Toasted Coconut Pound Cake

A lot of recipes end up on my "Recipes to Try - JennyBakes" Pinterest board.  A lot.  But some I can't get out of my head until I try making them, like this toasted coconut cake.  No occasion, no reason, just to smell and taste it for myself. (For what it's worth, I've recently obsessed over until I baked Salted Carmelitas as well, but I don't have any good pictures to show for them.)

Toasted Coconut Pound Cake
(Recipe credit: "Little Bits Of..." Blog)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, divided
• 1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, toasted, divided
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large mixing bowl with paddle attachment, beat butter and granulated sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, scraping down bowl as needed. Add vanilla, then eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down bowl. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with two 1/2-cup additions buttermilk, and beat until combined. With a rubber spatula, fold in 1 1/4 cups coconut.

Transfer batter to pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 60 minutes. Let cool in pan the remove cake from pan and let cool completely on rack.

Whisk together confectioners' sugar and remaining 2 tablespoons buttermilk. Drizzle over cake and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup coconut.

Defeating the Garden Creatures

This year in the garden, we got smart.  We decided that if we were ever going to get to enjoy our blueberries, we were going to have to hide them from the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds (and beagle) that enjoy them every year.  Nathaniel added a net to the bigger bush, and we waited.

It worked!  Saturday I went out to the garden between thunderstorms and rain showers, lifted the netting, and picked an entire cup and a half of ripe berries from one bush.  (I had to send the beagle back inside because he was also enjoying being able to pick the berries more easily.)

Blueberries like this demand to belong to something more than just being snacked on.  I dug out my favorite go-to breakfast baking cookbook (A Passion for Baking ) and made her Blueberries and Cream Mall Muffins.  I didn't have the giant muffin tins, but for once I had sour cream on hand.  I soured some almond milk to replace the buttermilk and otherwise made them as the recipe described, besides dividing it in half.  They were delicious and perfect with the cold-brewed iced coffee on these humid summer days.

Baked Goods in Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Everyone knows that I love to find ways to combine two of my favorite hobbies - baking and reading! Every once in a while, I'm surprised by an opportunity I wasn't expecting.  Life After Life">Life After Life by Kate Atkinson has been on my radar for quite a while, nominated for awards, very positive reviews, everyone seemed to be reading it, etc.  Still, I wasn't expecting it to also include a lot of content about baked goods and pastries of England and Germany from 1910-1949.  When Ursula Todd, the main character who lives many versions of her life, is in Germany, the baked goods are in German, so I had to do a bit of research.

I recently connected to a baking friend in Germany through a reading group we are both in, where we are reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.  We've started exchanging recipes, because as she noted, I don't bake a lot of German desserts!  That's a shame as my heritage is half German.  I think this book and her influence will give me some opportunities to bake dishes I hadn't yet tried.

I love how far a baked good can do to set the scene, and I appreciate Kate Atkinson's obvious research into this level of detail.   How much can you learn about two people sitting down to "glasses of elderflower cordial and slices of milk fadge spread with blackberry jelly?"

Some of the baked goods that are mentioned, I have baked before:
Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, p. 3
Mrs. Glover's seed cake, p. 47
Dobostorte, p. 136
Bakewell tart, p. 258

Some seem like German names for baked goods I have baked before (please correct me if there are differences):
Gugelhupf, p. 3 (I made a kugelhopf)
Käsekuchen, p.3 (cheesecake)

Some are baked goods I haven't ever made so I tracked down recipes to try at some point:
Bienenstich, p. 3 ("bee sting cake")
Pflaumen Streusel, p. 3 ("plum streusel cake")
Bloater-paste sandwiches, p. 46 (bloater-paste is smoked herring pate from what I can find)
Lemon curd sandwiches, p. 46-7
Jam roly-poly, p. 69
Cremeschnitte, p. 136
Riz impératrice, p. 153 (This is like a set rice pudding with geleed fruit, I don't think I'd like it!)
Milk fadge, p. 164 (similar to soda bread)
Apple charlotte, p. 168
Poppy-seed streusel, p. 362
Cinnamon and plum Torte, p. 362
Brandy-soaked pudding, p. 171

This is when I need your help! Which of these recipes should I try first?  Bloater-paste is probably the least likely, just due to lack of ingredients.  I had pinned Bienenstich for another reason, and have always wanted to make apple charlotte, but I am completely open to suggestions!

Never Fail Devil's Food Cake

 

Book: The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty
State: Mississippi

Baked Good: "Never Fail" Devil's Food Cake

I'm in this online book group called On the Southern Literary Trail, which hosts two group reads every month.  I can't always spare the time to participate, but when The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty came up, I jumped at the chance.  I'm always trying to read more southern authors, and hadn't yet read anything by her.

In the story, Daniel Ponder is on trial for the murder of his wife, and just like traditional southerners do, everyone in town brings food by.  Here's an excerpt:

There are mentions elsewhere of banana pie and "the kind of fudge that anyone can make," but I was interested in the Never Fail Devil's Food.  I did a little hunting around the internet and found this was one of those recipes intended for people who had to stretch their ingredients or make something with what was around the house.  I found a few versions and went with the one I found most often.

As you'll see, it just lists "fat" as an ingredient, but I imagine the texture would vary depending on what kind was used.  I used vegetable oil.  I interpreted "moderate oven" as 350 and checked it at 20.  I think it ended up baking for 30-35 minutes, since I didn't know what size to pan in.  I poured everything into a 9x9 pan, but probably should have done two rounds.

 

"Never Fail" Devil's Food Cake

from Depression Era Cooking 

Mix and sift:
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon soda

Mix:
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup fat
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup hot water

Add sifted dry ingredients to liquid, beat well.  Bake in moderate oven.

New Office Treasure Hunt

In my third office move in under two years, I decided to make the location change announcement a little more fun this time around.

I posted this picture, the view out my window, and said if people could find me, they would receive a tasty treat!

If you know the library at all, the ramp rails that you can see is what would give it away, and the view of the tree is clearly a main-floor view.  Most people knew where I was already, so it wasn't the greatest mystery, but fun just the same.  I even found a new home for one of the plants left behind.  I'm a very nervous plant parent, so the fewer I have to worry about, the better!

What was the tasty treat?  Well America's Test Kitchen had posted a recipe for chewy chocolate cookies and I just had to make them.  I followed the recipe exactly, even purchasing DARK karo syrup and DARK brown sugar, but still ended up with cakey cookies instead of chewy.  *shakes fist* 

Still, people seemed to like them.  One librarian in particular came back for more!  The picture of the cookies is on my desk looking out to the reference stacks, the view I see even more often than the outdoor view. 

I'm happy with my new office - it is closer to the people I work with, and much easier for students and faculty to find.  Now I just need to find a new music librarian this fall and consolidate to just having one office, one set of files, one set of post-it notes, and I think work will be much easier to manage!  Soon.

Anniversary Decadence

On June 24th, we celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary!  I know that the traditional gift for 13 years is textiles, but who would pick fabric over peanut butter mousse?

Yeah.

I hadn't really decided what to make so I just scrolled through recipes I'd always meant to try until I came across a picture by Culinary Concoctions by Peabody for her Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Torte.  Honestly, if there is something more decadent on the earth, I do not know of it.

I made a modified, slightly cheater version.  First, I never feel like homemade brownies are anywhere close to box brownies.  I've tried recipes that claim to be close to that chewy texture, but NO.  So I always grab the Ghiradelli double chocolate type when I need brownies, although this time I went with triple chocolate because I wanted super moist chewy.  They were perfect. 

I made the brownies and the peanut butter mousse (as written) the day before.  Then I cut the brownies into hearts that I split in two and put peanut butter mousse between and on top.  Then I drizzled the ganache.  Then I sprinkled with chopped peanut butter cups.

The plate you see pictured above? I could only eat half of one brownie heart torte thing.  We fell asleep on the couch in decadent coma.  We're old and married, and it was worth it!

TWD Baking with Julia: Tomato & Cheese Galette

I signed up with the Tuesdays with Dorie group in order to keep challenging myself as a baker despite not eating many baked goods anymore.  This group started out by baking through Baking: My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (a favorite in my house!) and moved on to Baking with Julia, based on the series with Julia Child.  This is another favorite cookbook in my house, so I was excited to join.

It is just now that I'm baking something along with the group!  Hopefully they still want me, and hopefully I will sink into their twice a month baking schedule.  Now on to the recipe!

For June 18, the recipe selected is the Cheese and Tomato Galette from page 429 of Baking with Julia

Basically, the recipe asks you to make the galette crust ahead of time, and the same recipe is used for sweet and savory galettes in the cookbook.  I had never made a crust that mixed ice water and sour cream, and the only sour cream I had at home was 'light,' but I just went for it.  The other key ingredients besides the obvious flour and salt are cornmeal and butter.

There had been some chatter in the group discussion on how roasting the tomatoes made for a less watery galette.  I had two tomatoes in the fridge, and used the Barefoot Contessa's roasted tomato recipe as my framework.  I sprinkled the tomatoes with dried basil since I had neglected to buy any fresh.

When I assembled the galette for baking, I used mozzarella and provolone that I topped with the tomatoes.  I baked it a little less than directed because I could smell it was ready, and when I took it out the crust was already a little more browned than I would have liked.  That's a pure butter crust for you!

Other than the time you have to allow for the crust to chill, this is a quick and easy recipe.  I had made sweet galettes before (see my Blueberry and Blackberry Galette with Cornmeal Crust) but never a savory version, so I enjoyed making this recipe!  Now I have another crust to use, will it go for something sweet or savory?  Spoiler - I have peaches in my fridge, so I think I know.  Maybe I'll combine the two and do peach-rosemary or something.  I'll report back.

Now for the real question - is the "g" in galette hard or soft?

Chia Pet Pudding

Chia seeds are the newest trendy food.  Not only are they linked to the Aztecs and Mayans, they claim to give a body everything from fiber to weightloss to reducing cholesterol. Every time something comes along that promises to deliver more than ceasing hunger, I think back to Michael Pollan's writings on nutritionism and smile, knowing the fad will pass.

Still, I couldn't wrap my head around how the same thing that could do this:

...could also make something delicious.  And that deliciousness would also be low in sugar, and even considered raw if done correctly.  I had some chia seeds in the pantry that I had used on homemade crackers, and didn't like very much, so it wasn't even wasting them to try this chia pudding, what we fondly refer to as chia PET pudding, because come on, that's hilarious.

There are a bunch of more creative recipes for chia (pet) pudding on the internet - mocha and chocolate varieties.  I went as simple as I could - I started out by mixing 1 cup of coconut-almond milk and 1/4 cup chia seeds, stirring together, stirring together the next morning when I thought I could eat it for breakfast and it wasn't ready, and then eating the next morning with some fresh raspberries.  First I mixed in a bit of sweetener and some vanilla extract.  Most recipes start with sugar but as you know, I try not to eat much of it, but just with the milk it wasn't quite sweet enough.

I liked it the first time, but the second time it seemed harder to eat. I swear I did it the same way, so I'm not sure what happened; I didn't even want mine, and just ate the fruit off the top.  I still have my eye on a few other versions of it that I might try should the pantry elves discover more chia seeds.  For now, it was a fun experiment but didn't change my life.

Momofuku Milk Bar Cornflake-Chocolate Chip-Marshmallow Cookies

I came across this recipe in Pinterest, and decided to make it right away because it sounded so good! You can track it down on The Cooking Actress or Martha Stewart if you want to try it, but I'm not sure I recommend it.  The high sugar content means these overcook easily and turn crunchy even more easily.  Something isn't quite right about the recipe, and I'd have to play with it a little bit to see what I could make better.

The cookie pictured is one of mine, but not all of them looked so pretty.  It could be that I just have a bias against crunchy cookies.

Momofuko Milk Bar sells these for $2 a piece, so they have it figured out.  The cornflake crunch, an element in the cookie that has to be made first, has powdered milk in it which adds an interesting flavor. Also salt. That added to the 1.5 tsp salt also made them saltier than I really like.

Pannukakku

After my visit to Flour Haven Bakery, I could not get pannukakku out of my head.  I found a few recipes that I pinned to my "Recipes to try - jennybakes" board in Pinterest for the next opportunity I had to bake for people (this is where I store all the recipes I'm just waiting for a chance to make!)  My group in the library had a retreat, and I decided to bring breakfast.  I knew it had to be pannukakku.

When searching for a recipe, it was important to me that the recipe was not merely another oven pancake like the recipe I used to have in rotation from the Betty Crocker cookbook with its equal amounts of egg, flour, and milk.  It is tasty, but the pannukakku I had tasted was more custardy than that. 

I found a recipe from Whiterock that looked perfect.  It is an adaptation from a recipe she got from her friend in the U.P. of Michigan, where I imagine there are a lot of Finnish people.  In her family, they call it Bunny Cake, which is a slight tweak on the pronunciation of pannukakku (bun-a-guck-ooh, according to that blogger.)

I made it exactly as written, although I took too long and the first stick of butter burned in the oven.  After cleaning out the pan, I melted another stick in the microwave and put about a third of it into the pan, adding 2/3 of it to the batter.  Other than that, the recipe that follows is exactly what I did, adding raspberry jam and powdered sugar.

Pannukakku (Finnish Pancake)

1 stick butter
6 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 cups whole milk

In a 9x13 inch baking pan, melt the butter in the oven while it preheats to 375 degrees. Meanwhile, with electric mixer, beat eggs until blended and frothy. Add sugar and vanilla; beat until sugar is dissolved. In a separate bowl, stir salt into flour. Alternately add flour mixture and milk to egg mixture, mixing well between each addition. Add approximately 2/3 of the melted butter and mix in. Pour batter over the remaining butter in the pan.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 35 minutes. Serve warm.

While I was pining after pannukakku, I found this silly animated video with a pannukakku song.  Enjoy! And let me know what you think after making this delicious breakfast. Seriously, my mouth is watering for more.

Flour Haven Bakery - Greer, SC

When you come across Flour Haven Bakery in what seems like the middle of nowhere, South Carolina (it's actually in Greer), you might not expect a lot.  I didn't.  The outside and inside are both unassuming spaces, with more of a diner atmosphere.  But this bakery isn't joking around. It was also completely packed with almost no place to park, and people who came in after us had to wait to eat or order carry-out.  This is always a good sign!

Besides a breakfast and lunch menu, there is a full case of baked goods such as donuts, pastries, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, and cookies.  You can fill up a box of a dozen of a mixture for less money than you would spend at Dunkin Donuts, and all of these are made on location.  (It is so rare to find actual homemade donuts anymore!)  There are also shelves of homemade bread, rotating based on a daily schedule.

The biggest surprise to me was the presence of a few Finnish items on the menu.  They had samples of Pannukakku above the donut/pastry case, and I knew that I would be ordering that for breakfast.  It was an oven baked pancake with a very custardy texture, far creamier than standard oven baked pancake fare.  The bakery appears to be family owned and operated, and they looked Finnish but I didn't ask.  There is also a Finnish sweet bread on the menu and bread rotation, which is also made into French toast.

We ordered an omelet, a cinnamon roll, and pannukakku to try.  It was all tasty although the omelet had plastic-I-mean-American cheese (I would have preferred a real cheese, but this is more of the diner fare I would have expected from how the place looks).  The cinnamon roll was good but the true highlight was the pannukakku (pictured at 9 o'clock on the picture above).  I'd like to go back and sample more of their baked goods.  This is worth the trip from Greenville, and is about 20 minutes from where I live on the very north side of town.

Quinoa Flakes with Stewed Rhubarb

 

You can buy quinoa flakes at most higher end grocery stores.  They are a great, higher-protein substitute for breakfast cereals such as Cream of Wheat or oatmeal.  It is tasty with additions such as cinnamon, something sweet, milk, and nuts.  To really dress it up, try making rabarbaragrautur (an Icelandic word), or as we say in English - stewed rhubarb.  

Rhubarb is not something I grew up eating, but truly love it.  It came as early as usual in the south this year, but since everything else started so late, I never got anything with a strawberry-rhubarb combination.  I thought some of the rest of you in more temperate states might just be seeing rhubarb in the markets.

I don't really have a recipe for you as much as an idea.  Cook the quinoa as directed on the package.  Slice the rhubarb after cleaning, and cook with sugar or sweetener and some water until soft and slightly syrupy, like above.  Top the quinoa with the rhubarb and milk.  I could eat this every day and never get tired of it.

Low Sugar Chocolate Macaroons

I know it is slightly past macaroon season, but chewy sweet coconut cookies are tasty.  Every season should be macaroon season!

Most macaroons are made with sweet condensed milk, sugar, and sweetened coconut flakes.  Those things are a no-go for this lower sugar household!  I had found a few recipes that didn't use condensed milk, so even though I found a sugar-free condensed milk recipe, I didn't end up needing it for this recipe.  I will probably still make it for coffee, but that will be a different post.

Nathaniel kept seeing chocolate macaroons at the store, and they were taunting him, so he challenged me to try to make a lower version of them.  Most of the recipes I found used a combination of melted chocolate and cocoa powder.  One of them used only cocoa powder, but looking closer, the recipe wasn't as traditionally macaroon, so I decided to go ahead and use a bit of sugar in the bittersweet chocolate I melted down.  That's why I call them low sugar and not sugar-free, just to clarify.  Your mileage may vary.

This recipe is based on a Martha Stewart recipe, but I tweaked it enough to call it mine.  Thanks for giving me a good place to start, Martha. 

Lower Sugar Chocolate Macaroons

• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup brown sugar Splenda (you might want to use 1/3 cup for a bit more sweetness)
• 2 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes (the kind I find was almost ground but not quite)
• 3-4 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch of salt
• Handful of chocolate chips, optional

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
   
2. Melt chocolate and cool.
   
3. Combine cooled chocolate, cocoa, sugar, coconut, egg whites, vanilla, and salt. Use your hands to mix well, completely combining ingredients.  Mix in chocolate chips if desired.
   
4. Dampen hands with cold water. Form 1 1/2 tablespoons of mixture into a loose ball, and place on prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining mixture, placing macaroons 1 inch apart.
   
5. Bake until just firm to the touch but still soft in the middle, 15 to 20 minutes.
   
   

Coloring Eggs with Natural Ingredients

I've been pinning interesting egg ideas to my holiday Pinterest board for months, and many of the Easter pins have to do with using natural dyes for eggs.  I was planning to do blue-gray and blue, but forgot I used the rest of the frozen blueberries in smoothies (new blender, it's a compulsion).  In the end, I only made one color, but was very happy with the results and will be doing more of this next year!

Step 1: Boil eggs.  Martha Stewart says you can actually boil the eggs in the strained natural dyes, so you can take that into consideration.  That isn't how I did it.

Step 2: Prepare natural ingredients.  I roughly chopped half a red cabbage and simmered it in water for 15 minutes.  I let it cool then added 1 tbsp vinegar.

Step 3: Soak cooled eggs in cooled natural dye overnight in fridge. I stirred my container a few times because I noticed white spots where they were touching.  My container may not have been ideal.

 

Step 4: Gently wipe eggs and let dye dry.  This could be a fine place to start, as the colors are vibrant.  But I had some other ideas.

 

Step 5: Draw on eggs with food-safe markers.  I used the foodoodler markers I had previously purchased from King Arthur Flour. The moisture on the eggs was a problem, and many of the designs were smudged.  But those that dried looked pretty amazing.  The white one with words has the beginning of the poem "Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand.  Tomorrow is the start of National Poetry Month, so I've had it on my mind. 

Recommended Replacements for Google Reader

(xposted to Reading Envy)

Hey you, blog reader.  Do you access this blog through Google Reader?  If so, you should know that it will be shut down on July 1, 2013.  Happy birthday to me!  I use Google Reader as my blog and tumblr manager, and follow hundreds, maybe thousands of baking, reading, library, art, and music blogs.  At first I was grumpy, but I got some great ideas from friends and colleagues about what to do.  I have culled the suggestions into three solid replacement ideas for the RSS reader's functionality, and pass them along to you now.  Feel free to share the love.

NewsBlur
Free but not free, but my friend Jeff who has been using it thinks paying is worth it. 
He also says: "You can export your subscriptions into an opml file (from Reader) and then import them into Newsblur. It's not free for a premium account, but I don't mind paying for software when I think it's useful and will stick around."

NetVibes
A "social dashboard."
From the person who replaced me at DePauw: "I've been using Netvibes for years to aggregate RSS feeds into useful tabbed pages. It's easy to follow and keep up with. You can also create public pages of your own design. If you use that to subscribe to your own social media, you can create a centralized portal for others to see what you're sharing, everywhere. Also has a built-in play for podcast audio."

The Old Reader
It looks just like Google Reader before the last update or two.  Currently in beta, but vetted by my friend Jon in Virginia and a LifeHacker post (thanks Robyn!). 

There are several graphic-heavy apps or platform-specific apps, but I want something I can get to from everywhere, so I haven't bothered.

I hope this list is useful!  You have until July 1 to find a solution. 

Lower Carb Chocolate Blintzes

Although the Food Network and I aren't really friends anymore, since they seem only want to teach me how to use processed food or to host reality television, I have found a new friend in the Cooking Channel.  Actual chefs, making things from scratch, and I've been learning things.

One show I adore, even if I only watch the beginning to get the general idea most of the time, is Brunch at Bobby's.  Bobby Flay is the real deal.  Even when he made strawberry shortcake milkshakes, he startsby making shortcakes from scratch.  No excuse about not being a baker, no time-saving tricks like buying pre-made shortcakes with a kitchen-sponge texture, just a quick demonstration of how easy biscuit making can be.

Anyway, one day he made what looked amazing - Chocolate Blintzes with Chocolate-Whipped Ricotta Almond Filling and Warm Cherry Sauce.  The entire episode was about a chocolate lovers brunch, and I started thinking how I could adapt this recipe to a lower-sugar version.  And I did.  And it was good.  So now I share it with you.  The only regret I have is that had I had frozen unsweetened cherries on hand, it would have been easy to make a lower-sugar sauce version, but since I didn't, I used thinly spread jam inside the crepes.   And honestly, this was one of the rare moments in our lower-sugar eating that didn't feel like a big sacrifice.  If you start with a good flavor profile with a lot of layers of texture and flavor, the way Bobby Flay always cooks, then it is easier to bridge the gap even when you are having to pull back on a few ingredients.

I started with the lower carb crepes recipe that often finds its way onto our weekend menu, and made a few tweaks.  I added 1/3 cup cocoa powder and 3/4 cup-1 cup of unsweetened almond milk (to partner the almonds in the filling), and gave it a go.  The crepes were a little thicker than normal, but tasted chocolatey and were still rollable.

I used Bobby's ricotta filling recipe, but added a few tablespoons of almond flour, 1 tbsp of chocolate chips, and used splenda instead of powdered sugar.

I already said I used a thin layer of jam inside, whipped cream on top, and these were great.  Next time I'll make a fruit sauce or add fresh fruit. 

Belated Pi(e) Day

One of my goals for the year was to not forget Pi Day.  What kind of baker forgets Pi Day?  Well, I forgot Pi Day.  Almost.  At 8 pm, I decided I couldn't just let it go by, and that I should make pie based on what I had no hand.  That included rhubarb, only one stick of butter, no eggs, and little patience.

I stumbled across a recipe for Foolish Rhubarb Pie on ScienceBlogs.com.  Well, if it is science, I might as well trust it!  I adapted it to make it slightly lower sugar, by using brown sugar Splenda blend instead of brown sugar, using half hazelnut flour for the graham crackers, and cutting back on the rhubarb a bit (only because I only had 3/4 lb.).

Fool is tasty.  In my opinion, it doesn't need crust.  But without crust, would it be a pi(e)? Well, for this one day a year, we'd better not chance it.  The Pi(e) Day of all Pi Days will of course be 3/14/15, so we'd better start planning for two years from now!

Hazelnut Low-Sugar Muffins

 
In The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking by Peter Reinhart and Denene Wallace, I have found many recipes to try that fit the way we eat now.  First I had to track down new kinds of flour. After snagging hazelnut flour, I used almost the entire bag to make these muffins.  The original recipe is for a hazelnut-coconut coffee cake.  I couldn't decide between adding blueberries or chocolate chips, so I decided to just make muffins instead.  Half of the dough got chocolate chips stirred in, and the other half got blueberries.  The blueberries added a wee bit too much moisture, I neglected to realize that without traditional flour to soak up the moisture, the blueberry muffins were a bit wet.


I made a few other changes to the recipe - I used almond-coconut milk instead of straight coconut milk, and left out the toasted coconut.  I can see how those flavors would have been really nice, I just didn't have any on hand.  Instead I added vanilla extract. I also didn't use as much Splenda as was called for; I always intentionally cut back on it to limit the chemical taste overpowering the recipe.  From what I've read of others' opinions, I get the impression that taste doesn't bother everyone the way it bothers me.  So I just minimize.

These were lighter than the flaxseed muffin disaster I had last year, although you can still tell they are not traditional flour.  The flavor of hazelnut flour is nice and not overpowering.  I also had to buy xantham gum again, but I couldn't tell you how much it did to the texture.

Low-carb, low-sugar people: buy this book.  I haven't found any cookbook with recipes that are more palatable.  The next recipe I want to try is one of the sandwich bread recipes.  We need bread that fits in with the way we eat!! I may have enough hazelnut flour left to do one of the flaxseed-heavy recipes, so I may do that this afternoon.

Also, the carrot cake on the cover certainly looks tasty!

Low-Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

This is an adaptation of a recipe found on Pinterest; not too sweet because I find that pulling back on sweetness by using less Splenda is preferable to metallic Splenda flavor! These are a bit crumbly but if you can't eat regular peanut butter cookies, I think you'll still enjoy them.

Low-Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup Splenda for baking
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Mix first four ingredients until paste-like and uniform. Stir in chocolate chips. Scoop onto baking sheet (makes 12). Press down with fork to make the peanut butter cookie marks. Bake in preheated 350 oven for 8-10 minutes.

Spinach-Feta Börek

In one of the book groups I am in (The World's Literature in GoodReads), we are reading Turkish literature all year. I have been learning Turkish for fun, and throughout the year plan to make a few Turkish dishes. The first book we read was Snow by Orhan Pamuk, about a poet who returns to the city of Kars to investigate a string of suicides, and to reconnect with a lost love.  You may read my review, if you'd like.  Many important scenes happen in restaurants or cafes, and along with mentions of walnut-filled pastry is this passage:

"...In every city I checked into a cheap little hotel like Ka's and went off with my hosts to a Turkish restaurant where over spinach börek... we discussed politics...."

 From the research I have done, it appears that börek can refer to practically any filled pastry, usually savory.  (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)  To ask for börek, you would say "ben börek istiyorum."  And I will be saying that again, because börek is tasty!


While I found a lot of different recipes for börek online, I will simply share my technique with you.  Feel free to substitute any type of filling, shape, or topping.  The original recipe I wanted to make was leek and feta borek, and they were triangles, but then the grocery store had zero leeks (zero!), so I scrambled to gather ingredients for a different version.

Spinach-Feta Börek
(as interpreted by jennybakes.com)

1/2 package filo/phyllo dough, thawed for two hours
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 frozen package spinach, thawed and moisture squeezed out
salt, pepper, and spices to taste (I used oregano*)
4 oz. feta, crumbled
1 can spray butter-flavor nonstick spray
1 tbsp butter, melted 
Sesame seeds

Prepare a 8" cake pan by spraying with nonstick spray.  Preheat oven to 400 F. 

Saute onion in olive oil until translucent.  Add garlic and stir for a minute or so.  Stir in spinach and remove from heat.  

One by one, take five sheets phyllo (covering the rest with a damp towel) and lay on cutting board or clean flat surface, spraying each with nonstick spray.  After spraying sheet 5, spoon 1/3 of the mixture an inch from the bottom, long edge, in a long line.  Roll the pastry from the bottom into a tube.  Start making a spiral from the middle of the pan.  Repeat until you go through the pastry and fill the pan.  (My pan wasn't completely full, but it tasted good.  In Turkey you would probably have dough that was larger to start with, and make one big spiral.)

Brush the top with the melted butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.

*Many börek recipes are spicy, so you might want to add chiles or cayenne, something to add a bit of pep.  I wish I had, but this was still very good.