Honey Cinnamon Granola
Dec 27, 2009 Breakfast, Healthy, Snacks
I had a day off work with nothing to do recently and I decided that I wanted to be a nice person.
So I made my family granola.
And put it in cute little bags.
I love this granola. I love the dried blueberries, cranberries, and golden raisins.
And I love how the fruit looks when it’s all mixed together.
I love the mixture of honey and maple syrup that we boiled and poured all over the oats and nuts.
And I love the smell that filled the house when we baked it in the oven for an hour and a half.
I love this granola.
Honey Cinnamon Granola
Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit
Ingredients
4 cups toasted whole grain cereal – we used Kashi 7 Whole Grain Nuggets and they added a wonderful crunch and were small enough that they didn’t overpower the texture
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup dried blueberries
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Mix cereal, oats, and all nuts in a large bowl. Bring honey, maple syrup, and vegetable oil to a boil in small saucepan; drizzle over cereal mixture and toss to coat evenly. Spread mixture onto a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and dry, stirring every 15 minutes, for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Scatter dried fruit over the mixture. Sprinkle cinnamon over and toss. Cool in pan on rack stirring occasionally to prevent clumping. Store airtight at room temperature.
Eat as a snack or enjoy with soy milk or yogurt. It’s the perfect winter breakfast or snack.
Tea Cake Cookies
Dec 24, 2009 Cookies, Desserts
Every year my dad asks for Kalacky cookies around Christmas time. When we make our list of holiday treats to make he always throws those in. My mom makes them for him every year, and I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who eats them. It’s not that we don’t like them necessarily, it’s just that they weren’t loved by anyone but him, but he loves them so much that my mom makes them for him year after year. She’s a good wife.
This year, when we were making our list my dad reminded us about the Kalacky cookies, and we smiled and nodded and then decided to make this recipe instead. These cookies have the same feel as Kalacky cookies with the fruit-filled center, but they don’t have the cream cheese in the cookie dough. This cookie dough is marvelous, more like a butter cookie, and the fruit filling fits perfectly with the new dough.
I found this recipe on Epicurious.com, and I wanted to show you the picture that made me want to make them. My cookies didn’t end up looking as gloriously beautiful as these cookies did, but if you have the patience to sit down and line the top of each with colored sugar, your cookies could look something like this (photo from Epicurious.com):
Ours were still beautiful and tasted amazing. The real test was to see if my dad thought they were good enough to replace his Kalacky cookies. We gave him a plate, and he ate them immediately, then came in the kitchen to get a few more. A few minutes later a friend called him on the phone and he told her to come over because we had made some cookies that were “like Kalacky cookies except for better.”
I think that was a pretty good review coming from him.
Tea Cake Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups (21/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 tablespoons whole milk
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel *Molly Note: I used about half this much. I didn’t really want the cookies to taste like lemon, just to have a hint of lemon. It worked great.
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Nonstick vegetable oil spray
- Assorted decorations (such as powdered sugar, icing, colored sugar crystals, and edible glitter) *Molly Note: I thought the powdered sugar tasted the best, but the sugar looks the prettiest
- 2/3 cup preserves (such as apricot, seedless raspberry, or seedless blackberry) *Molly Note: Raspberry was my favorite. We used a can of Solo pie filling instead of preserves because we baked the cookies with the filling already in place. If you go by the recipe by Epicurious, regular preserves would be fine. We wanted to bake the cookies with the preserves in place, so regular preserves would end up melting all over the cookie. The pie filling worked great.
Whisk flour and salt in medium bowl to blend well. Using electric mixer, beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in milk, lemon peel, and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture and beat until blended. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Flatten into disks. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let soften slightly before rolling out.)
Roll out each dough disk between sheets of waxed paper to 14×11-inch rectangle, occasionally lifting waxed paper to smooth out wrinkles. Refrigerate dough on baking sheets, still between sheets of waxed paper, until cold and firm, about 30 minutes. Place 1 dough piece on work surface. Peel off top sheet of waxed paper. Press same waxed paper gently back onto dough. Turn dough over (still between waxed paper sheets). Peel off top sheet of waxed paper and discard. Using 2 1/4-inch scalloped round cutter and with dough still on waxed paper bottom, cut out cookies. Using 1- to 1 1/4-inch scalloped round cutter, cut out center from half of cookies. Gather dough centers and excess dough around cutouts; shape excess dough into disk and chill. Slide waxed paper with cutouts onto baking sheet and chill. Repeat with remaining dough disk, cutting out rounds, cutting centers from half of rounds to make top rings, and gathering and chilling excess dough. Roll out excess dough between sheets of waxed paper, making more cookie bottoms and top rings. Repeat rolling and cutting until all of dough is used.
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray. Using metal spatula to lift cutouts from waxed paper, transfer cookie bottoms to 1 prepared sheet and top rings to second sheet, spacing slightly apart (cookies spread very little). Sprinkle some top rings with colored sugar crystals (or leave plain to decorate later). Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until pale golden, about 8 minutes. Cool cookies on baking sheets 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks; cool completely. **Molly Note: We didn’t bake each layer separately. We put them together, with the filling, before baking them. We thought they would hold together better that way. We just baked them for about 13 minutes instead of 8, already assembled. Then all you have to do when they come out of the oven is sprinkle them with powdered sugar if you haven’t already sugared them. Here’s what it looked like before we baked them:
Arrange cookie bottoms on work surface. Spread each with 1 teaspoon preserves. Sift powdered sugar over plain cookie rings or decorate with icing and sugar crystals or edible glitter as desired. Press 1 top ring onto each prepared cookie bottom. (Cookies can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight between sheets of waxed paper in refrigerator.)
Icebox Pinwheel Cookies
Dec 22, 2009 Chocolate, Cookies, Desserts
I was born in Illinois, in a town called Des Plaines that is close enough to Chicago that when someone asks where I was born, I say, “Chicago”. I think it’s close enough, don’t you?
I moved to Tulsa when I was 4, but both of my parents grew up in Illinois, and most of my extended family still lives there. When I was younger we used to drive the 11 hour drive from Tulsa to Chicago about once a year to visit family. I remember being excited about playing with my cousins and eating at Portillo’s, but the thing that I was most excited about was getting a box of Pinwheel cookies.
Maurice Lenell Pinwheels were my favorite thing in the whole world. They were perfect little cookies that looked like the start of the yellow brick road, and you couldn’t buy them in Oklahoma or anywhere close. When we would go and visit Illinois we would buy about several boxes. We would eat a whole box on the way home, then freeze the rest of the boxes and eat them with tea throughout the year. They were incredible. Sadly, Maurice Lenell closed December 2008, so this is the first Christmas that those wonderful pinwheel cookies are unavailable.
Thank God for Gale Gand.
Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Icing
Dec 10, 2009 Cakes, Chocolate, Desserts, Peanut Butter
I have a very good friend named Rachel, and I love Rachel.
This is Rachel and her graduation party cake. That’s her friend Cory in the background.
Mmm… Chocolate and peanut butter.
For the past few years I have been extremely blessed to have gotten to know Rachel. She is an amazing woman who can make me laugh harder than anyone I know. Rachel is graduating from college on Saturday and is going to be a wonderful teacher. Way to go Rachel!
The really amazing thing about Rachel is that she has more friends than anyone I have ever met. Last weekend she had a graduation party, and she asked me if I would be willing to bring some of the food. It was going to be a morning party, so brunch-like items and cake were on the list of things to bring. I asked her how many people she was expecting, thinking I might be cooking for a small group of about 15, but her initial response was, “Well, I have about 20 confirmed but I’m still waiting on RSVPs from the other 30.” Now, that’s just Tulsa people who she knows and sees on a regular basis without stretches to out of town or acquaintances. When these people came into the house every person was Rachel’s best friend. Everyone felt like they knew her best- which is exactly how a good friend should make you feel. It was so fun to watch everyone gather together to celebrate Rachel’s accomplishments. I’m so proud of her!
Tags: celebration cake, chocolate cake, chocolate peanut butter icing, chocolate sour cream cake, peanut butter cake, peanut butter cream cheese icing, sour cream cake
Blueberry Muffins with Streusel
Dec 7, 2009 Breakfast, Desserts, Muffins
I’m amazed sometimes at how many things I love that I’ve never baked. Like blueberry muffins, for instance. I love them, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I made them for the first time.
When my mom makes them she makes the kind with streusel on top, and I love that, so as I looked for a recipe that was my main selling point. I found a recipe by Emeril that looked great that included lemon zest and streusel and sounded wonderful and went with that. I generally am not a big fan of lemon, but this recipe has a wonderful amount of lemon zest that works beautifully with the blueberries to produce the perfect flavor.
This recipe is adapted from Emeril’s Blueberry-Raspberry Muffins. I left out the Raspberries. The only thing I maybe would have done differently is made more streusel and piled even more on top. I love the streusel.
Blueberry Muffins with Streusel
Topping:
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
Muffins:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 large eggs
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
- 1 cup buttermilk **Molly Note: If you don’t have buttermilk but you do have whole milk, you can simply put one tablespoon of lemon juice into one cup of milk and let it sit for about 10 minutes, and viola, you have instant buttermilk.
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
- 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries **Molly Note: if you buy frozen blueberries, it is a good idea to rinse them first before putting them into the batter so you can avoid the muffins turning green. It is also a good idea to warn your darling husband of this if he is helping you, or your muffins will turn out looking like mine.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
To make the topping, in a medium bowl, mix together the topping ingredients until crumbly. Set aside.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the melted butter. Add the buttermilk and lemon zest and whisk to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir just to combine. (Batter will still be somewhat lumpy; do not overmix.) Gently fold in the blueberries so the berries do not break open and pour into the prepared muffin tin. Crumble the streusel topping over the muffins and bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Let cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove and cool on wire racks.
Tags: blueberry muffins, breakfast bread, breakfast muffins, brunch recipe, emeril muffins, lemon blueberry, streusel
