Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Pancakes

The name of these pancakes sure is a mouthful, but rest assured that these are a great breakfast treat (I even whipped them up on a weekday!). Full of mono and polyunsaturated fats from the peanut butter, potassium from the bananas, and oodles of B vitamins from the whole wheat flour. Two pancakes kept me full all morning, so this recipe can easily feed three people. 

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Pancakes

makes 6 pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

 2 tbsp. brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2/3 cup milk (I used soy)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 large ripe bananas, mashed

2 tablespoons peanut butter

1.    In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.

2.    In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, banana, vanilla and peanut butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, making sure not to over mix.

3.    Heat a skillet or grilled on medium heat. Using a 1/3 cup measure, spoon batter into rounds and cook until bubbles form on top – about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for a minute or two more. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve hot with butter and syrup.

Hamantaschen

 Here's my cookie of choice for the holidays this year. These are typically for the Jewish holiday of Purim, but I couldn't resist making these puppies for Christmas.

You can find the basic recipe here, but two out of three fillings I made myself.

Here's the lowdown...




Chocolate filling
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Microwave until smooth and dreamy - cool before filling cookies.

Fig Filling
7 ounces dried figs
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. boiling water
1 1/2 tsp. honey
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice


Chop up the figgies in a food processor, add the rest of the ingredients and process again until smooth. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight. 




Notes: The Kitchn does a really great job at explaining the process, but from personal experience it's easiest if you roll out the dough in two batches, and when it comes to filling - shape the cookies into triangles before filling; less messy and they hold together better. Also, I used apricot jam for the others - Polaner makes a really great jam, in my opinion. 

Bake away, my lovelies!

Brown Bread

I love intense colors: hot red, deep purple, emerald blue, sapphire green, you name it. But the color I think is the most underrated? Brown. Brown can be beautiful and classy if you do it up right. Like this brown bread; there's something beautiful about it in it's simplicity. 


This would be a great breakfast on a snowy morning, maybe with a cup of tea and a good slathering of natural peanut butter.


Multigrain Brown Bread


3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup rye flour
1/3 cup oat flour (I just whirred up some rolled oats in a coffee grinder)
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk (or a scant cup milk and 1 tbsp. lemon juice)
1/3 cup molasses
1/2 cup prunes, pureed*
1 egg white




Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together the flours, baking soda and spices. Whisk together the buttermilk, molasses, prune puree, and egg whites. Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients just until combined. Bake in a greased loaf pan for 30 minutes. 




*Soak the 1/2 cup of prunes in hot water for 5 minutes, drain and puree in a food processor (you might need a few tbsp. of the soaking liquid to get it smooth). If prunes aren't your thing, you could try raisins, dried apricots or figs. I would recommend at least trying the prunes though - they add to the great dark color of the bread.




A few notes about this bread - It's dark, spicy, and not too sweet. You'll probably need something to spread on it (like honey or jam), and it's much better the second day. If you're skeptical after the fist bite, take another, it really grows on you. 

Cream Puffs Galore

Let's talk French desserts. Fancy ones.

French doughs and batters have lots of fancy names, like pate a choux, or pate brisee, or pate sucre. I don't think that helps the approachable factor.

Pate A Choux (eclair or cream puff batter) translates to cabbage paste. See? Not so scary. If you're wondering about the name, it's because cream puffs "look like little cabbages", and fun fact, "Mon petit choux" is a term of endearment meaning, "My little cabbage". Cute.

Last weekend I taught Jesse how to make cream puffs. She took lots of pretty pictures. Now it's your turn to make these delicious little puffs of gold.

Let's start with the Pate A Choux - here's the breakdown.

1 cup water

1/2 cup butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup flour

5 eggs

Combine water, butter and salt in a heavy saucepan. Bring mixture to a full boil. Remove the pan from the heat and add the flour all at once. Stir quickly.

Return the pan to moderate heat and stir vigorously until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. 

Transfer the dough to the bowl of a mixer, and with the paddle attachment, mix at low speed until the dough has cooled slightly. It should still be very warm but not too hot to touch.

 At medium speed, beat in eggs a little at a time. Add no more than one quarter of the eggs at once, and wait until they are completely absorbed before adding more. When all the eggs are absorbed, the paste is ready to use.

 Pipe into desired shape, keeping them all uniform size and shape. Bake at 425 until crisp, about 17 minutes.  Do not open oven while baking, they WILL collapse.

But that's what the oven window is for! (super concentrated face helps too)

A few notes on Pate A Choux:

- My batter in these pictures was still a little warm when I piped it, so I would recommend refrigerating for 15 minutes if you have the same problem. 

- Feel free to pipe into eclairs, mini eclairs, or whatever your heart desires. Just remember, they expand a lot in the oven, so keep it small. 

- Don't have time to finish this whole process in one day? I didn't. Good news is these shells freeze beautifully, so once you have them baked and cooled, just pop in the freezer and defrost in the oven for a few minutes when you're ready to use them. 

Here's what they should look like when baked, and you can see the middles are completely hollow in the middle! Lots of room for delicious filling. 

Now may come the question, what to fill these little gems with? Well, the options are pretty much endless, but we're going to stick with the classic vanilla pastry cream here. 

Pastry Cream (Crème Patissiere)

4 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

5 egg yolks

2 whole eggs

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup sugar

4 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp vanilla

In a heavy saucepan, dissolve sugar in the milk and bring just to a boil.

With a whip, beat the egg yolks and whole eggs. Sift the cornstarch and sugar into the eggs and whip until smooth.

Temper the egg mixture by slowing beating in the hot milk in a thin stream. Return the mixture to the heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. When the mixture comes to a boil and thickens, remove from the heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Refrigerate until cold and whip before filling éclairs.

Don't have time for pastry cream? While I highly suggest it if you're going to all this work, another easy option is to fill with sweetened whipped cream. 

Next up, ganache. 

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup cream

Bring cream to a boil in a medium saucepan. Turn off heat and add chocolate chip and let sit for 1 minute. Whisk until smooth.

Whew, ok, that was a process, but bear with me here, almost finished!

Time to fill these puppies! 

The filling process is made much easier with a pastry bag and tip, not going to lie here, but obviously I forgot both of those things when I made this batch, so I'll give you some options. 

1. Pastry bag/tip - Poke holes in bottoms of pastry shells with tip, fill with cream. 

2. Ziploc bag/tip of vegetable peeler - yeah, that happened. 

Once filled, dip in ganache, and be prepared for some marriage proposals. 

Yum yum!

Tasty Resolutions

Almost two weeks into the new year, I'm going to make an assumption and say that most of us are still going strong with our new year's resolutions. Honestly I'm still kind of in the process of figuring out what mine are. Get a library card. That's definitely one. Post on my blog more. I'm doing so good, right?

Anyway, I know one that holds true for me along with most everyone - be healthy. It's important, it can be fun and exciting, and also a real pain in the ass. So to make this goal a little easier for you, and as a request from my sister Nikki, let's make some fiber packed, naturally sweetened, tasty baked goods.

First, let's talk breakfast. I'm going to say it's at least 20% easier for me to drag my tired butt out of bed if I know there's something good for breakfast downstairs. Which brings me to this recipe from my mama: whole grain, honey sweetened, and there's veggies (in the muffin!).


Carrot Spice Muffins 

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour                                                              
1 tsp baking soda                                                                                  
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp allspice
1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1/2 cup yogurt
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400. Measure dry ingredients into a large bowl. Mix all other ingredients into the same bowl until moist. Scoop batter in muffin tins* and bake 15-20 minutes.

*I'm going to make a guess and say this yields 12 muffins, but my mom's recipe doesn't specify.


Now maybe you have a craving for cookies. I do, most of the time. But maybe you don't want to eat a stick of butter in cookie form. That's why these Peanut Butter Cookies from Heidi Swanson are pretty much where it's at. Naturally sweetened, whole grain, and you get those great omega 3 fatty acids from the extra virgin olive oil - they'll make your hair shiny and your body happy - that's all you need to know. Also, if you want to add some dark chocolate chips, I won't tell anyone.


So good luck with those resolutions, I'll work on getting to the library and making a batch of these cookies.

Whole Wheat Apple Butter Scones

Happy New Year to all of you wonderful people! Now that the holiday craziness is finally coming to a close, I think it's time to hop back in the kitchen.

Scones. I like em'. I know they're kind of an acquired thing, some people say they're too dry, some just boring, but these scones are neither of those things. Moist, sweet, delicious... and I've made them twice to make sure they turn out perfect for those Sunday morning house guests of yours... because wouldn't you love to greet them with warm apple-y scones? I thought so. Just looking out for you here.

Whole Wheat Apple Butter Scones
If you don't have WW pastry flour, go ahead and use all purpose flour. 


2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 stick butter, cubed
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup apple butter
cinnamon sugar (for sprinkling tops)

Preheat oven to 400. Either grease, parchment or silpat a baking sheet. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, add butter and rub into the flour mixture with your fingers until the butter is the size of peas.

 Add buttermilk and vanilla extract and stir to form a soft (but not sticky) dough. Roll out on a floured surface (I used AP flour for this), and spread with the apple butter.

Roll up and cut into 9 slices - I used a sharp carving knife for this. Flatten slightly with the palm of your hand and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 20 minutes.
















I would suggest eating these with a cup of milky tea or coffee, and more apple butter or butter on top never hurts.

New years resolution? Eat more scones.

Pie in the face

Confession: I've always wanted to throw a pie in someone's face… preferably an ex-boss of mine. It's kind of on my bucket list.

Speaking of pie, since we're all here for baking tips and such, let's have a chat, shall we?

So, pie. It's pretty much where it's at. Pie can be awesome, pie can be pretty craptastic - the deal breaker for me? The crust. I've had too many a pie crust that taste like bitter, slightly burnt and crumbly weirdness. Let’s not ruin our filling with that god awful stuff anymore, yeah?

The recipe (makes one double crust pie) –

3 cups flour

¼ cup sugar

2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

pinch of salt

ice water

Mix together flour, sugar and salt. Rub the butter into the flour with your hands* until the butter is mostly incorporated, but you still have some small chunks in there. Pour in the ice water a few tbsp. at a time, fluffing the mixture with your fingers, and when everything is moistened, start forming into a ball. You want the minimum amount of ice water possible, but you also don’t want any crumbs left in the bottom of the bowl.  Cut the dough ball in half, form into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 45 minutes.

Let’s continue our chat… you’ll have many people telling you that you should never use butter in pie crust, that it makes it hard to work with, that only shortening will make it flaky like it’s “supposed” to be.

I call bullshit on those people.

Technically speaking, they’re right. Fine, I’ll give them that. But you know what they don’t tell you in culinary school? Shortening makes it taste like crap. Do you really want to smear a nice chunk of shortening on your toast in the morning? No, you don’t, and if you do… I think you probably need to seek some professional help.

As far as workability, butter has a lower melting point than shortening, so yes, you’re going to need to keep it cold, because that’s what you do with real food… jesus, what is this world coming to?

Maybe I’m coming off as elitist… no, I definitely am – but I think it’s my duty to all bakers to help make them better bakers. I’m serious here. I want you to walk into that potluck of yours and put the other pie, cake, trifle, whatever, to shame. Heck, I want you to blow my pie out of the water, because as much as I love having the best pie, I want yours to be better. Why? I’m selfish. I want more good pie in my life. I hope we understand each other here.

Let’s get on to the tips –

1. Most importantly, keep everything cold. Take your butter out of the fridge right before you’re ready, and make sure you have the ice water all set. Some people go as far as refrigerating the flour, but I say that’s overkill.


2. Don’t add too much water. It will make it harder to roll and it won’t be as flaky in the end. This might take a few tries before you get it right. 


3. When rolling, keep it moving. This means you always want to make sure you keep adequate flour underneath and on top of the dough. You should always be able to slide the dough on your surface (I like to keep continually turning mine as I’m rolling). If the crust gets too warm in this process, just stick it on a cookie sheet and put it in the fridge for a few minutes. Take a breath and try again. 

*I want to note that some people prefer to use a food processor at this point, but I wouldn't suggest it. It's way too easy to over process the butter in a very short amount of time, thus not creating the small pockets of butter which result in a flaky crust. I realize this might not convince you, and I might just have to look the other way on this one, but please just take my word for it. Also, a pastry cutter may be used, but I think it's important to know what your product feels like when it's ready.  

      
      If you need advice about what to fill your pie with, let me know! Also, if you still feel lost, would pictures or a video be helpful? If the answer is yes, I'll do my best to work on that.