Canadian bakin'

A few recent developments led me to make today's baked good. The most notable influence was the presence of ground flaxseeds in my house. As you may recall, I purchased these for use in vegan chocolate chip cookies. In anticipation of preparing further vegan or otherwise weird baked goods, I had also obtained ingredients like coconut oil and agave.

Despite my residual lack of enthusiasm about cookies (or anything) that do not contain butter, eggs and sugar, today I felt inspired by all these new members of my baking cabinet. I spent a few hours (just kidding...) researching vegan recipes, as I figured these were more likely to call for "healthy" things like agave and flax. Unfortunately, most of the recipes I perused required even more ingredients new to my bake-cabulary (xantham gum? really?). Feeling unready to branch quite this far out, I decided to try my luck with flaxseed. A google search of "flaxseed baking" lead me to none other than flaxmatters.com (yes.). Fascinated, I clicked on a few recipes on the site. Overall underwhelmed, I found that one recipe stood out; it was for Farmland Flax Cookies (yes.). The recipe made 108 cookies, and the proportions were not easily halved (3 eggs, 1 1/3 cups of butter, etc.). I entertained the idea of dividing the recipe into 1/3, when a final desperate search led me to this magical online haven: www.canadianliving.com

This site provided me with the same recipe, but 1/3 the size of the original, and without a freezing-the-dough-and-waiting component (one which tends to put me off a recipe). Anyway, I adjusted slightly, adding some whole wheat flour (if you're making a "healthy" cookie, you might as well go all out), and, in the final batch, throwing in some chopped chocolate covered cherries (ha, you thought I was serious about being healthy). Lastly, I'm pretty sure the original recipe wanted whole flaxseeds. Since all I had was ground ones and my disdain for actually following recipes as written (never failed me yet!) is substantial, I didn't stress about this detail.

Far from the Farmland Flax Cookies, eh?

* 1/2 cup brown sugar

* 1/2 cup butter, room temp

* 1/3 cup granulated sugar

* 1 egg

* 1/2 tsp vanilla

* 1/2 cup all purpose flour

* 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

* 3/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats

* 2/3 cup ground flaxseeds

* 1 tsp baking soda

*optional: 1/2 cup chopped chocolate covered dried fruit, or chocolate chips, or anything delicious

Preheat oven to 350˚.

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla (feel free to pour) and mix well. Pour the flours, flaxseed, oats and baking soda on top and combine well. If adding any additional ingredients do so now.

For the first round of baking, I used two cookie sheets, and placed each on a separate rack. Usually this works ok, even without switching the sheets halfway through. The baking is slightly uneven, but for the most part I have not found this method to be catastrophic. This time, though, I observed what the original recipe recommended and switched the two sheets after 6 minutes. As it were, this might have been a minute too late. Although the cookies took about 11 minutes total to bake, the batch that started out on the bottom rack ended up mildly burned underneath. Nothing severe, but if there is one thing I pride myself on, it is my compulsive underbaking, which generally helps me avoid burning (pineapple upside down cake aside...). The moral is: probably just do one batch at a time, or make sure the lower rack is as high as possible in the oven, and that you switch the baking sheets early enough. For the record, the other sheet that went in at the same time came out perfectly.

Ending note for Dani: I was not planning on sampling these cookies until after supper. Upon seeing them piled on a plate, though, golden brown and glimmering with butter, I could not resist. I tried half of a cherry-filled one, and promptly polished off the other half without any further adieu. In other words, these cookies are stellar. Maybe farms in Canada DO have something to offer the world...

Here I bake again on my own

Dani has abandoned me. First she left San Francisco, and now she has fled the country. In order to drown my sorrows, I am making cookies.

Nic, another baking enthusiast, recently requested that I feature more vegan treats on this old thing. Always wanting to please the fans, I was only too happy to oblige. Vegan baking is an art in which I have dabbled once or twice. However, vegan items usually require various obscure ingredients that require extra work to obtain and/or use. When it comes to baking (and everything), extra work goes against all that I believe in. Furthermore, at the end of the day, non-vegan baked goods are overall pretty stellar, and why mess with a good thing?

Nonetheless, Nic had sent me a vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe that contained almost entirely normal baking ingredients. I was going to have to venture forth into the unknown realm of ground flax seeds, but I was prepared to do this in order to bring Nic's dream to fruition.

I followed Nic's recommendation of using chocolate chips instead of raisins (I mean, duh). In the interest of going hard rather than going home, I also purchased vegan chocolate chips, but unless you or anyone devouring the cookies is a real vegan, any chocolate chips are fine I'm sure.

Dani is in Sweden cookies
(recipe courtesy of Nicsicles, via the internets)

* 1 teaspoon ground chia seeds or 2 tsp. egg replacer powder or 2 tsp. ground flaxseed (being unfamiliar with all these things, I went with the first thing I found in the store, which was the flaxseed)
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1 cup regular oats
* 1 cup white whole wheat flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 cup chocolate chips
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/2 cup maple syrup
* 1 banana, not too big
* 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 375˚.

Mix the flaxseed with the water in a small-ish mixing bowl and set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda and powder, salt and cinnamon.

Note: Being the genius that I am, I did not read the whole recipe carefully before starting. The bowl I used for the flaxseed and water was far too small for the next instructions so I tweaked them slightly.














Add the maple syrup, vanilla (which was closer to 1 tsp due to my heavy hand and adoration of vanilla) and lemon juice to the flaxseed mixture and mix. Add to the dry ingredients but don't mix yet. In the same small bowl, mash the banana with a fork. Be sure to mash very well in order to avoid banana clumps, because once the banana is added to the mix it is hard to crush it further. Add the liquefied banana to the other ingredients and mix it all up. Lastly, add the chocolate chips and combine.














The original recipe said to line baking sheets with parchment paper, an advice I ignore without fail in almost all recipes. However, after the first batch stuck pretty nicely to the baking sheet, I caved and used some (vegan) cooking spray. This was effective.














Anyway, place the cookies on a GREASED cookie sheet. They don't spread out when they bake, so it is good to flatten them a little before putting them in the oven. Bake for about 9 minutes. Put them on a plate, and share with your non-animal-product-consuming friends.

blackstrap

This time, it was all Nic's fault. Yes, maybe it was I who proposed baking as a means for passing the droll hours of the evening, but it was Nic who demanded ginger cookies.

Something everyone should know about me: I love ginger cookies. Shocking, you may think (sarcastically), considering I love almost all cookies and food containing high proportions of sugar. But ginger cookies hold a special place in my heart. When I was little, my favorite treat was a giant, sugar coated ginger cookie and steamed milk (nostalgia!).

My first experience of baking ginger cookies, however, caused me to reassess my adoration. I can't recall where I obtained the recipe, or what the occasion was for the biscuits, but I vividly remember feeling overcome with the taste of molasses in every bite. Now, I appreciate that molasses is essential to most ginger cookies, but I would rather not be reminded of this when I eat the final result.

The cookie recipe Nic forced upon us all fully redeemed ginger cookies in my mind and taste buds. Also, shout out to Emma for reading me the instructions and ingredient amounts. Luv u. Here's how it went:

Ginger Redemption Song
(adapted from the Cookie and Biscuit Bible by C. Atkinson)

* 2 1/2 cups flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp ground ginger
* 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* 1 stick butterrr (I think we used salted)
* 1 1/4 cups sugar
* 1 egg
* 4 tbsp molasses (don't be afraid! It's not that much)
* 1 tsp lemon juice
* optional: we added about 1/3 cups tiny candied ginger pieces. Big plus.

Preheat oven to 325˚. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and mix well. Mix in lemon juice and molasses.

Separately combine flour, bicarb and spices. SLOWLY add this mixture in batches. Let someone like Dani who likes mixing things that resist being mixed do this part. If you are adding ginger pieces, do this now.


















The original recipe calls for rolling the dough into balls, then rolling these in more sugar. I "forgot" to do this, and was far from displeased with my oversight.

Note: the candied ginger made it a little harder for the balls of dough to stick together, but just make sure the pieces are very small and it should be fine.














Bake for 12-15 minutes. Eat for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner.

Bake-off X

I wish I could tell you all that yesterday's bake-off at work was reminiscent of my first bake-off back in September. Bake-off is a tradition at my place of employment; winners not only get the glory of victory, they also get the privilege of wearing the bake-off tiara. With the upcoming division holiday party this Wednesday, the pressure of winning and getting to wear the tiara to the event was suffocating.

At the previous bake-off, I creamed the competition with an epic-ly delicious coffee cake (seriously, I had a record victory in bake-off history). Being that my grandmother was born in Scotland, I felt reasonably confident about the chosen baked good: shortbread. My good-natured competitor had informed me that she was going to produce a variation on plain shortbread and even sent me an article with possible additional ingredients to include. But my mind had already been made up. I would recreate lavender shortbread I had made once before to infinite praise (mostly from my mother).

Unfortunately, the morning of bake-off presented some obstacles. First, I had failed to obtain unsalted butter the day before. I usually am not picky about the butter I use (who doesn't love salt), but when it comes to something as consequential as bake-off, I don't mess around. Well, here was my first error. I scrounged up one stick of unsalted butter, and settled for a second stick of salted. Next, I popped into the backyard to pick some lavender, only to find that all the lavender was gray, shriveled, and scentless. My first instinct was to eliminate the lavender entirely. Upon reevaluation, though, I realized that the cookies would look awfully plain without anything making them stand out. Presentation is 25-90% of the battle in bake-off. So I rounded up some reasonably presentable flowers and proceeded to shortbreading.

Fickle Lavender Shortbread

* 2 cups flour
* 1/2 cup corn starch
* 1 cup butter (unsalted is probably the way to go)
* 2/3 cup sugar
* pinch salt
* 16 pieces of lavender for the top

Mix flour, salt, cornstarch and sugar in a bowl. Cut butter into cubes then crumble into the mixture (you can use a pastry cutter or knives if you are fancy and apparently if you are serious about winning bake-off).

Put half the dough into a round cake tin (8-9 inches, I believe), and the other half in another tin of the same size. Cut each batch into 8 triangles (this part was slightly tricky, as my dough was not well mixed enough at this point and the top was too floury for good slicing. This did not prove too problematic (or so I thought), as they are easy enough to cut once finished baking). Press a pieces of lavender into each wedge. Place in refrigerator while the oven preheats to 325˚. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until slightly browned on top. Once finished baking, cut the cookies into triangles again, and allow them to cool.

At this point in the process, the shortbread were still looking like winners to me. The lavender added a little something special and made them less bland than plain shortbread, and the buttery-sugary smell the overpowered my kitchen promised me world domination.

I allowed them to cool for a few hours, making sure to taste one before proceeding to work. They were on the soft side for shortbread, but otherwise buttery and just sweet enough.














When the judging began, though, my confidence plunged. Although everyone kept repeating that both were delicious, no one could figure out what the thing in the middle was. One lab member added that it looked like a crushed grasshopper. Yum.

Anyway, at the end of it all, each person ranked each shortbread out of 10 points. The final scores were 48 (me) and 49 (the other one). Based on the commentary, I was happy to have lost by such a small margin. Still, in bake-off, as in life, losing is losing. Nonetheless, I highly recommend these cookies for guests or presents or yourself or your mom, just maybe not for bake-off.

Bacon

Yesterday I decided to compensate for eleven years of not eating meat by consuming vast amounts of bacon (including a bacon wrapped Mission dog at midnight). Because I had a final earlier in the day and spent the morning wracked with nerves, bacon ended up being pretty much all I ate yesterday. That is, with the exception of cookies. My dear friend Emma decided to host a potluck last night, and, always eager to share my baking skills with the world (it's sarcastic. See previous post), I decided to bring cookies.

Unfortunately, I decided this while at Dani's house at 6 PM, half an hour before we were expected at Emma's. When I voiced my cookie plan to Dani, she warned me that her house was lacking exciting baking ingredients. She had no chocolate chips, no peanut butter, and no cinnamon. She did, however, present the brilliant idea of including sipping cocoa in the mix. From there, it was on.

By raking through Dani's cupboards, I was able to produce the following creations, which, based on the rate at which they were consumed at Emma's house, were far from disgusting.

Cupboard cookies
* 1 stick butter

* 1 cup + 2 tbs flour

* 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

* 1 cup sugar

* 1/2 cup sipping choc

* 3/4 cup oats

* 1 tsp vanilla

* 1/3 cups nutella

* 1 egg

Cream butter and sugar. Some brown sugar would probably work, but I find that granulated sugar holds its own nicely in chocolate cookies. Once creamed, add the egg and vanilla. Next, add chocolate, baking soda and flour. Add the oats and nutella. The amounts I used above were restricted by the amount of oats and nutella that Dani had, but both could be increased slightly with no negative consequences.

Combine all ingredients very well, the refrigerate for 20-30 minutes (this is optional, but makes the dough easier to work with). Shape into tiny balls on a baking sheet, and bake at 350˚ for 9-12 minutes. Also, probably double the recipe if you want any left over.

Burning down the house

When I tried to include a music recommendation in a previous post, I was unceremoniously shot down by my sidekick/life coach, Dani. She commanded that I remove the line about how Aston Martin Music by Rick Ross feat. Drake and Chrisette Michele is the best song ever of the moment, insisting my suggestion sounded stupid.

Well, like it or not, my most recent baking adventure warrants two songs. Here they are:
1. For those who share my sophisticated appreciation of rap, listen to Fireman by Lil Wayne
2. For those who might not be gangster enough for Weezy, but still like good music, Incinerate by Sonic Youth is an adequate accompaniment to Smoked Pineapple Upside-down Cake.

Get it?

It all began last spring when I made mind-blowing pineapple upside down cake (pictured above). Ever since then, Dani has been begging me to recreate it. On Monday, after a day of traipsing around the city climbing hills and trees, we decided that the time had come. We consulted a few recipes, and decided to do a bit of improvisation.

Smoked Pineapple Upside-down Cake
* 1 can pineapple slices
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 tbsp melted butter
* 1/2 cup butter, room temp
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 2 cups flour
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 1 tbsp dark rum

Preheat oven to 350 ˚F.

Spread the brown sugar evenly on the bottom of a baking pan. Use any pan EXCEPT A SPRINGFORM PAN. DO NOT USE A SPRINGFORM PAN. Pour the 4 tbsp melted butter over the sugar. Arrange the pineapple over the sugar/butter.














Cream remaining butter and sugar. Mix very well. Add the eggs and mix again. Mix the flour, b.p and b.s. together (I used the liquid cup measure). Alternate adding the dry mixture and the buttermilk (which I made using milk and a splash of vinegar). Finally, add the vanilla and rum. Don't let Dani watch this part, for she is not a pirate.

Mix to combine, but do not overmix. Pour the batter over the pineapple and bake for... well that is where the fun began.

After about 10 minutes of baking, we began to notice powerfully delicious smells, even though we were far from the kitchen. We decided that this was a good thing. A few minutes later, though, this deliciousness was replaced by a burning scent. We hurried into the kitchen and opened to oven to a billow of smoke surrounding a raw cake. The sugar/butter lining the bottom of the pan had seeped out and dripped onto the oven floor, and was rapidly morphing into a solid black substance. After cursing my stupidity for a few minutes, I decided to shut the whole thing down and toss the cake-fetus in the garbage. Dani intervened, though, and persuaded me not to lose hope. I resolved to simply turn off the oven and leave the door closed, allowing the cake to continue slow-baking as long as the heat lasted. I did not feel too optimistic, but the alternatives simply would not do.

The next morning, I checked on the cake, which had spent the night in the oven. The middle was sunken and pretty wet, but the majority of the cake had persevered and even looked appetizing. Upon tasting later that day, a few conclusions were reached:
1. Pineapple upside down cake might be the best cake ever
2. The topping needed a little more butter for the amount of brown sugar we used, and the two should probably have been melted together before put in the pan. Some shortcuts just don't cut it.
3. Never ever use a springform pan when making a pineapple upside down cake, or any such cake, and if you insist on doing so anyway, put the pan on a baking sheet. (Then again, if you like your cake half raw and with a faint smoky aftertaste, by all means use the springform pan. I won't judge you).

Spice up someone else's life!

There is nothing quite like an array of spices coated in butter and sugar and baked. That is the more or less of the spice cookies I made last week for my father's co-workers. Early in the week, he informed me that I was going to bake for the people who share his office (no, he did not ask, he informed). Fortunately, I am the best daughter in the world with an abundance of biscuit recipes to go around.

Earlier this year I made Spicy Pepper Cookies from the oh so amazing Cookie and Biscuit Bible for some family friends of friends of mine. The cookies were the life of the party. Needless to say, I knew exactly what to make for these other people I barely know.

Spice-cookies-for-people-I-barely-know
(adapted from the Cookie and Biscuit Bible by Catherine Atkinson)

* 1 3/4 cups plain flour
* 1/2 cup cornstarch
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1/2-1 tsp nutmeg
* 1/2 tsp ginger
* pinch salt
* 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/2-1 tsp vanilla
* 1 tsp finely grated lemon zessst
* 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream or milk if that is all you have (and really, who has heavy whipping cream just sitting in their fridge. Don't you know there is an obesity epidemic going around?)
* 3/4 cup ground almonds

First, prepare everything. This step will vary for every person. The first time I made these, preparations involved: chopping the almonds; peeling lemon rind with a peeler and then chopping the peel (we have a zester. I do not recall why I had to do it this way. But just know it can be done for those without parents with fancy kitchen utensils); our pepper grinder does not really work at all, so I used our bite-size mortar and pestle to grind the peppercorns, along with the cardamom pods. I realize that this might not sound like a great deal of work, but for someone who typically practices the "just throw it in the bowl" baking method, it was a new level of labor intensive.

Anyway, this round was slightly different. I had pre-ground almonds (easy to find at the store, keep in the fridge), and I managed to locate the lemon zester, saving myself some serious near-losses of fingers. I still had to attack the pepper and cardamom with the teensy-weensy pestle, but who doesn't like to pretend we live in a pre-pre-prepared world?














Once everything is prepped, begin the real baking.

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugar. In round 1, I used beaters, but a wooden spoon suffices sufficiently. Add the vanilla and lemon rind. Use a two cup liquid measuring cup to combine the dry ingredients (or a separate bowl if you swing that way). Alternate adding this mixture with the milk/cream. A wise person (I think it was Paula Deen) once told me to always end with the dry component when adding alternately with liquid, but eh, these are cookies, not soufflé.

Once all the above is added and mixed, throw in the almonds and beat it up.

Form tiny balls and place on a cookie sheet. The Bible recommends baking for 15-20 minutes, but I would err on the side of 10-15 minutes, unless you like your cookies Mojave desert style (I exaggerate, but trust me, slightly under baked=win).














Cool on a rack if your mom is watching, or transfer right to a plate. They are still good the next day. And the next. And they will make you really popular with people you barely know.

Smoke lung.

Coming soon: How not to make a pineapple upside down cake.