Peach Crisp with Honey & Coconut

The weather has been unusually warm here lately, and the Jersey peaches have been available sweet and absolutely ridiculously delicious for weeks. I went to a farmers market one Tuesday almost a month ago and bought a small bucket of peaches that held perhaps five beautiful peaches. I only got to eat one of those incredible peaches, as my littlest brother, age 12, apparently ate the rest of them in immediate succession. The next week, I went back and bought two or three times as many, and I got to eat one in my morning oatmeal.

Charlie has a bit of an allergy to some hand fruits like apples and peaches, and I felt so bad that he couldn’t enjoy these awesome peaches with me. Since they don’t seem to bother him when they’re cooked, on my last trip to the farmers market, I bought enough to make a crisp or a cobbler with. (I never remember if there’s a difference between the two…)

I have a pretty big amount of honey left over from a wedding cake I did several months ago, and I’ve been thinking for a while about making a crisp/cobbler with honey as the sugar. I assumed it would be fine, but I did a bit of googling, and it seemed like people had been successful with it.

I also decided to go out on a limb and change out the fat that I used. I’ve been trying to be mindful of the food I’m putting in my body lately. (I recently got back from a roadtrip, and nearly every time I go on a roadtrip, I clean up my eating habits when I return because I feel crappy from eating so much crappy food on the road.) I decided to give coconut oil a try in this recipe since I’ve been wanting to experiment with cooking with it, and also because peach and coconut are great together.

The flavors in this were amazing. The peaches were perfect (no sweetener needed in the fruit portion). On the first day, the taste of honey shone through, but the next day, the coconut flavor showed itself a bit more. I would definitely make this again with these variations.

With a crisp, I usually just wing it, so unfortunately, these measurements are sort of approximations, but, in my experience, crisps are pretty darn forgiving, so it all works out. :)

*Note: My peaches were very juicy, and after the first day, things got a bit sloshy, so if yours are very juicy, too, I’d suggest mixing a tiny bit of cornstarch in with the fruit.

Ingredients

5-7 large peaches, pitted and cut into slices or large chunks (I left the skins on)
2 plums (optional, these were just very ripe and needed to be used)
1/3-1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons pepitas (optional)
1/3 cup coconut flakes (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the fruit in the bottom of a pan (I used a corningware one about 12x12x2).

In a mixer or large bowl, combine the honey and coconut oil. Mix until blended. Add the dry ingredients (oats, flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon) and mix until large crumbs are form. Add a bit more flour or oats if necessary. Stir in the walnuts. Spread evenly over the top of the fruit. Sprinkle the pepitas and coconut on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crisp is brown and the fruit is bubbling. Enjoy warm!

Cocoa Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

Oatmeal in the morning on a cool day is an awesome thing, right? But sometimes you don’t make enough, and other times (especially when you set it up in your slow cooker and then people rush out the door without breakfast anyway) there is tooooo much oatmeal. You don’t want to throw it out, but if you save it, do people really eat the leftovers? They will if you turn them into muffins! Say, Cocoa Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins?

I’m not sure that I got a photo of these muffins, but they were really tasty and they’re pretty healthy – I substituted nonfat yogurt for some of the butter and reduced the sugar, used whole wheat flour, and of course, they’ve got the healthy power of oatmeal in there, too! I was surprised at how light and fluffy these came out. I’ll definitely make them again when we have oatmeal leftovers, and if you don’t have cranberries, throw in raisins or chocolate chips or nuts or anything else you can think of!

The basis of this recipe originates here, which was a great help since I wasn’t quite sure how my oatmeal leftovers were going to factor in.

Ingedients

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup nonfat greek yogurt
4 medium eggs (or 3 large)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups leftover cooked oatmeal (our leftovers were steel cut oats)
1 cup cranberries, sliced

Directions

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, cinnamon, ginger, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda.

In another bowl, mix together melted butter, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, cranberries, and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. The batter will seem thick, but don’t worry. Adding more liquid may make the muffins too crumbly.

Spoon batter into 24 greased muffin cups.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, or until the muffin centers are slightly firm.

Frosting for the Cause

 

Today, one of my recipes is being featured on Frosting for the Cause. I heard about this story months ago and got involved because I do know women who have died from cancer, and in my post there, I told the story of a lady who was really important to me.

I also posted a recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Ginger Buttercream with a great packaging suggestion if you want to hand them out individually. My cupcakes are being donated to a local hospice that visits people in their homes.

I also made a donation to the National Breast Cancer Coalition. I picked this organization because they have put out a call to action to end breast cancer by 2020. They tell us that the numbers of women dying of breast cancer are nearly the same in 2011 as they were in 1991. Basically, they are saying that we can’t put an end to cancer with hope and pink products. We need people to take action.

It sounds impossible, but here are some other things we did in less than 10 years.

You can help this action by donating now like I did.

There are also a list of other ways to give here.

And most importantly, here is how you can take action yourself to really support breast cancer. Not by posting a Facebook status. Not by buying pink candies in October. But by doing something.

Thanks for reading today. There are lots of people with stories to tell and delicious recipes to share over on Frosting for the Cause, so check it out!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies with Coffee Frosting

One of the symptoms of fibromyalgia is that a person has sleep disturbances, and boy, do I ever. Just last night I had trouble sleeping, and many, many nights of the last 10 years or so, I’ve had trouble sleeping. Some nights, I toss and turn in bed. Other nights, I do odd things, like climb out of bed and bake cookies.

This recipe has been sitting in queue to be posted since May, but I’m pretty sure that the morning that I made these, I’d been up most of the night, and I decided on a whim that it was time to bake. Charlie eventually woke up and found me frosting these beauties. Perhaps the next time I bake in the early morning, I should make something like muffins or cinnamon rolls!

I adapted this recipe from Bakingdom, who had the brilliant idea to ice oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with coffee frosting, but I made a few changes, like using half whole wheat flour, adding a bit of molasses, bumping up the cinnamon, and adding some other spices. Also, for the frosting, I don’t keep instant coffee in the house, so instead I invested in a coffee flavored extract recently, so I swapped that out.

Note: I divided the batch and made some without frosting and just with raisins, which is a great way to get the sophisticated, frosted coffee cookies and something simpler that kids will enjoy out of one batch.

Just two days left to win a gift certificate to my new Etsy shop!

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup molasses
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch of cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick oats

1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup raisins

Frosting:
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup confectioners’ sugar (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon coffee flavored extract (or 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee or finely ground espresso powder)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt; set aside

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the molasses, brown sugar, and white sugar and beat until well combined. Beat in the egg until just combined, then stir in the vanilla. Scrape the bowl. Add the flour mixture in a few batches, mixing well between each one. Scrape the bowl, then stir in the oatmeal until well combined. Divide the batter if desired. Stir the chocolate chips into one bowl and the raisins into another.

Place level one tablespoon mounds of dough on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges turn golden brown. Transfer to a wire cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting… If using instant coffee, heat the milk until hot (microwave is easiest, but it can be done on the stovetop as well), add the coffee and steep for 5 to 10 minutes. Filter the coffee if there are any grounds left. Chill until at least room temperature (about 15 minutes). If using the coffee flavored extract, do not heat the milk – simply combine the coffee extract and the milk.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add half of the sugar and beat until well combined (the mixture may be a little dry). Stir in the vanilla and half of the coffee milk until combined. Add the remaining sugar, beating the mixture until light and fluffy. Stir in the remaining coffee milk, and beat until thoroughly combined. Add more extract or sugar as necessary.

Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

Charlie’s birthday was last Sunday, but Sunday, we were at the tail end of a 30+ hour train ride from New Orleans back to New York. Our trip was delayed a bit because of the tornado in Alabama. We actually rode right through Tuscaloosa, AL, and the damage was just incredible. It was super sad and almost unbelievable to just see huge trees absolutely snapped in half. If you’d like to help the folks out in Alabama, one way you can do it is by texting FOOD to 27722 to donate $10 to the West Alabama Food Bank.

Now that we’re back in New York, and I’ve spend the week resting and doing laundry and other mundane stuff, it’s time to catch up on Charlie’s birthday. We had about four pounds of carrots from our last winter CSA delivery, so a carrot cake was certainly in order.

As usual, when making this recipe, I looked at a whole bunch of different carrot cake recipes and then mishmoshed them together, though I’d say the one that was the closest to what I was looking for was over at The Joy of Baking. I still made a bunch of changes, including reducing the amount of raisins and nuts and pineapple and making a spicier cake, since those are things that (if I recall correctly!) I’ve heard Charlie say he prefers in a carrot cake.

Charlie’s mom was around when I was baking this cake, and I let her taste the batter. She made a noise of exclamation. “What did you put in this?” she demanded. “It’s going to smell so good,” she said. She went to the kitchen window and started to open the window, then looked back at me. “That way the neighbors can smell it and be jealous,” she smiled.

Usually when I bake, it’s all about the flavor and nothing about the presentation. Friday night, though, I took a nap while the cake was cooling, then got a second wind and baked a whole second cake! I decided to really spend some time decorating the carrot cake while the chocolate chip cake was in the oven. The decorating didn’t come out perfectly, since it got to be two in the morning, I was getting sleepy, and the sequence that I did certain things in was not necessarily the most efficient, but it came out pretty darn nice.

I almost never write on cakes [the last time I did was probably last year's super silly birthday cake for myself, when I couldn't even find the tip for writing] so I was really, really happy with how the script came out. I took a half dozen semesters of typography in college, so I would have been gutted if my cake lettering was awful.

I think I’m getting the hang of this baking thing. *wink*

Photo of the cake topped with drunk raisins, drunk pineapple, and drunk ginger.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups oil
4 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound carrots, shredded (about 3 1/2 cups shredded, or about a dozen small carrots)
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
2 tablespoons finely chopped pineapple (optional)
a few tablespoons of flavorful bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cardamom

Ingredients: Cream Cheese Frosting
(sorry, I just kind of flung things into the mixer on this one!)

2 bricks of cream cheese
3/4 stick of butter
2 cups (or more, according to taste) confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
toasted coconut (for garnish)

Directions

Carrot Cake: Several hours before beginning, make the “drunk raisins.” I learned this tip from a new friend when we were out in New Orleans – thanks, Darnell! Place the raisins and ginger (and pineapple, if desired) in a small bowl. Add a small amount of bourbon – enough so that the fruit is covered. Let it soak for at least an hour, preferably more. Reserve a few tablespoons of this mixture for the decorating step.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Spray two 9″ cake pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.

In bowl of a stand mixer mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 – 4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots, drunk raisins (don’t forget to reserve some!), and chopped nuts. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 5 -10 minutes invert the cakes onto the wire rack and then cool completely before frosting.

To assemble: place one cake layer onto your serving plate. Spread with about half the frosting. Sprinkle nuts, ginger and raisins if desired. Gently place the other cake onto the frosting and spread the rest of the frosting over the top of the cake. If desired, garnish with toasted coconut around the sides of the cake. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.

Note about decorating: If you’re like me, and you prefer a much less sweet frosting, your frosting won’t be as stiff. What I did was frost the cake with the thinner icing, then, for the remaining 1/3 or so of the frosting, I added an extra cup or two of confectioners’ sugar. That way, the frosting was stiff enough to pipe the letters and the edge, but the entire cake wasn’t sickeningly sweet.

Traditional Pumpkin Pie

I should have posted this around Thanksgiving, but of course, it was a busy time. I know that some folks like to have pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, too, so hopefully this will be a handy recipe to have around. It is super easy and really delicious. Not too sweet, as usual, great texture, and lots of flavor. This one is based off the King Arthur Flour Guaranteed Pumpkin Pie recipe with a handful of changes.

Ingredients

1 graham cracker crust (I used the store bought kind)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3 large eggs, beaten
2 cups (or one 15-ounce can) pumpkin purée.
1 can evaporated milk

Instructions

In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Whisk them together.

In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and evaporated milk.

Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly. (King Arthur actually suggests covering this mixture and refrigerating overnight for better flavor, but I didn’t have time for that.)

Preheat the oven to 400*F.

Pour the mixture into your graham cracker crust.

Bake for 40-50 minutes. Most recipes call for you to take the pie out a bit wobbly in the center, but that has never worked for me. This time, we left it in until it wasn’t wobbly, and it was perfect.

Sugar Cookie Ice Cream

(There are no cookies in the ice cream… it tastes like a cookie!)

I bought some cream quite a while ago with the intentions of making ice cream.

I never quite got around to it, and today was the last day that the heavy cream was good. (Insert lecture here about using only the freshest ingredients, followed by a caveat about not wasting things whenever possible.)

So tonight, despite a long and tiring day of playing our new Rock Band 3 system, Charlie and I decided to make ice cream. Grocery day is tomorrow, so there’s not a ton in the house to work with in terms of ingredients. We squabbled back and forth about making something fancy (like lavender or somehow incorporating rosemary) or making something simple, like chocolate or vanilla or coffee, which we haven’t… actually tried yet with our ice cream maker, since we jumped straight to advanced flavors like Chai Ice Cream with Shortbread Cookies. We settled on making a really awesome vanilla, but since I can’t ever be simple, I played with the flavors a bit.

And what came out of it was so magical and amazing, Charlie and I both nearly had our tongues’ stuck to the freezer bowl like Flick’s to the telephone pole in A Christmas Story.

The wonderful vanilla, the rich creaminess, the hint of cinnamon, and the undertone of almond all came together… and reminded us of cookies. And thus the ice cream was named.

My only hope is that there’s some left to serve with pie later this week.

This would be incredible with pie.

Ingredients

1/2 pint heavy cream
1 pint light cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup natural sugar
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon rum

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, mix the salt, sugar, cinnamon, and milk together. (They won’t fully blend together — it’s fine.)

Dump the mixture and the remaining ingredients (heavy cream, light cream, almond extract, vanilla bean paste, and rum) into your 2-quart ice cream maker. [The rum is less for flavor than for function - it will keep the ice cream from getting totally frozen and will give it a softer consistency in the freezer.]

Make according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Autumn Bars (with Maple, Pumpkin, & Apple)

Edit: Hi, and welcome to all you folks who found me from the Earth Balance Facebook page or tweet! I try to explain in most of my recipes where substitutions can be made, and I’ve got a bunch of recipes that are simply vegan on their own… click the vegan tag on the right to see more. :) Thanks for stopping by!

I’m trying to go backwards and work forwards with the posts that I “owe,” but this one had to be shared, and as quickly as damn possible.

Last weekend, we were headed up to a potluck in Massachusetts. It was the second annual Friendsgiving – a way to kick off the holiday season with our chosen families. Part of me wanted to make something incredible and savory, and part of me knew that others would be disappointed if I didn’t bring something sweet.

I’ve been wanting for a while to adapt my Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting to be vegan. Yes, there is vegan “cream cheese” and yes, there is vegan “cream cheese frosting,” though I figured I’d take it one step at a time. I’ve made plenty of wonderful vegan pumpkin sweet breads before, since pumpkin is a wonderful component of vegan baking. I wanted to really get more of a cake going, though, something lighter. I knew there would be at least one vegan person at the potluck, if not several more, so this was my chance to develop the vegan pumpkin cake recipe.

But not as cupcakes. No, something far more brilliant. You see, recently, there was a really amazing looking Peaches & Cream Bars recipe from Sydney at The Crepes of Wrath. Sydney was wrapping up summer with a beautiful layered bar of cake, thinly sliced peaches, a bit more cake to hold it all together, but little enough so that the peaches showed through, and it was all topped off with a glaze.

I wanted to make this recipe. I still want to make this recipe. But, in our house, the seasonal food trend has long turned from peaches or nectarines on to apples, so I figured I’d try to make this lovely thing with apples or pears. Then, I had my own stroke of genius, and I decided to keep Sydney’s structure and switch it to a completely fall adaptation: pumpkin cake, sliced apples… and a maple sugar glaze. My friend Katrina helped me with the baking and assembly, and at the last minute, I decided to swirl some Overflow Apple Butter into the cake batter before putting the apple slices down. It was an awesome autumny spice addition.

To answer a few questions I had when I was first gazing at this recipe, mine came out kind of like a cakey brownie consistency… It could have been eaten with a fork, but most certainly was picked up and eaten with fingers, as well! Yum. My brother met us at the potluck, and he loves my pumpkin anything, so he dug in as soon as I opened the container.

Sydney, you wait for it… I may try this again with your cake (no pumpkin), cardamom, cinnamon, and pears.

Ingredients

1/2 cup earth balance
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons natural sugar
3 tablespoons flax + 6 tbsp warm water
1 cup cake flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup soy milk
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 small apples, sliced thin
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup apple butter (optional)

Maple Glaze

1 tablespoon earth balance, melted
1/3 cup confectioners sugar, sifted
1/4 cup maple sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

Float your sliced apples in some water & lemon juice while you wait. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13×9 pan with parchment paper (Sydney uses a jelly roll pan/cookie sheet, so hers are a bit thinner).

In your stand mixer (or a large bowl with your bad ass muscles), cream together the Earth Balance, brown sugar, and natural sugar until fluffy. In a separate small bowl, combine the milled flax seed and warm water. Stir together until it thickens, then mix into the sugar. Add the vanilla paste and the pumpkin. Stir well.

In a separate bowl, stir the cake flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and salt together. Add this to the pumpkin mixture, alternating with the soy milk, until both are fully mixed in.

Spread 3/4 of the batters into the prepared pan. Swirl the apple butter into batter.

Drain the apples. If desired, coat with an additional bit of maple sugar. Line up the apples in rows along the top of the batter.

Drop the remaining batter in globs over the apples and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the bars are firm.

Let the bars cool. Stir together the ingredients for the glaze (Earth Balance, confectioners sugar, maple sugar, maple syrup, and cinnamon). Drizzle over the bars and let harden before cutting.

Overflow Apple Butter

It’s the time of year that there is always an overabundance of apples around the house. For us, we get them in our CSA. For others, (ok, for me, too) they go apple picking and get just a little carried away. Or, perhaps, they’re (like me, again) and have a pie eating contest and didn’t estimate the number of apples needed for the apple pies correctly, and had a huge pile of apples left (and no one interested in more pie).

Left with that calamity, I decided to put my slow cooker to use again and make some bangin’ apple butter. I still haven’t learned how to can, so don’t get all worried about how you’re going to deal with that stage. The good news is that apple butter is supposed to freeze pretty well, so even if you don’t know how to can, you can still make this! It also lasts a couple of months in the fridge and makes an awesome gift. Oh, and one more thing – it cooks down a LOT, so don’t worry that you’re going to have four quarts of apple butter to deal with. I ended up with maybe six cups.

I love this recipe because it was super easy and because it made the house smell incredible. This is a lot spicier than many apple butter recipes out there, and it came out awesome!

Ingredients

12 cups apples (or just keep peeling, coring, and dicing apples until your slow cooker is about an inch or two from full)
1 peach (optional)
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon vanilla paste

Directions

Peel, core, and dice those apples as small as you can deal with. Toss them in the slow cooker. I had a rogue peach that was going to go off, so that went in, too, but you can leave that out if you want.

Dump in all the other ingredients, a little at a time if you’re hesitant about the sweetness or the spiciness. Adjust to taste. Give it a good stir.

Cook on low with the lid on for 8 hours or so. Take the lid off and cook on high for 1-2 hours or until the mixture looks a lot less liquidy.

Put through a food processor in batches (or use an immersion blender) to smooth it out. Leave it a little chunky if you like!

Store it in thoroughly washed containers in the freezer. Try it on some homemade muffins. Mmmmm.

Peach Blueberry Granola Crumb Pie

The second annual “All Over Your Face” Pie Eating Contest is coming up soon. We’ve had some roadblocks with scheduling, and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to get all the pies made in time. But, if we do, we’re going to be sick of pie for a while, so I wanted to make one for us to enjoy before we got into that mindset.

We’re having guests for dinner tonight, our old friend Bo, and his friend Gina, who I’ve never met. Dinner is planned (eggplant parm made with eggplant from the garden and heirloom tomatoes from the CSA), but since we’re having a new person at our house, I thought it would be nice to bake something. I had a whole bunch of Starfire Peaches that we’ve been getting in the CSA, as well as some blueberries that I’d frozen when they were at their peak several weeks ago. I cheated a little today and used a pre-fab pie crust instead of making my own – I’m going to be making plenty of my own pie crust in the upcoming weeks.

Ingredients

pastry for double crust pie
egg wash

Filling
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
5-6 large ripe peaches, peeled and sliced
1 cup blueberries

Crumb
1/3 cup butter
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 cup graham crackers
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup granola (I used acai berry)

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine the peaches, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar. Stir it up so that the peaches are evenly coated. Add the blueberries and get them coated, too.

Next, in a separate bowl, prepare the crumb topping. With a pastry blender, cut the 1/3 cup butter into the 1 cup graham crackers, 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar, and 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon. Once it’s all the same texture, add the granola and stir it.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Roll out half the dough and place it into the pie pan. Give the peaches and blueberries another good stir, then dump the mixture into the pie crust, mounding them in the middle if possible.

Wash your hands, since we usually do this next part with our hands. Carefully pour the crumb topping into the center of the pie crust. Pack the crumb fairly tightly, again, creating a mound in the center of the pie.

Next, roll out the rest of your pie crust. You can make a lattice, or, to do what I did in the photo, take a small cookie cutter and cut out a ton of shapes as close together as possible. You may need to re-roll the dough to get enough shapes. Arrange them in a lattice, or, as I did, in a spiral. Brush an egg wash (one beaten egg and one tablespoon water) over the top, especially if you used the cutouts, as the egg wash will not only make it a pretty color, but it will help the shapes stick together.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes or until the crust is browning and the filling is bubbling. You may need to cover the edges with aluminum foil for the first 20 minutes to prevent excess browning. Depending on how much filling you have or how picky you are about having a clean oven, you may want to set your pie tin on some aluminum foil or on top of a baking sheet covered in parchment to catch any drips of sticky fruit.

Cardamom Lime Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Yes, I admit it. I bake my own birthday cakes. (I should probably mention that I turned 26 this year, not 6, right?)

For some reason everyone always has a problem with this right up until they lift their forks up to their mouths, and then… well, then they sigh a little, and admit, “You’re right, you’re a baker, no one else here could have made this,” or some similar praise that puts me up on a pedestal.

I’m not a huge cake eater. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I prefer ice cream above all other sweets, but I’d take a good cookie over cake. But, birthdays are birthdays, and for birthdays, there is cake. (If you’re wondering about my ridiculous decorations… I felt weird telling myself “Happy Birthday!” so instead I declared, “I Was Born!”)

My favorite cake is usually the classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting. When I go to a cupcake shop, like Billy’s Bakery on 9th Ave, that’s what I’ll get, perfectly topped with just a few adorable sprinkles. I wanted to make something nostalgic, but also something a bit more refined, something that showcased how I’d grown in the way that I use flavors. I started thinking about cardamom, with just a bit of lime zest… and finally a chocolate cream cheese frosting to match the tang of the lime.

I don’t bake regular old cakes very frequently, and I still don’t have a go-to recipe for yellow cake. I’ve tried Wilton’s, I’ve tried Betty Crocker’s, I’ve tried some random chick from the internet’s. This time, I tried the “Fluffy Yellow Cake” from America’s Test Kitchen. It was decent, but still not exactly what I was looking for, and it would have been far too sweet had I not (as always) reduced the sugar.

Another thing to note about me is that I almost never bake cakes that require separating eggs. It usually ends up being wasteful around here, but since I had plans for a Lemon Blueberry Chiffon Cake with a Lavender Glaze, my eggs actually worked out!

Cardamom Lime Cake – Ingredients

2 1/2 cups cake flour, plus extra for dusting pans
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly
1 cup milk, room temperature
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon lime zest
6 large egg yolks, room temperature
3 large egg whites, room temperature

Cardamom Lime Cake – Directions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a giant round cake pan if you’re going to make the ridiculous thing that I did, otherwise, this will make two 9″ pans. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar together in large bowl. In medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, milk, oil, vanilla, and yolks.

In clean bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Continue to beat until stiff peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds (whites should hold peak but mixture should appear moist). Transfer to bowl and set aside.

Add flour mixture to now-empty mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape whisk and sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium-low speed and beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds.

Using rubber spatula, stir 1/3 of whites into batter to lighten, then add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain. Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans. Lightly tap pans against counter 2 or 3 times to dislodge any large air bubbles.

Bake until cake layers begin to pull away from sides of pans and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Loosen cakes from sides of pans with small knife, then invert onto greased wire rack. Invert cakes again and cool completely on rack, about 1 1/2 hours.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – Ingredients

Well, Bo woke up before I did on the day of the party, so he got started on the frosting. I can’t be sure exactly what ratios were used, only that it was based off of my Maple Cream Cheese Frosting recipe that he found on here, haha, and that when I did wake up, I kept saying, “I want a darker chocolate.”

So, I’m guessing that it was something like…

1 stick unsalted butter
8 oz cream cheese
1/2-3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup confectioners sugar

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – Directions

Make someone else get up earlier than you on the day of your party. Have them dump all the ingredients in the stand mixer and have at it until smooth. If desired, add more confectioners sugar or more cocoa powder. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before frosting.

Cooperative Apple Muffins

This is another recipe from the archives. In fact, it dates all the way back to 2008! Sorry I don’t have a photo of these. I’ll have to make them again some time as they are way delicious. Grating the apples is key.

Here’s the original text from before I even had a blog. They were the first ones to introduce me to the concept of a co-op or a CSA or a farm share.

My friends Anne and Neil get fruits and vegetables from a co-op each week. It’s extremely locally grown and delicious food! The best (and sometimes worst) part is that you never know what you’re going to get… When you show up to pick up your food, they say, “Ok, take one bucket of cherries and four handfuls of spinach and three cucumbers,” or whatever the foods of the week are.

I’ve been lucky not only to eat dinner at their house on nights that the co-op has been picked up, but also to receive cast-offs like cucumbers, which they don’t like, or, in this case, apples, which they received another 4lbs of before they could eat the previous week’s. So, I had a bunch of what I think were Cortland apples to cook in a hurry.

Since we’re going to PA to campaign for Obama this weekend, I didn’t want to bake a pie… it’s not as transportable as some food items. Instead, I baked Apple Muffins with Crumb Topping. The great part about this experiment was that the recipe called for grated apples, not chunks. Sometimes if a fruit is too moist, it leaves that sort of really squishy bit of cake/muffin/bread around it, which also makes it fall apart easier. Grating the apples, however, made them cook up without that squish but with the same fresh fruit taste.

Since Milo’s coming with us, this is a vegan recipe, but you can hardly tell. These are whole-wheat and not very sugary, but they have a lovely texture.

The original recipe is here, but I had to make some changes based on ingredients I had in the house, as well as the fact that the recipe calls for honey, which is in fact not vegan by most people’s standards.

Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2-3 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (optional)
1 tsp nutmeg (optional)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups grated apple (I probably went a bit over on this as I was using up the apples I had from Anne)
1/2 cup oil (could use sunflower, olive… I used canola)
1/2 cup apple cider
a large splash of vanilla
a large splash of vinegar (apple cider is preferable, but I didn’t have any so I used rice vinegar)
1 cup almond milk (you could use real milk or soy milk here)
Splash of lemon juice

Crumb topping:

a bit of flour (perhaps 4 tablespoons)
a bit of brown sugar (about the same)
about 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
two teaspoons of Jungle Shortening (you can use earth balance or soy butter or real butter)

Directions

While grating apples, add a splash of lemon to the bowl to keep from browning. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar, and grated apple together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, apple cider, almond milk, vinegar, and vanilla together.

Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Put into greased muffin tins.

Prepare crumb topping by running a fork through the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and shortening until crumbs form. Sprinkle over the tops of the muffins. Cook at about 350 for about 15 minutes for mini muffins and about 20-25 minutes for full sized muffins.

The yield on the recipe I glanced at before starting says 18 smallish muffins, but I ended up with 12 smallish muffins, 24 mini muffins, and a small loaf pan, so that’s a bit different…

Casey’s Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Glaze

I made Chai Cake the same weekend I made Beer Pie, which was a weekend that some of our close friends were coming to visit. Luka and Clara were coming down from Massachusetts, just for funzies, and Micah and Casey were coming out from Brooklyn, since Casey and I had some work to do to prepare a proposal for a workshop we’re submitting for an upcoming conference.

We had some hanging out in the kitchen time as I threw this together and we all made a big kitchen mess, and Luka drank chai. Casey ended up loving this cake so hard, though, so I’m calling it Casey’s Chai Cake, and the next time I make it, I’ll invite her over. <3

I've been meaning to experiment with tea in cake for a while, and I've had several reminders lately. There will probably be more, too, since we just ran out of tea, so I put in a new order of loose leaf from The Tea Table, including for some Lavender Butterfly Tea, which I can’t wait to play with. A really good cup of tea is one of my favorite things in the world. A recipe for Earl Grey Tea Cakes is soon to come…

Ingredients

Cake:

1 and 1/3 cups of milk
6 chai tea bags, without added sweetner (I used a mix Twinings Chai and Twinings Pumpkin Chai, though I have some loose chai coming, too, for next time)
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 and 3/4 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon white sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 sticks butter

Glaze:

3 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
milk to desired consistency (I probably used 1/4 cup)
pinch of salt (to cut the sweetness a bit)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 Degrees F. Grease and lightly flour a 10 cup bundt pan.

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a simmer over low-medium heat. Remove from heat. Add the tea bags and allow to steep for 5-6 minutes. Remove the tea bags and cool the milk completely.

Meanwhile, cream the butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and honey until light and fluffy, in a stand mixer or a large bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining dry cake ingredients. Stir together the all purpose flour, whole wheat pastry flour, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom.

Add the milk and the dry mixture to the creamed mixture, mixing them together, alternating between milk and dry mixture until they are completely combined.

Pour into the prepared bundt pan. Bake on the bottom rack at 325 for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. Mix the ginger, salt, and the confectioner’s sugar together. Add the honey and a tiny bit of milk, stirring until all the sugar is absorbed, adding more milk as needed.

Apply glaze while the cake is warm. The glaze will soak into the cake a bit and leave a shiny sweetness on the crunchy peaks.

Knee Surgery Pie (Chocolate & Berries)

It’s probably a little late in the day for me to post a Valentine’s Day suggestion recipe, but you never know. Maybe you’re having a late, late dinner, or celebrating a day late. I’m not really into V-day – my partner and I had some cuddles and got his mom flowers.

This recipe is one from the archives. In fact, this is the first recipe that I recorded in my journal, and decided that I’d keep my recipes online, and really, was the start of my food blogging before I did actual food blogging.

It’s for Valentine’s day because I stenciled hearts on it, and because it’s very decadent, and because when I had knee surgery is when I started getting shmoopy with Charlie. (The two year anniversary of us and my knee surgery is next month.)

The great thing about this recipe, if you’re cooking a dinner for Valentine’s day, you can use a pre-baked crust from the store, and make the pudding on the stove while all your other dishes are going on, which is a little easier than trying to measure flour, user your stand mixer, and all that jazz, while you’re stirring stuff and checking on the roast in the oven.

So, while this could be something that was totally from scratch and took a while, it could also be something that was thrown together in a relatively quick amount of time and was really, really impressive. Don’t be a stickler for the type of fruit you use – February can be a difficult time to get really beautiful fruit, so if strawberries look better than raspberries, go with them, and so on. Pick the berries that look the best, but try your hardest to get fresh, not frozen. Frozen is a last resort.

Here is the original text from my entry:

I’ve decided I’m going to start recording my recipes/cooking excursions in here, because I always make notes on the actual printed recipe and then lose it, and just get it off the internet again… so here we go!

Today I baked a pie that I was thinking about after watching that movie “Waitress.”

The layers went like this:

• prebaked pie crust (from scratch)
• layer of melted bittersweet chocolate, painted on the bottom and sides
• layer of crumb topping
• layer of crushed raspberries and blackberries
• layer of chocolate filling (sort of pudding like)
• rings of fresh berries (& optional decorative confectioner’s sugar)

The main problem I recall having with this recipe was getting the filling to thicken.

Ingredients

1 single layer pre-baked pie crust (either store bought or Charlie’s Consistent Win Pie Crust

Chocolate Lining:
2oz bittersweet chocolate

Berry Filling:
2 pints blackberries (half reserved for decoration)
2 pints raspberries (half reserved for decoration
1-2 teaspoons white sugar

Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, diced
Sprinkle of cinnamon

Chocolate Filling:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup white sugar + 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
a little bit of cornstarch in case of emergency

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

First, crush a pint of raspberries and a pint of blackberries slightly to release some of the juices. Taste the berries to see how sweet they are, then stir them with the 1-2 teaspoons of sugar. Let this mixture sit out while you prepare the rest of the pie.

Next, prepare the chocolate filling. In a cast iron skillet, if available, or other heavy bottomed pan, over medium low heat, melt the butter or margarine.

Combine one cup of the sugar with cocoa and flour. Beat the egg yolks with the milk and add them to the sugar mixture. Add the sugar and egg mixture to the skillet with the melted butter and cook gently, stirring constantly until thick. (Watch this mixture closely as it has a tendency to burn!) Add the vanilla.

When I first made this at the very beginning of my culinary adventures, I had trouble making the chocolate filling thicken. If this happens, don’t panic. What I did was add a thickening agent, like cornstarch, and it worked out just fine. I haven’t tried to make it again since then, so I’m not sure if it was the way I was cooking it or the recipe! But – in case of emergency – there’s your fix. But also – this pie does better if it sits in the refrigerator for the correct amount of time, so if you’re not going to have enough time to refrigerate, you’re going to want the cornstarch. If you have time to refrigerate overnight, you can be satisfied with a slightly less set filling.

Make your crumb filling by mixing the flour and sugar together in a bowl, then cutting the butter in with two knives, a fork, or a pastry blender just until the topping is crumbly.

Melt the bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler and paint it with a spatula along the bottom and inside edges of the crust. Let this cool.

Pour the berry filling into the bottom of the pie crust with the chocolate shell.

Pack in the crumb topping on top of the berry filling. This layer will help serve as a barrier between the two chocolates so that they don’t just melt together in the oven!

Pour in the chocolate filling. Do not overfill the crust.

Bake the pie at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Remove pie from oven and let cool on counter for 20 minutes. Decorate with berries around the edges, and if desired, stencil confectioner’s sugar hearts on the pie. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Super Moist Pumpkin Coconut Bread

My partner had surgery recently, so I haven’t done any cooking at all in the past three weeks. My mom made us some meals, I made a lasagna and froze it in portions before the surgery, our friends have ordered us takeout, and so on. So, I thought I’d post some of my archived recipes that I’ve been meaning to move over here anyway.

I’m shocked and dismayed to see that I never put a pumpkin bread recipe up here in the fall. This vegan pumpkin bread recipe that calls for coconut milk to keep it super moist is one of my favorites. As with any pumpkin bread I make, I sometimes improvise, throwing in raisins, seeds, nuts, currants, or whatever else I have on hand, either in the loaf or on top, but it’s also delicious just as is.

Just a note, this recipe is enough for two loaf pans, so you’ll either need two, or you’ll need to spend a lot of time as you cool one, pop it out of the pan, and start again. You could also probably put it in a 10 cup bundt pan, but don’t quote me on that… I haven’t tested it yet.

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup coconut milk
2/3 cup flaked coconut

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8″ x 4″ loaf pans.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add the pumpkin puree, oil, and coconut milk, and mix until all of the flour is absorbed. Fold in the flaked coconut or reserve to sprinkle on top. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.

Bake for 50-60 minutes in the preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, and cover loaves tightly with foil. Allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil, and turn out onto a cooling rack. Tent loosely with the foil, and allow to cool completely.