce and butter (about 1-2 tblsp butter, the rest applesauce)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

Add flour mixture, stir. Mix in:

2 cups finely grated carrots

1 1/2 cups toasted unsweetened, shredded coconut

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Drop by tablespoon fulls about 2" apart on cookie sheets. Flatten to about 1/2" thickness. Bake until lightly browned, 12-14 minutes. Let stand briefly, then move to wire rack to cool completely.

Adventures in Preservation (Cherry jam)

We have a cherry tree in our yard. It produces lovely little cherries, tart but not sour, and seemingly mountains of them. Last year I made a couple of pies and froze the rest. There are still several big freezer bags that I need to get through and it's already producing more! I needed to pick the first crop and I wanted to do something with them. I've been really interested in trying canning and found some great information and instructions so I felt ready. I bought my funnel, lifter, de-bubbler and magnetic lid wand and a dozen pint jars and figured cherries were the way to go.

I decided to make jelly, so I wouldn't have to deal with pitting and all that, but I kept running across this recipe for pectin-free jam. I had neglected to buy pectin, so I saw it as a sign. So I got out my new cherry pitter (which beats the pants off my old one) and spent two hours pitting cherries last night. I was worried I didn't have enough fruit as the recipe called for 2lbs, but once I was all done pitting I discovered that I had just over 2lbs. Meant to be!

I added the sugar and left them in the fridge to macerate. I really like that word....

Before

Today, while my jars were in the dishwasher, I cooked the cherries till they were soft, but not falling apart.

After. This look about half an hour

Then, I added 1tblsp fresh lemon juice and 1/4 tsp. cinnamon and cooked it a bit more. I used my immersion blender to roughly mash the cherries as they were too small for my potato masher. I tasted the jam at this point and found it still quite tart, so I added close to 1/2 cup more sugar.

Mashed!

I tested the jam on a plate I had put in the freezer, putting a dollop of jam on the plate and letting it sit a few seconds. Then I drew my finger through it. The line didn't fill in, so it was good! I added 1 tblsp. amaretto and cooked it a little more, then filled two jars (well, almost). 

They look lonely. Must make more next time

I processed the two jars for 10 mins and they seem to have sealed! I'm pretty excited about this. The blog (Northwest Edible Life) I got this from had a link to an amazing canning resource put out by Virginia Tech. Link to pdf or epub download here

Jam!

From the Ashes of Disaster (Gluten-Free Bread)

Today (yesterday, actually) I decided to try making gluten-free bread. I'm not celiac, nor do I have any allergy, but I do have some health issues my doctor thinks might be helped by cutting back on gluten. And being an obsessive baker, I've been wanting to try making it for a while.

I decided to simply convert my favourite bread recipe, which may not have been the best idea. I realize now that most of what makes this bread awesome comes directly from the gluten, but hey! I love experimental baking. 

It started off well enough, the flour looked nice. 

Mmm, yeast....

The resulting dough was much more cake-like than bread-like, but I figured I'd just go with it. Into the oven (with just the light on) overnight with you!

Next morning it looked... Exactly the same. This does not bode well.

 

Oh well. I'll just bake it anyway! What's the worst that could happen? ....time to take the lid off, let's see what mess I've got here. What's this?

It worked! It puffed up! I appear to have achieved bread! Fantastic!

Final verdict: I'm not impressed. I'm not really keen on the flavor. Or the texture. This gluten-free thing is going to be really difficult.... I think I'll definitely try another, actual, from-someone-who-knows-what-they're-doing recipe before I give up, though. And the kids seem to like it, so there's that. 

Recipe: (adapted from Breadtopia's Basic Yeasted No-Knead Bread)

3 cups all-purpose GF flour

3 tsp xanthan gum

1/4 tsp yeast

1.5 tsp salt

1.5 cups water

Mix flour, xanthan gum, yeast and salt in a medium sized bowl.

Add flour, mix well. 

Cover bowl with Saran Wrap and leave in a warm place for 12-18 hours. (Note: this had virtually no effect on the dough, so may not be necessary. But it was in the original, so I've kept it here)

Scrape dough out onto a piece of parchment paper, knead gently a few times and then shape into a round. Lift the dough and parchment into a clean bowl, let sit for 1.5 hrs. 

After 1hr, place a clean Dutch oven in the oven and start preheating to 500 degrees. After half an hour, move the dough and parchment paper to the Dutch oven. Cover with the lid and return to the oven. 

Bake at 500 degrees for half an hour. Remove lid, reduce oven to 450 and bake for another 15-25 mins. 

Remove from oven, remove from Dutch oven and cool on a wire rack. 

Tea Time! (English muffins)

I found this recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks, a British book called Baking: a Common Sense Guide. There's a whole series of them, we have Cooking and 30-Minute Meals. They are great cookbooks, with lots of interesting recipes. The only downside has been that they do a lot of measuring by weight. However, I recently got a very nice kitchen scale so that's not a problem any more! Woo!

So. I figured, English cookbook-English muffin recipe. Must be a good one! And they weren't bad.

However, they weren't what I think of as English muffins. I would say they were excellent flat white buns. They did end up crisp, which was nice, but they were lacking in the bubbly, full-of-holes-to-catch-the-butter-ness that I associate with English muffins. Granted, I've never had anything but store-bought before, so I don't know what "real" ones are supposed to be like, but I was a bit disappointed with these.

Willow was fascinated by the mixer. So am I, usually

I did some more reading and discovered that many people cook these on a griddle. Maybe I'll try that next time. 

On the plus side, they were the perfect size to make tiny sandwiches for the kids, so despite my disappointment they got eaten up pretty quick!

Note: I took all the pictures for this one with my phone, sorry about the terrible quality...

ENGLISH MUFFINS

Preparation time 20 minutes +
Total cooking time 15 minutes
Makes 15

Ingredients:
 2 teaspoons dried yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
530 g (1 lb 3 oz/41/4 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
350 ml (12 fl oz) lukewarm milk
1 egg - lightly beaten
40 g (11/2 oz) butter - melted

1. Lightly dust two 28 x 32 cm baking trays with flour.
2. Put the yeast, sugar, 1 teaspoon of the flour and 60ml (2 fl oz/1/4 cup) warm water in a small bowl and mix well. Leave in a warm draught-free place for about 10 minutes, or until bubbles appear on the
surface. The mixture should be frothy. If your yeast doesn't foam, it is dead.
3. Sift the remaining flour and 1 teaspoon salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the milk, egg, butter and yeast mixture all at once. Using a flat-bladed knife, mix to a soft dough. (I used my mixer with a dough hook. Maybe that's why they weren't bubbly, perhaps?)
4. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for 2 minutes, or until smooth. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp tea
towel (dish towel) and leave in a warm place for 11/2 hours, or until well risen.
5. Preheat the oven to 210°C (415°F/Gas 6-7). Punch the dough down and knead again for 2 minutes, or until smooth. Roll to 1 cm (1/2 in) thick, then cut into rounds with a lightly floured plain 8 cm
(3 1/4 in) cutter and place on the trays. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and leave in a warm, draught-free place for 10 minutes.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or cold.

Source- Baking: A Common Sense Guide

Home freshener! (Bread)

I love making bread. I absolutely love it. I love baking in general, but bread is possibly my favourite. I love the smell of the yeast; I love the texture of the dough; I love kneading (although one of my recipes cuts that out entirely); I love the way it makes my whole house smell amazing. That smell in particular is so fantastic. Even if its high summer, it makes me feel all cozy... Actually, although I'm overjoyed at the fact that summer appears to be coming back after all, I will miss being able to bake with impunity. I have a second stove in the basement that I use in the summer, but that's going to be sad this year as I now have my amazing new stove...

I used to have a bread maker; Ryan bought it for me years ago. It was great, and I used it a lot. In fact, I used it up! One day, while I was making a batch of bread, I noticed that it sounded... Odd. At the end of the cycle I went to get my lovely bread and instead found a burnt mass of unmixed ingredients. It turned out that the stirring paddle/mechanism had rusted into a solid lump. Not a good thing, I must say. So I started doing it by hand. Well, I cheat. I do use my mixer with a dough hook. But I still consider that by hand.

I have found a few recipes that I really like, but I'm always looking for new ones. The one I used today makes, I'd say, the best plain bread around. It is such good toast. mmm...toast... I've also found that bulk barn carries really nice flour. I just love it. And since I bake so much I appreciate being able to buy in bulk. The staff here sometimes give me funny looks, but I think some of them are starting to recognize me.

Regardless, I'm not posting a tutorial today, instead I'm going to post a video I made a while back of me making this bread. The only difference today is that i used 2 cups whole wheat flour in place of some of the white. The original recipe is here

Willow's first birthday (Boston cream pie)

Today is Willow's first birthday. Its amazing to think that my little bird has been in my life for a year already. A friend once said "you never notice how time flies until you start measuring it against your children."

One of the best things about the kids being so little is that they really get no say in what kind of birthday cake I make them. In a few years, sure, I'll let them decide, but for now it's all me, baby!

After doing some thinking and looking around in Gojee (love that app!) and allrecipes, I decided to attempt a Boston Cream Pie. Which, interestingly, is not a pie at all. It is a custard-filled layer cake with chocolate ganache on top. I couldn't find a single recipe I liked, so I used three separate recipes: vanilla custard, white cake and ganache.

The custard turned out perfectly! I love custard, so I'm pretty excited to have found this recipe. I want to try different flavours now....

The cake, though delicious, was not the best choice for a Boston Cream Pie. I think instead of a white cake I should have looked for a sponge cake. It was too dense and when we cut it all the custard squished out. I will definitely use it for cupcakes, though.

I ran out of white sugar and used brown to make up the difference, which leant the cake a nice caramel-ey flavour and a lovely light brown colour. I also ran out of butter and didn't feel like going downstairs to get more (Willow was in a clingy mood and I didn't want to deal with the screaming....) so I ended up using about 2/3 butter and 1/3 applesauce. An interesting thing my-sister-the-chef taught me is that although you can sub out applesauce for fat in most baking recipes, you should always retain at least 1-2 tablespoons of the fat to keep the crumb.











The ganache.... Was disappointing. I tried a different recipe and - although it tasted lovely - I doubt I'll use it again.

Recipes:

Vanilla custard (adapted from allrecipes.com)
Ingredients

1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups water
4 egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix nonfat dry milk, cornstarch, and sugar together in a medium sized saucepan. Stir in a mixture of water and egg yolks gradually, until smooth. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and smooth. Continue to cook while stirring over low heat for one minute longer. Remove from heat and stir in almond extract. Allow custard to cool before using.

White cake (also adapted from allrecipes.com)
Ingredients

2 cups white sugar
1 cup butter
4 eggs
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour 2 9" cake pans.
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Chocolate ganache

Ingredients
8 oz. semichocolate chips
¾ cups evaporated milk or heavy cream
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. brandy (optional)

1. Melt chopped chocolate chips in evaporated milk.
2. Add butter and brandy (if using) and mix until smooth and shiny.
3. Cool slightly then dip biscotti or pour over cake or tart.