Like Strawberry Wine...

It was 2pm and I hadn’t yet eaten.  I was hungry but really wanted something satisfying, not just something quick.  I had just been to the grocery store and was trying to stuff my freezer with the meat and frozen fruits and veggies I’d just purchased when I saw the pie crust….  I sometimes like to keep one in the freezer in case of “emergency".  Well this one had been in there for a while so it was time to put it to use.

I love eggs and was considering a quick egg sandwich anyway, so this was a perfect, much tastier alternative.  I didn’t have a recipe – I just started throwing in some cheeses and veggies I had in the fridge/freezer.  Of course I needed a little bacon too, so I chopped up a few slices and cooked those until crisp.  Here’s what I ended up with:

4 whole eggs

4 egg whites

½ cup milk

¾ - 1 cup cheese of your choice – I used a mix of grated asiago, grated parmesan, and a couple slices of pepper jack that I tore into pieces

½ red bell pepper, diced, sautéed

3 scallions, thinly sliced – white and green parts, lightly sautéed

½ cup frozen chopped kale, thawed and drained

¼ - ½ cup frozen corn kernels

3 strips bacon – chopped and cooked until crisped, drained on paper towel

Pinch of garlic powder

Salt & Pepper to taste

A few notes –

Ok so maybe shape-wise these don’t look so great, but hey, everyone has to start somewhere.  Before these, I didn’t even think homemade English muffins were an option.  Not really sure why, I have made tons of other bread products over the years, but when Thomas’ makes them as tasty as they do, why mess with it?  But you know me, I’ve gotta see for myself…

Well, other than a little time for this dough to rest, these were SO easy.  Like for real.  Mix up the dough, let it sit for an hour or two.  Scoop them into a pan to brown for a few minutes on each side, then transfer them to a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 more minutes.  Before you know it you have some really delicious muffins.  And I know exactly what ingredients I put in them – nothing fake or preserved about them.  Now that’s my kind of nooks and crannies.

Here are the ingredients and a link to play-by-play instructions:

2 ¼ tsp instant (rapid rise) yeast

⅓ cup warm water (between 100º-110ºF)

¾ cup buttermilk, room temperature

½ cup low-fat Greek yogurt, room temperature (I used nonfat)

2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 ½ tsp honey (Optional)

1 tsp kosher salt

2 cups white whole wheat flour (King Arthur Flour, of course!)

½ tsp baking soda

Yellow cornmeal, for sprinkling on the baking sheet

English Muffins

I know, biscotti??  Believe me, this isn’t the super dry, crack-your-teeth hard, tasteless piece of kindling you get in lots of coffee shops.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t even give that stuff a second glance.  Yes, this is still a dry crunchy cookie, but there is so much flavor from the vanilla, and the texture is still tender enough to bite regularly….none of that hold it off to the side and cock your head type of biting.  Of course I had to make this festive for the season.  White, red and green sparkling sugars did the trick.  So pretty!

Go ahead, pour yourself some coffee or tea, settle in with a good book or movie, grab a slice (or 2 – trust me) and get ready to enjoy.  Dunking is optional.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour (www.kingarthurflour.com)

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature

⅔ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp salt

2-3 tsp vanilla extract (I used 3)

¼ tsp almond extract (I omitted)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

2 cups AP Flour (I used 1 cup white whole wheat/1 cup AP)

1 cup mini cinnamon chips (my addition)

Coarse sparkling sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350º.  In a medium mixing bowl, add the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder.  Beat on low speed just until combined and smooth.  Add the eggs and beat at low/medium speed until well mixed.  The mixture may look slightly curdled – that’s ok, I just beat for another few seconds until it looked smooth again. 

Add the flour one cup at a time, as well as whatever add-ins you want – in this case I added ½ cup of the cinnamon chips.  Mix on low until just combined.  Add the remaining flour and chips and again mix just until combined, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the flour.

I happen to have a biscotti pan (about an 11½”x 5½” loaf pan) – if you have one of these, just scrape the dough into the greased pan and spread evenly.  If you don’t have a pan about this size, form a loaf on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  The loaf should be about 11x5 and about 1” thick.  Sprinkle the top with sugar and bake for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Remove from oven and lower oven temp to 325º.  Let biscotti rest in loaf shape for 5 minutes.  Slice loaf in ½”-¾” wide slices and lay cut side down on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake for about 12 minutes, then flip each slice and bake for about 12-14 minutes more until dried out and nicely browned.  Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.  

*This recipe suggests up to 2 cups of add-ins such as chips, nuts or dried fruits.  I recommend starting with 1 cup and seeing how it looks – 1 cup of chips was plenty for me.

Is it me or has fruit been extra good this year?  I swear, for whatever reason, this summer I just can’t get enough.  My 100% made-up unscientific theory is that everything has been super juicy and delicious due to all the rain in the area.  It’s not too much so that the fruit is supersaturated, but it’s not too little to produce small tasteless fruit….it’s been juuussst right.  Seriously, I should have documented how much I’ve spent on watermelon, strawberries and blueberries alone.  Not to mention all the plums, nectarines and pineapple.  It’s all made for some damn fine fruit salads for lunch throughout the work week.  I’ll be sad when the season comes to an end, which is pretty much any day now.  I can only hope the winter citrus will be good enough to tide me over until next summer.

Since I couldn’t even go a week without it, I bought a bunch of berries at a store on the way to visit my parents in Cape Cod.  The strawberries turned into the scones I wrote about recently and the blueberries – well here’s what happened to them…

I found this recipe for a blueberry buckle – it called for 4 cups of blueberries – yowza!  Usually recipes use 1.5-2 cups of fruit, so I was excited to try this one and see how it turned out.  Basically there is just enough batter to hold everything together, which works for me.  Makes it more appropriate to eat cake for breakfast this way!  

Unbeknownst to me, making this for my parents yielded a story I’d never heard (nor had my mom, even after 47 years!) from my dad about the first time he ever had, and fell in love with, blueberry cake.  A cute story about childhood antics while working a blueberry stand…long story short, a load of berries ended up on the ground and therefore couldn’t be sold, so his mom cleaned them up and made a cake.  This is one of the reasons I love food, not only does it bring people together, but it also invokes heartfelt memories.  Someday I’ll pass that story on to the next generation of my family.

This cake is easy to prepare and really tasty.  The three of us downed half of it straight away.  With some scrambled eggs, it made for a delicious breakfast.  Make it before all the local blueberries disappear for the year!

Ingredients

Topping:

½ cup AP flour

½ cup light brown sugar

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Pinch of nutmeg (my addition)

¼ cup unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces

Cake:

1 ½ cups AP flour (I used ¾ cup AP/¾ cup whole wheat)

1 ½ tsp baking powder

10 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened

⅔ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp grated lemon zest

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs at room temperature (removing from fridge when you start assembling everything is fine)

4 cups fresh blueberries

Instructions

It’s been a while since I’ve offered up a new scone flavor.  This one has been lingering in my mind for a while.  In reading recipes, I’ve seen strawberries and balsamic vinegar mixed in lots of ways.  I make an awesome salad with arugula, strawberries and balsamic vinaigrette among other things.  You can reduce the balsamic down to a syrup and pour it over vanilla ice cream topped with strawberries.  You can do the same but over French toast or pancakes.  Believe it or not, I haven’t made strawberries scones before and I thought I would amp them up right from the start by incorporating this popular flavor combination.

So how’d it go?  Uh yeah…it was hard to stop eating them.  Sweet and savory at the same time, they really just hit the spot whether you have them with some scrambled eggs for breakfast or just as an afternoon snack.­  My trusty taste testers were a little skeptical, vinegar in a scone?!  Until they tried one and were immediately sold.  The final verdict…really good warm without glaze, but even better at room temperature with glaze.  After all, you know how I feel about glazes.  When I mentioned this recipe to another one of my usual taste testers, he said he needed “a pool of balsamic”, well I didn’t deliver on a pool per se, but I think this glaze will satisfy what he’s looking for.

Get these while they’re hot – meaning make them now, while the strawberries are in season and full of flavor.  I might even push it and make these into the fall, they’re just that good.

Recipe adapted from Strawberry Scones on Annie’s Eats (www.annies-eats.com)

Ingredients

1 large egg

¼ cup plain or vanilla yogurt (I used nonfat vanilla)

½ cup milk (I used skim)

1 tsp. orange or lemon zest (I used and recommend lemon)

2 ¼ cups AP Flour (I used half AP flour and half Whole Wheat Pastry flour, hence the darker color – use what you like)

¼ cup sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

8 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 ½ cups diced fresh strawberries

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Balsamic Vinegar – add 1 tsp at a time

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375º.  In a 9”x13” pan, mix the strawberries and balsamic vinegar.

When the oven is hot, roast the strawberries for 10-15 minutes, stirring once after 5 min.  Let cool for about 15 minutes. 

In a small bowl whisk together the egg, yogurt, milk and zest until blended, then set aside.

In a large bowl, combined the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Add the butter pieces to the dry ingredients and cut it into the flour using a pastry blender or two forks (this can also be done in a food processor).

Using a slotted spoon, strain and transfer the strawberries to the flour mixture and gently toss to coat.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold until completely combined.

Transfer to a well-floured surface and gently pat into an 8 inch disc.  Cut into 8 wedges and carefully place on parchment lined baking sheet.  Or, if you have a scone pan, just fill each section evenly with dough – it filled my mini-scone pan perfectly (makes 16 small triangles).

Bake in a 425º oven for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool on wire rack. 

**Note** If the dough looks a little too wet, freeze the shaped scones on/in the pan for 30 minutes and move directly from freezer to oven. You will need to increase the baking time by a few minutes. 

For the glaze, mix all ingredients until desired consistency.  Drizzle over each scone with a spoon, fork, piping bag, or plastic squeeze bottle, whichever method you prefer.  Let set before serving. 

For the first Baking GALS round of 2013, I wanted to make something different.  New year, no repeats (let’s hope I stick to that!).  I asked some friends for ideas and the suggestion was made to make something orange-flavored.  Well, two things immediately came to mind, both of which my mom made when I was growing up – orange cardamom bread and orange coffee cake.  I haven’t had the orange coffee cake in years and I’ve never actually made it myself so I knew that was the one.

A quick email and call home and I had the recipe and tips I needed.  I also learned that this is actually my grandma’s recipe and one of my dad’s favorites.  My mom has been making it for our family since the 70’s.  I think this is one of the few, if not the only, TRUE family recipes I’ve posted on this blog so I’m a little nostalgic about it.  If anyone makes this and doesn’t like it – spare me please and just keep your comments to yourself!

I noticed that there is melted shortening in the recipe – ewww, what??  I know shortening is just a vegetable product but it still just has a bad stigma in my head…even though one of my favorite jobs in the kitchen as a kid was to get a glob on a paper towel and grease the pans for whatever my mom was baking.  I distinctly remember sticking my hand in that big blue can…  So when I asked her if I could substitute butter, the immediate response was “Well that isn’t what they used when grandma was making this Steph - people used Crisco, just use Crisco.”  Ok fine, in honor of grandma, here goes:

Batter: 

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
2 beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup melted shortening
1 tsp grated orange rind
3/4 cup orange juice

Topping:  In a separate bowl combine with a fork: 2 Tbsp grated orange rind, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1 Tbsp butter (soft enough to mush into the other ingredients).

Sift flour, salt, baking powder and sugar.  Add eggs, vanilla, rind, juice, and then add shortening.  Stir only until dry ingredients are moistened.  Pour into 8" square greased pan.  Per my mother when I asked about using a mixer, “No no!  It’s a very delicate batter, definitely mix it by hand.”  Done and done.

Sprinkle topping over batter.  

Bake in 400° oven for 30 minutes, though start checking it after 25.   Obviously I made muffins rather than a cake – for regular size muffins, bake for about 11-13 min; for mini muffins, bake for about 10 min.  

This is good warm, but the orange flavor really comes out as it cools a little.  Enjoy!

Ahhh, a new year.  You know what that means….a new scone recipe, obviously.  It’s been quite a while since I made a new flavor so you had to know I was due.  I went on my first big shopping trip tonight since before the holidays, and before heading out to restock the cupboards, I did some inventory of what I needed to get rid of.  Figs!  I had totally forgotten about the couple bags of dried figs I had from when I made challah a few months back.  Well the beauty of dried fruit is that it lasts for-freaking-ever (if you store it properly), but it was definitely time to use them up.

You see where I’m going with this.  I got this recipe from the same blog where I found the challah – she too likes figs it seems.  This is a super simple recipe, though let me warn you – it is stiiiiccckky!  I thought I’d make my scones cute and truly single-portion sized by using a round biscuit cutter rather than just shaping and cutting the dough.  Well, the dough wasn’t stiff enough to stay in the biscuit cutter cut-outs, so I had to roll/pat them into shape.  I kind of ended up with what looks like large cookies, except they are still that amazing flaky scone consistency.  Regardless of their looks, they taste SO GOOD.  I really don’t think you can go wrong with figs and honey.  Give them a try.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking oats)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg
¼ cup canola or vegetable oil
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup diced figs (fresh or dried)

NOTES: Since I can’t ever leave a recipe as is – I added ½ tsp vanilla extract to the wet ingredients.  Pretty much every sweet baked good needs vanilla.  Also, I substituted fat-free half and half for the heavy cream because that is what I had.  It worked fine and it can’t hurt to eliminate that extra fat.  Finally, I only used about 1 ½ tablespoons of granulated sugar.  Figs are pretty sweet, they don’t need much sugar.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg and canola oil together. Add the honey and mix until combined. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and fold together with a rubber spatula to combine. Add the cream and mix together (the dough will be a little wet). Cover the diced figs with the sugar and gently fold into the dough.

4. On a well-floured surface, and dusting the top of the dough with more flour, pat the dough out into a 7-inch circle. Cut into 8 triangles. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container, but they are best the same day they are made.

Recipe adapted from www.browneyedbaker.com 

Cornbread meets cinnamon muffins – that’s how I’d describe this one.  I was reading through the tons of recipes I’ve flagged to try recently and discovered the stand-out ingredient in these bars…cornmeal – huh?!  I’ve had polenta cake, in fact I’ve made polenta cake in a cooking class once, but anytime I’ve seen recipes for that they generally include lemon and poppy seeds.  I’ve never seen one that includes my favorite spice.  Obvs, I had to make it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good lemon poppy seed muffin or cake, but vanilla and cinnamon are much more fall-like.  And just for those who may not know, cornmeal and polenta are the same exact thing – most definitely interchangeable in a recipe.  The only difference is the packaging they come in at the store and the name on the label.

This recipe comes together really quickly – no mixing dry ingredients separately then adding alternatively with liquids….its super simple.  Mix the wet ingredients, add all the dry into the bowl, stir, pour into a pan and bake.  Done.  Well except for the glaze.  Glazes are like my signature by this point – one I’m quite proud of too!

The texture of these bars is really interesting.  They’re definitely a little crumbly like cornbread, but have enough flour to still keep them cakey enough not to fall apart.  Without the glaze I think they’d be a little dry, but with it – perfect.  These won’t become a staple for me, but they are definitely worth a try when you want something a little off the beaten path.

Recipe adapted from www.pastryaffair.com  - Vanilla Bean Cinnamon Bars

Ingredients

1 cup dark brown sugar

6 Tbsp butter, melted

¼ cup milk – I used 1%

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 cup finely ground cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2-3 tsp milk (or more, if you want a runnier consistency)

Couple shakes of cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350º.  Grease 8x8” pan.  In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, butter, milk, egg and vanilla until smooth.  Stir in the cornmeal, flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt, and mix until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 30 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool before glazing.

For the glazing, mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir.  Cut the bars into even pieces and using a spoon drizzle the glaze on each piece.  Let the glaze set before serving, assuming you can wait that long.

Oh my f*#&ing god.  That was almost what I entitled this post…seriously.  Alas, I maintained my cool – barely.  It’s been a long time since I tried out a new recipe and was totally blown away.  I don’t know if it’s that this combo of flavors really just works, or if they were just hitting the spot for me today or very likely a combo of the two, but this recipe should definitely go on your “must make” list. (Come on, I can’t be the only one who has one of those right?!) 

I’ve known for a while that orange and cardamom are a great combination.  The floral scent/taste of cardamom just fits with sweet floral oranges.  My mom makes Scandinavian orange cardamom bread at Christmas, often per my insistent request.  It’s considered a sweet bread, but it has just a hint of sweetness to it.  Toast it up, add a little butter and (here we go again), oh my f*#&ing god, it’s so good.  I’ll have to attempt to make that myself someday, but for now I’ll leave it as a mom specialty.  Anyway, back to this cake.

I like to try to make something seasonal for the guys so they can really get a taste of home, especially in the fall since fall flavors are so rich and warm.  How can you not feel cozy, even if just for a second, when eating some apple pie or pumpkin bread or butternut squash ravioli – yum.  I saw the name of this recipe and was intrigued.  However, as you can tell by the pictures I didn’t make this in bundt cake form.  I’ve only sent one cake overseas and it was tricky to pack.  It was probably tricky to share as well, so I thought I’d stick with something easier in both departments, hence the muffins.  Be jealous people, these are awesome – and fellas, eat your hearts out!

**Note**  Cardamom is my “secret spice”.  I like to slip it into random recipes (even once in chocolate chip cookies!).  It is used a lot in both Indian cooking as well as Scandinavian.  Considering my parents lived in India for several years and my mom’s family is Norwegian, I grew up with her using it quite a bit.  I made an apple pie for someone this past weekend, and after deliberating with my mom about whether it would work with apples or not, I decided to chance it and throw some in.  The verdict?  Well, I was told the pie was “mindblowing”.  ‘Nuff said – thank you cardamom!

I definitely was supposed to have been born Jewish.  Or at least have a bunch of Jewish friends or something to make my weird obsession legit.  Well I do have several, so that makes me feel a little better I guess.  Or f*** it, why can’t I just love their food and traditions?!

I’ve made lots of Jewish foods over the years – apricot babka, latkes, hamentashen (several times trying to get the dough to taste the way I want!), honey cake (epic fail, or is it just not good?), brisket, etc.  Never challah though.  While my mom is a phenomenal bread maker, it always intimidates me, even though one of the absolute best feelings (in the kitchen) is kneading dough with your hands.  It’s soft, has great elasticity and smells so good.  You can work out some aggression or angst on the dough if necessary too!

I found this recipe for fig challah a couple weeks ago and I knew I had to make it soon.  It seemed like the perfect baking challenge for me in my new kitchen.  And the result?  Success!!  I had a lot going on in the kitchen yesterday and I added way more orange zest than the recipe called for.  When I tried the filling it was all I could taste, so I added a few prunes to try to regain a little sweetness.  I think it worked out well – the citrus flavor came through but wasn’t at all overpowering and the fig flavor was strong as well.  The bread itself?  So good.  It had a nice crumb – soft, chewy, slightly flaky crust and while it was a teeny tiny bit dry for my taste, it was nothing a little butter or honey couldn’t fix.  Definitely not reach-for-some-milk-quick kind of dry. 

I’ll be making this again, for sure, despite the tricky braiding process – I mean, check out the pictures – gorgeous!!  Worth every minute of effort.  Bring it Joan Nathan.  (Ok, so maybe that’s a little aggressive)

Ingredients

Bread

2 ¼ tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast

¼ cup plus 1 tsp honey

⅔ cup warm water (110-116 degrees)

⅓ cup olive oil plus a little more for the bowl

2 large eggs

2 tsp flaky sea salt such as maldon – I used fleur de sel

4 cups AP flour

Fig Filling

1 cup stemmed and roughly chopped dried figs – I used a combination of calimyrna and black mission

½ cup water

⅛ tsp freshly grated orange zest

¼ cup orange juice – I just squeezed the orange I had zested, no idea how much juice it was

⅛ sea salt

Few grinds black pepper

Egg Wash

1 large egg, beaten

Sea salt for sprinkling – I also used coarse sparkling sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

See Smitten Kitchen’s website for instructions and excellent photos of the braiding process:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2012/09/fig-olive-oil-and-sea-salt-challah-book-tour/

Do I need to say anything more?  The name of this cake sounds delicious enough.  So summery and light – god, I wish I could have tasted it!  This month’s recipient of my Baking GALS treat has a birthday in a couple weeks so I thought it was only appropriate to send some sort of cake rather than cookies.  Everyone needs cake on their birthday…only problem is- no samples.  I hope it’s good!  Though from the little bit of batter I tried when I licked the beater (come on, who doesn’t lick the beaters?), it was pretty damn good.  I will definitely be making this for myself and my friends soon.

The best part about this cake is that it’s actually quite healthy – the recipe only uses a few tablespoons of butter and even incorporates whole wheat flour, which I try to sneak into most baked goods anyway.  The worst part of the whole thing is the amazing sounding cream cheese glaze.  I subbed this out for a traditional glaze (powdered sugar and lemon juice in this case) only because I was shipping it and who knows how long it takes to get to its destination.  When I make this again, I’m definitely trying that cream cheese glaze – that alone makes my mouth water…

Try this recipe, and tell me how it is, will ya?

Recipe adapted from www.ambitiouskitchen.com.

Ingredients

1 ¾ cup AP flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat, it’s a little more tender)

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 cup skim milk (or whatever milk you have on hand)

¾ cup fat-free plain greek yogurt

1 pint fresh blackberries

Zest of 1 lemon

Glaze:

4 oz cream cheese, softened (recipe calls for reduced fat – use what you like)

½ tsp finely grated lemon zest

⅓ cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350º.  In a bowl, whisk both flours with baking powder and salt, set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, beating well.  Add lemon zest.  Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together milk and lemon juice; add in yogurt and stir to combine.  Next, combine all wet ingredients together.  Slowly add flour with mixer on low.  Mix just until combined.

In a bowl, gently smash blackberries (I left some whole for more texture in the cake) into smaller pieces and mix with a teaspoon or two of flour.

Coat a 12-cup bundt pan with cooking spray.  Here, the recipe calls for layering of batter and blackberries, but I opted to just mix the blackberries into the batter and pour it all in and it worked out just fine.

Bake cake in lower half of oven until a toothpick/knife comes out clean.  About 40-50 min, depending on your oven.  Mine took about 44 min.  Cool in the pan for 20 minutes then invert the cake onto a rack to cool completely, rounded side up.

For topping – dust with powdered sugar or drizzle on glaze.  Serve once glaze is set!

Improvement, definite improvement this time around.  I changed the make-up of these bars a little to include all the various seeds I had on hand – sunflower, pumpkin and flax – and I baked them a few minutes longer to try and hold them together.  Success all around…great flavor from the roasted seeds and bars that didn’t crumble.  I brought them in to work and heard only good things – that they were better than store bought, they had great texture and colors from the seeds, that they look so healthy and still taste really good...etc.  So Ina, thanks again – this is a great template recipe that I will most certainly be making again and again.  I won't bore you all with the recipe again - visit my post from April 1, 2012.  

If you were stranded on a desert island what food would you need to have with you?  I’d definitely need granola in some form or another – I love it and I really love it with yogurt…in fact my obsession with yogurt is borderline frightening.  Thank goodness it’s so good for you or I’d be quite the fatty.  And for the record, my other foods would include good bread, good cheeses, red grapes, bananas, and most definitely bacon.  Ok, I’m totally getting off topic… 

I’ve wanted to make granola bars for a long time and after seeing Ina Garten make them recently (I’ve been on a late afternoon Food Network kick at the gym) I realized that I had most of what I needed at home already so I was sold.

I like this recipe, but I think I can make it better – well, make it more to suite my tastes I should say.  Also, I think I should have baked them for a few more minutes to harden them a bit more as they’re a little crumbly.  I think they’d still be chewy, which I want, but they would just hold together better.  Anyway, this was definitely an encouraging first try.  Next time I plan to add some cinnamon and some seeds – likely pepitas, sunflower and flax (omega 3’s!).  Chocolate chips and/or peanuts would also be great.  There are countless possibilities.  Here’s how it’s done:

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed (omitted – you chew forever and it never goes away - blech!!)

½ cup toasted wheat germ

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

⅔ cup honey

¼ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup chopped pitted dates (omitted – anyone else think these look like roaches?  Gross.)

½ cup chopped dried apricots (use California rather than Turkish if you can, better flavor)

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup dried tart Montmorency cherries (my addition)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 12-inch baking dish and line it with parchment paper.  **I only had a 9”x13” pan so I made 1.5x the recipe – worked out well.**

Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture. Add the dates, apricots, and cranberries (or any other add-ins) and stir well.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Wet your fingers and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares. Serve at room temperature.