oatmeal bars with raisins and nuts

Awhile back I made an attempt at pecan-maple syrup oatmeal bars, using a recipe from the Quaker website and was quite disappointed by the result. There was something very particular I'd had in mind and this bar didn't cut it. It was kind of crumbly and didn't hold much texture, there wasn't enough moisture. It needed more contrast than just pecan bits sprinkled atop the mess. The mess of maple syrup made the whole recipe far sweeter than I wanted. Of course that disappointment just made it clear that I needed to find my own recipe. An oat bar that straddles the space between cookie and acceptable breakfast food. An answer to my attempt to fix breakfast (or, you know, eat it), With some extra flavours in, and a more substantial mouth feel.

For textural contrast I knew I wanted raisins and nuts. Walnuts happen to be cheap here, so I used those, but pecans or hazelnuts would be delicious here. I considered tossing in some chocolate or butterscotch chips (I have good luck with butterscotch flavours), and even some coconut flakes - but that's a more muddled and dessert style bar than I'm going for with this. More is better with the mixings here, I found. The crunch of the nuts is one of the heaviest textures in this bar, and a heavy hand with the raisins helps balance that.

I also knew I needed more liquid. The last bars were hard in that awful, brittle kind of way that I just didn't want to see again. A second egg seemed called for, and liquid sweetening was definitely called for. I didn't want anything too sweet - the last bars had a pretty high sugar ratio and it was definitely overdone. These? By no means are they sweet, but they have that just enough touch that makes them perfect. I suppose you could cut the white sugar if you're super sugar sensitive, but these worked for me perfectly.

This is the first recipe I have ever made completely on my own. Oh, I pulled from old recipes to figure out when they were done and to get ideas for ratios of baking powder and such, but this was what my head came up with when I thought "oatmeal raisin bars".

Oatmeal Bars with Raisins and Nuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 cups oats (old fashioned or quick, your preference)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1/4 cup honey, plus more for drizzling (optional)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup raisins (optional)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or other nuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375* F. Grease 9x13 baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, oats, baking powder, salt, white and brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon) until fairly evenly distributed. You'll have some clumpy bits because you've got oats in there, but stir until you don't have any clumps of  flour or brown sugar there.
3. In a smaller bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add melted butter and honey, stir.
4. Pour the egg mixture over the dry ingredients, mix until incorporated. A folding technique works well here if you're doing it by hand, or else your mixer can easily handle this. The dough that comes together is just barely wet and will want to pull together into a large ball.
5. Add the raisins and nuts to the dough and mix.
6. Transfer to the baking dish and smooth down the batter to an even layer.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, slice and serve.

kitchen project: macaron (take one)

The macaron has long been a beast I have desired to tame. It's been an elusive beast and I haven't had too many chances to get going on this. To make things worse, I'd been making a million excuses to put off trying. So I'm done putting off the attempt and I will just keep at the macarons until I get to making them perfectly.

I haven't always had the easiest time with meringues in general and while in the past I'd intended to to master the meringue before I moved on to the macaron. For so many reasons this just isn't the way to go for me. See I don't even really like a plan meringue, and there's just no sense beating myself into a tizzy trying to make something I'm not crazy about just as a self imposed stepping stone to what I really want to do.

So I've thrown in the towel and I'm just going to go straight to the macaron, and I have even made my first attempt. There's some simplicity and method to how I'm going about this. Rules, you see. Until I can fairly consistently come up with a macaron I like I'm going to stick to the same sets of guideline.

1. Use the same recipe every time
2. I can use a different filling/glue for each batch (to keep things fun and yummy)
3. No food colourings or heavy flavour additives until I get the base right
4. Never adjust more than one ingredient or process at a time

I've chosen a recipe from Anna Olsen to start with, because I find her directions simple and her accuracy pretty consistent. Plus it turned out not-terribly on my first shot, so I'm going to keep going with it.

Right now the biggest lessons I've learned are that 1) metal bowls do help when it comes to making the meringue and 2) the texture of the ground almonds probably is super important. Using my mom's mixing bowls which are all metal I came up with some pretty wicked stiff peaks, so I've solved at least one of my main meringue issues. What somewhat screwed things up though were the almonds. I ground them myself in the food processor, or maybe I just didn't use enough (what I had on hand didn't match what was called for so I kind of winged it).

I'm surprised how well it came out, all told. It wasn't perfect by any means, and there were no little feet, but they had this amazing chewy texture to the cookie itself that I'm looking forward to recreating and improving upon.

whipped lemon shortbread cookies

Shortbread has to be one of the most perplexing cookie recipes I've ever come across. It's so simple with the fancy butter, good flour and sugar. So complicated once you change up the sugar, add cornstarch and other garbage. Also, given that in the end there's only a small handful of ingredients it's also so easily messed up. Too much flour (or even sugar) and things get crusty and crumbly and dry. Not enough and the dough won't do anything.

Once you do get the texture right, then you have to contend with the fact that shortbread has very little taste in and of itself and needs to have something added for flavour. I'm a little lazy with flavours today, to be honest, and just felt like going with something simple and bright: lemon. Granted, the lemon can be replaced with any citrus, really. I do a lot of lemon desserts, though, and maybe I should stop. They're just all so good.

This recipe for whipped shortbread, adapted from allrecipes.com is one of the dead simplest I've ever come across. As long as the butter's nice and soft when you start this is all easily done in a mixer and the hardest bit is portioning out the cookies. It's not quite my family recipe but it's a pretty damned good one.

Whipped Lemon Shortbread

Ingredients (for the cookies)

• 1 cupbutter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• zest of 1 lemon

Ingredients (for the glaze)

• juice & zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup icing sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine butter, flour, lemon zest and confectioners' sugar. With an electric mixer, beat for 10 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl down until the dough comes together in a clumpy ball.
3. Spoon onto cookie sheets, spacing cookies 2 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the bottoms of the cookies are lightly browned.
5. While the first tray bakes, put together your glaze. Mix the lemon juice, zest and the icing sugar together until the sugar fully dissolves in the liquid. If the consistency is too thick for your tastes, add a little more lemon juice or water. If it's too thin just add more icing sugar a spoonful or so at a time.
6. Remove from oven, and let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies on to wire rack.
7. Drizzle the lemon glaze overtop the cookies and allow to cool and set for about 10 minutes before transferring to storage or serving trays.

spiced butter drop cookies

I am so excited about these cookies. They're the first thing I've really baked since being at my mom's, and that's a little tiny thing to make me feel comfortable. We're in another heatwave, though, so it will likely be a little while until I do anymore baking. I don't need to bake myself.

I chose this recipe because it was simple, would be done quickly, and seemed interesting. Plus, it was so simple to adapt it from a more boring cookie to a spiced one. I just used the spices that caught my eye, but really you can add anything. The overwhelming taste that these cookies give is spice and butter. Oh, the butter cuts through everything and gives these such a lovely, melty mouthfeel. I'm pretty sure you don't need to chew these cookies, if you really don't want. They'll melt right in your mouth.

I got a real laugh when I finished these cookies, too. Bunny came home right as I was pulling the first batch off of the tray, and I promptly stuffed one in his mouth before he went out to fix a neighbour's weedwacker. Then, as I was in the midst of making a plate to take next door to his family (yeah, I still love saying that) his sister and her husband came running over asking for "Cookies, please! We have been sent for cookies!"

I've been told these cookies are amazing. They're certainly worth making, and they're a nice simple recipe. And, though I can't attest to this myself, I've heard that they are also pertty awesome with a touch of shredded cheddar cheese on top. (I'm related to weirdos, what can I say.)

Spiced Butter Drop Cookies
adapted from Cookies, 1,001 Mouthwatering Recipes from around the World by Reader's Digest

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup butter (seriously, use the real stuff)
• 2/3 cups white sugar
• 2 large eggs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease two cookie sheets.
2. Put your butter in a medium sized microwave safe bowl. Melt the butter in the microwave, in ten second increments. Depending on your microwave's power, this can take between 15-45 seconds. Let the butter rest for about 10 minutes.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cloves into a medium bowl.
4. Add the sugar to the butter. Mix until it's a nice, even mess. Add the eggs and vanilla, and further mix until just blended.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet. (You can do this all in one go here.) Mix until everything is evenly distributed and there are no lumps left. Because the butter has been melted, this will look (and feel) a fair bit looser (or more wet) than most cookie doughs do. Don't worry about that, it will be fine.
6. Drop teaspoons of dough 2 inches apart on your greased cookie sheets.
7. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, until the edges just begin to brown.
8. Cool of the tray for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to continue to cool.
9. Eat these. Eat them all. (It only makes about 20, so it's totally doable if you have family around).

best oatmeal cookies

Yeah, I went there. I called these cookies the best. I try to avoid using the word best to describe a recipe, because everyone's tastes are different. I have my favourite chocolate chip cookies, but they are not the best. These oatmeal butterscotch cookies, though? They are the best. Which is saying something, because oatmeal cookies are so diverse. There are those that are light on the oatmeal, heavy on everything else. There are the paper thin "chip" type cookies that have that lovely, crisp oat-y texture. Then there's the question of what to put in the oatmeal cookie: raisins, chocolate chips, nuts, nothing at all?

Generally I appreciate all types of oatmeal cookies. I've loved a white chocolate and cranberry combination from a nearby coffee shop. Boxed oatmeal cookies rarely disappoint. Chocolate or raisins is a hard choice, and there's plenty to be said for letting the oats shine on their own.

These cookies, though, are all about butterscotch chips. They just might be the perfect oatmeal cookie combination in my mind; somehow the way the slightly caramelized flavour complements the slight nuttiness of the oats is perfect. You don't get the same melted chip goodness that chocolate chips will give you, but the texture is perfect.

It's not often that I make a sweet twice in one week, but this one I made last weekend, and then by request for Bunny's end of the school year party on Friday. Out of every cookie I have ever sent to his classmates (and I have sent quite a few) this was the one they requested. So I said ok, and told Bunny I wanted to experiment with the butter quantities. To which he very seriously told me that if I changed a single element of these cookies I was an idiot. Then he told his classmates, who also begged me not to change anything.

One of the guys even told me I should enter the next season Recipe to Riches with these, which may be the best cooking complement ever.

So now that I've given you the reviews on the cookies, what else should you know about the cookies themselves? These are heavy on the oatmeal type cookies, and it works well. The texture holds up for several days (and, uh, I left them uncovered on a plate) which is always a big plus for me - but honestly don't expect them to last that long. Don't mistake yourself: these cookies are dense, and filling.

I've made a couple of small changes from the original recipe, but honestly not many.

Now go make them. Thank me later.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Chip Cookies
adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all pupose flour
• Note: I fudged this, the second time. One heaping cup of flour. Worked pretty perfectly
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 heaping tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
• if you need, you can substitute quick oats, but the texture will probably tend towards being softer.
• 1 300g bag butterscotch chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375* F.
2. Cream the butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl, until well incorporated. When it starts to look fluffy you're good to go.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well until fully mixed in.
4. Wisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and garam masala. Add the flour to the butter mixture in two batches, stirring until completely blended. If using a KitchenAid type mixture, you'll want to scrape down the bowl a couple of times.
5. Stir in the oats, until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of your bowl as needed.
6. Stir in your butterscotch chips.
7. Drop by spoonfuls (normal cookie scoop sized) onto a greased cookie sheet, about two inches apart.
• I used a silicone sheet and found that a light coating of cooking spray made a huge difference in my ability to remove these from the sheet at the end.
8. Bake for 10 minutes. The edges will just be begining to brown.
9. Let cool on the cookie sheet for five minutes, transfer to wire rack or platter to continue cooling.
10. Eat them, before everyone else does.

Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, My Way

Do you remember the first time you ever baked or cooked (mostly) on your own? For me, it was chocolate chip cookies from the classic Toll House recipe baked in my mother's kitchen. It's not much of a stretch to say that I grew up on these cookies. It wasn't unusual for my mom's friends to request that I make cookies, and these were my standard.

The first time I was allowed to make them on my own was magic. Using the big mixing bowl and wooden spoon, the sweet metal measuring cups. Perfectly lined up gobs of cookie dough on my mom's battered baking sheets. Watching them rise and turn golden in the oven. I was the kid who sat in front of the oven with the light on to watch the entire process.

The Toll House recipe, to me, is the standard by which all chocolate chip cookies should be made. It's a good basic cookie dough, and can be easily altered to suit most tastes. My mom, like most people I know, had her own variation as do I. The best of my mom's changes was with the sugar: a higher proportion of brown than white. And no skimping on the chocolate skips, but leave the nuts out.

My own version includes cinnamon and nutmeg, in small quantities. When I have them on hand I like to add chopped walnuts or pecans for texture, but they certainly aren't necessary. If I don't have brown sugar, I don't worry about it. Always, I go overboard on the vanilla.

The mechanics of how I make the cookies have changed. The KitchenAid whips the dough up so quickly I feel like I'm cheating. My cookie scoop makes portioning, my least favourite part, a breeze. I don't always watch them rise anymore. I do still love that first warm cookie, with gooey chocolate staining my fingers.

I don't claim that this is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. I think that for cookies, to call something the "best" is too subjective. I'm always open to new recipes to try. But this, this is my favourite. And Bunny just recently took two dozen (half a batch) to school, so I thought I would share.

Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup butter, margarine or shortening, softened (I use margarine, but they'd be lovely with buttter)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (doesn't really matter if it's dark or light)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 (12 ounce) package NESTLE® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• Hot tip: I don't ever by the packages. I buy the bulk Hershey's chips. :S I use about two cups, but it changes every time
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
• Walnuts or pecans are best, in my mind

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in small bowl.
3. Cream the butter and sugars in a large bowl until it starts to look a little tiny bit fluffy. You shouldn't be able to really see any sugar crystals and visually the texture of the mixture changes. (Do I need pictures? I really need to get a camera and give you pictures.)
4. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.
5. Add the flour mixture in 3 - 4 batches, beating until mostly combined before adding the next batch of flour. 
6. When the cookie dough is uniform, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts (if using nuts). 
7. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. (Makes about 48)
8. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for at least a few minutes, transfer to racks or a plate to finish cooling. (What, you think I own cooling racks? Nope.)
9. Eat them. Get chocolate all over your hands. Enjoy. Bake again, but different.

orange-cinnamon sugar cookies

You know I'm essentially the Cookie Monster, right? C is for cookie that's good enough for me .... uh, I can stop now. But I am the cookie monster. Actually, I think one of my favourite nightgowns ever had a giant Cookie Monster on it. Maybe that was preminiscient.

I have a serious weakness. I'm pretty sure it started when I was little, and my mother would let us have two cookies after dinner (or at anytime - the limit was always two) and she'd sit there with a stack of six. Or ten. So I would be there all questioning why do I not get the cookies? I like the cookies!

I made a million cookies in my childhood. I also probably ate a million cookies. I may or may not have stolen a million cookies. The number of cookie-related crimes I was reprimanded for as a child was slightly excessive. You are looking at (reading about?) a cookie thief. I may have ruined a Christmas exchange one year with my cookie theivery in fact.

Which is all a very longwinded way of telling you that you should not be surprised by the unreasonable amounts of cookie recipes that appear on my blog. If you looked through the recipes, you'd certainly think that all I make or eat is cookies. I promise that this is not true. Really, I promise. It's not true. I eat other things, I bake and cook other things. Today is not going to demonstrate that, however. Not in the slightest. Today I give you more cookies.

This recipe is a basic drop sugar cookie. Nothing fancy, but quite delicious. I get a little bored with sugar cookies, so I do tend to like to up the flavour of them a touch. Get something more interesting going on, so I don't feel as if I'm boring myself.

Orange Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
slightly adapted from allrecipes.com
Makes about 4 dozen cookies. You will want to share.

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (optional, but cloves + orange? So good.)
• 1 tbsp orange juice (I juiced half an orange which was a little bit more than that)
• zest of 1 medium orange
• 1 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• Note: I think these cookies would be ridiculously good with 1/2 cup of that being subbed for brown sugar. Depth of flavour, baby.
• 1 egg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375*F. In medium bowl, wisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves).
2. In large bowl or mixer, cream together butter and sugar until delightfully fluffy.
3. Add egg, orange juice and orange zest to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix.
4. Gradually add the dry ingredients, stirring until dough comes together smoothly. I added them in three batches, gradually decreasing in size. (This is my favourite method).
5. Drop spoonfuls (I used a standard sized cookie scoop) 2 inches across on lined cookie sheet.
6. Bake 9 minutes, or until colour just begins to change. These babies don't go golden or anything (I feel like swapping out some of the white sugar for brown might change that), so don't wait for too much colour change. Let rest on cookie sheet about 5 minutes, then transfer to rack.
7. Enjoy the yummiest. Give some away.

recipe: chocolate sugar cookies

You all know that I bake a lot, right? And that I seem to be constantly making cookies? What you might not know is that these are some of my favourites. I'm also pretty sure I promised you this recipe, so here you go!

I snagged the recipe off of Smitten Kitchen and have kept with it, but for a few alterations. The first - and most important - is that I have completely changed how the ingredients are mixed. This cookie turns out ok with the original directions, but I have to be honest and tell you that I don't like it very much - it gets very grainy. The texture of this cookie really benefits from standard creaming of the butter and sugar.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (You can cut this down a touch - but these cookies aren't overly sweet to me.)
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room- temperature, unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375* F. In a large bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, stir to combine.
2. In mixer or large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until well mixed and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Once this is thoroughly incorporated slowly add the flour/cocoa mixture in 3-4 batches until combined.
4. Place tablespoons of the dough approximately 2 inches apart on a lined cookie sheet, bake for 9 minutes. These will seem not quite "set" at the end of 9 minutes, and a little bit puffy, but will quickly deflate into cookie goodness. Enjoy.

snickerdoodles

Until today, I had never in my life made or tasted a snickerdoodle.

I'm quite glad to say that as of today, I have officially made them, though I have yet to try them. (Though Bunny says they are awesome). I didn't quite follow the recipe - I substituted chopped almonds for walnuts, because I didn't have any, and regular sugar and extra vanilla for vanilla sugar (since again, I have none).

They sure smelled good, and a dozen are packed away with Bunny to go to school tomorrow for his little friends. (I'm such a lame-o, and I love it.)

meep meep

Today's a bit of a nothing day.

Work's been strange, stress wise - halfway calm, halfway crazy undercurrents. Reality of the matter is, I know what the end result is and I just don' t like it and can't change it. So unless I'm ready to start looking for something new, it just sort of is what it is.

I've been super tired lately, and that's been cutting into my kitchen time. After the amazing dinner I cooked up on Saturday when Bunny's sister was here, I didn't do much of anything the last few days. Sunday was leftovers ... and I think I did a stir fry yesterday? That sounds right.

Today we did spinach pasta again, nothing special. But it lets Bunny eat his tomato sauce, and it used up some of the box of spinach that is begining to smell funky in the fridge. Tomorrow it goes in the trash.

What I am doing tonight, though, is making some chocolate chip cookies. Just the good old Toll House recipe, though I'm messing with the baking instructions and temperatures. I find I'm not crazy about the 7 minutes @ 375* texture, and last batch I screwed some up at a lower temperature. So the first batch of cookies is in for 12 minutes at 300* to start, and we'll see how things go from there.

Last mess up I accidentally had the oven at 275*, and after 10 minutes or so I jacked it up to 350*. I'm hoping the 300* compromise works, but I do like my cookies cooked longer at a lower temp. So we'll see how I end up being the most impressed.

Update: 12 minutes at 300* isn`t enough. Timer`s on for another 2, and we`ll go from there. But they are getting to have a bit of a properly firm top - just too unset at the moment.
15 minutes seems to do it, although with the lower temp they don`t get as golden on top ... I`m ok with that though.

I'm also going to get a couple more stitches into my current cross-stitch project ... I`m so close to done it`s crazy. Part of me wants to cop out and not go back and do the couching or backstitching, as this was just a project intended to get my mistakes out of the way and get me back into it. It`s a super cute image of a dog, that`s eventually going to go on a pillow for our dog. I`m also really interested in the next one I have - a beautiful package with this flowers on a river with a bridge to do next that I`m super excited about.

The next one also has proper aida cloth ... part of what I`m so annoyed with on this cross stitch it`s it`s just stretched cotton, and it`s not designed to be stitched the same way. It`s harder to gauge stitches on, particularly for someone with poor vision (aka me). And I really don`t think it`s going to work easily for backstitching. Ugh.