This March was in like a lion, out like a lamb, just as it’s supposed to be, right and good. It’s a slow-brewing Easter revelation: for the past several days, we’ve had our eye on the forecast and those double digits creeping up from 40s to 50s to 70s. We’ve been talking about the weather forecast in awed, hushed tones: it’s going to be 75°F by Thursday! Maybe 80°F on Friday!

We so want to be true believers in meteorology, just this once. We’re ready, after months of snow and ice and wind and mud, to prostrate ourselves at the altar of the Mighty Blue Screen of Meteorological Prophecy.

And today, we are believers. It’s 56°F right now. We see whispers on Facebook: our Chicago friends wax poetic in their status updates about their glorious weather, and we close our eyes and smile, knowing that what’s in Chicago today will be here tomorrow.

in the hippie spirit

And since I’m in this warm hippie spirit, I’ll offer up a foodstuff so linked to hippes that it became an adjective all its own. I’m not too granola myself, but having gone to school in Ann Arbor, I’ve mingled with the granola crowd.

And let me tell you, they’re on to something. This maple granola, from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains, is precisely what I’ve missed in every granola I’ve had until this point: fresh, balanced, and just crunchy enough. It doesn’t make large clusters of granola; rather, maple granola is more suited for the cereal bowl. I can’t tell you quite how it is as cereal though, because it became my habit to put a bit into a custard cup and spoon it, dry.

I was really happy with this maple granola and hey, it’s low-maintenance: stir it all together, a couple hours in the oven with 2 stirs, then store in an airtight container forever. Yay!

maple granola

I made half this recipe for 8 cups. Remember, granola is infinitely customizable. Substitute your own favorite nuts and dried fruit. Go crazy. You have my permission. Speaking of permission, this recipe is reprinted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains…with permission!

Yield: 16 cups
Oven: 250°F
Total time: 2½ hours

7 cups (24½ ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup (3 ounces) flaked coconut

1 cup (4 ounces) wheat germ

1 cup (5 ounces) almonds, sliced or broken up

1 cup (3¾ ounces) pecans or walnuts, chopped or broken up
1 cup (5 ounces) sunflower seeds, raw or toasted

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (11 ounces) maple syrup

¾ cup (5¼ ounces) vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup (5¼ ounces) golden raisins
1 cup (4 ounces) dried cranberries

1 cup (4½ ounces) chopped dried apricots




Preheat the oven to 250°F. Combine the oats, coconut, wheat germ, nuts, seeds and salt in a very large bowl. Mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil and vanilla. Pour the syrup mixture over the dry mixture, stirring and tossing till everything is very well combined; its probably easiest to do this with your hands.



Spread the granola over 2 large baking sheets with rims. Your cleanup will be much easier if you line them with parchment paper.



Bake for 2 hours, stirring the mixture after 1 hour or so. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool completely. Transfer the granola to a large bowl and mix in the dried fruit.



Store in an airtight container at room temperature.



Time now to quit with the endless family stories and begin slamming out these cookie recipes. Today I made progress on this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge. It’s a secret, to be revealed on the 27th. Which is a shame, because it’s sort of festive. :p

Also began filling the chocolate mint cookie sandwiches. Damn, those little chocolate disks taste just like Oreos. And I learned why Grandma made them so honkin’ big (I made them about 1-1/2 inches round instead) — the recipe made approximately 270 cookie halves. Yes, that’s 135 sandwiches. I’ll post a final total when I finish and get the recipe up. Of course, it will be a tad off due to shrinkage. Shrinkage in this case being little (and big) hands snatching them up and popping them into mouths during the filling process.

bake, gingerbread man, bake

And tomorrow evening I’ll be decorating these chewy oatmeal cutouts with Justin and Maggie. What a pleasant surprise these were. Thumbs up from kids and adults alike, and that was just the ones I tossed cinnamon sugar onto. Crispy on the edges, chewy in the middle, easy to roll and a good deal of whole grains inside.

If you’d like a cutout cookie alternative to the basic sugar cookie, this is the one you seek.

chewy oatmeal cutouts

Reprinted with permission from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever.

bake: 9-10minutes
servings: about 3 to 6 dozen cookies, greatly depending on size
oven: 350 degrees

1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) unsalted butter
3/4 cup (5-5/8 ounces) packed light or dark brown sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

2 cups (8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (2 ounces) whole wheat flour, traditional or white wheat

1 cup (3-1/2 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats

cinnamon sugar (optional, recipe follows)

To prepare the dough:

In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter and sugar, then add the egg, vanilla, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger, beating until smooth. Beat in the flours and oats; the mixture may look dry at first, but don’t worry, it’ll come together. Divide the dough into two pieces, wrap each piece in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.



Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.



To shape the cookies:

Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll it into a circle about 14″ in diameter. Use your favorite cutters to cut out cookies, re-rolling and cutting the scraps. Place the cutout cookies on lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheets; set them fairly close together, as they don’t spread.



To bake the cookies:

Bake the cookies for about 9 to 10 minutes: the shorter amount of time will make softer cookies, the longer amount of time, crisper cookies. Remove the cookies from the oven, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, if desired, and transfer to a rack to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough. Decorate as desired.


If decorating with cinnamon sugar (easy and highly recommended), sprinkle warm cookies with the cinnamon sugar right out of the oven, or it won’t stick.

cinnamon sugar

It’s a basic, but you know what? I had to look up proportions. Here they are.

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Mix together. Top cookies just out of the oven, or toast, or whatever you desire. Store forever in a sealed container.

Guess what? I actually got off my arse and did some research for y’all this time.

moops?

See, the cookie we call Mexican wedding cakes, or Russian tea cakes, or polvorones in Spain, or melting moments in Australia actually has a common descendent: the “sandie” type cookie first developed by the Moors in the Middle Ages, medieval Arabs being very fond of sweets.

Most commonly known as Mexican wedding cakes or Russian tea cakes here in the U.S., they’re a buttery, not-too-sweet cookie made with finely chopped nuts. The cookie is shaped like a ball, and rolled twice in powdered sugar after baking. The first dusting of sugar is done while warm, which allows the sugar to absorb slightly into the cookie and keeps its crust from getting hard. Since the first sugar dusting usually melts into near-invisibility, a second coating of sugar is applied to make the cookies pretty.

It’s important to note that Mexican wedding cakes are never baked until browned (else they’d be dry and overdone), so one has to trust one’s recipe for the time and one’s nose for clues as to when they’re done. It’s amazing how many things, when cooking, are “done” when you begin to smell them.

I’ve never seen them in Mexico (someone can correct me if I’m wrong), and in fact the first recipe by this name began appearing in community cookbooks in the 1950s. My mom has it in the out-of-print and highly sought after Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book, originally published in 1963.

I’ve been making Mexican wedding cakes as a Christmas cookie for a few years now, after Mom dropped them from her repertoire. Unlike nutty crescents or miloste they’re not a longstanding family tradition, so I felt safe in trying the barley flour version in the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

I asked Mom if food photography was really this ugly back in the day, or whether I’m just being overly critical and the photos had faded over time. She said no, it was that way when new, too. Nice.

sexed up

This is a sexed up Mexican wedding cake cookie. The regular version is spiced only with vanilla. This one not only has a tablespoon of vanilla instead of a teaspoon, it adds almond extract and lemon zest. The two new flavorings broaden the spectrum of this delicate cookie, adding notes both deep and tangy. I like it, but if you prefer your MWC unsexified, leave out the almond extract and lemon zest and cut the vanilla in half.

This recipe calls for processing the nuts with the oats and barley flour to a very fine consistency. My taste tester, Dad, said he missed biting into walnut pieces. You could finely chop the walnuts separately instead of processing them into the flour.

However, I recommend trying them this way, since I found this version to be a reliable recipe, good-tasting, and close enough to the original that guests will simply think, “Wow, this is a really good cookie,” and not, “My gods, what have they done to this cookie!?”

Mexican wedding cakes, or Russian tea cakes cookies

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever. Reprinted with permission.

prep: 30 minutes
bake: 15 minutes
servings: about 41 cookies
oven: 325 degrees
special equipment: food processor

1-1/3 cups (4-5/8 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup (4 ounces) whole barley flour
2/3 cup (2-5/8 ounces) walnuts
11 tablespoons (5-1/2 ounces) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (2 ounces) confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
grated zest of 1 lemon, chopped finely
1 cup confectioners’ sugar for coating

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Get out two baking sheets. Leave them naked. You may wear clothes if you like.

Optional: toast the walnuts before processing. Put the walnuts in a pan over medium heat, shaking occasionally. Heat several minutes, until you begin to smell walnuts. It’s better to remove the nuts from the heat sooner rather than later, because overheating the oils in the nuts results in a burnt flavor, while a nut that’s a bit undertoasted is much more minor, and still better than one that hasn’t been toasted at all.

Place oats, barley flour, and walnuts in a food processor. Process for 30 seconds, or until everything is finely ground.

Beat the butter, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Beat in vanilla extract, almond extract, and lemon zest. Mix in the processed oats, barley and walnuts.

Using your hands, roll bits of dough into teaspoon-size balls, no more than an inch around. Place the balls on your baking sheets, leaving about 1-1/2 inches between them. The original recipe says it yields 41 cookies; I got 51. Whichever end you tend towards, you will fill up two baking sheets.

Bake both pans at once, one on a top rack and one on a low rack, for 15 minutes. Switch the pans around midway through baking, to ensure evenness. They won’t have begun to brown, except perhaps very slightly around the bottom edge.

While the cookies are baking, spoon about 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar into a gallon-size plastic bag.

Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for 5 minutes. Place the warm cookies in the bag and shake gently to coat with sugar. Remove the cookies, allow them to cool completely, then shake them in the powdered sugar again, adding more sugar to the bag if necessary. Place the cookies on the rack once more, to allow time for the sugar to adhere, before serving or storing.

Now there’s a mouthful. Know why? Because it’s so versatile. It works for the gluten-free folks. It works for the pie folks. It works for the tart folks. It works for the don’t-make-me-get-out-the-rolling-pin folks.

Even better, this walnut-oat pie crust recipe is just a prelude to the fresh blueberry pie I made it with, coming up soon. Thought I’d get you going with this amazing crust first, because it will work with more than just blueberry pies. It’ll work with cheesecake, other pies, all sorts of tarts.

And it’s press-in-the-pan easy.

the mad day of baking for gun lake

Last week, as usual, I totally miscalculated time to food ratios. I was leaving on Thursday to visit J and B at the lake and for some reason I dicked around doing comp stuff all of Tuesday, totally forgetting this meant I’d overcompensate on Wednesday in a mad rush.

Wednesday I wound up making a double batch of no longer gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, a variation I use when doubling that replaces some of the oat flour with white whole wheat. Makes for a more traditionally taller cookie.

Then, or rather simultaneously — I wound up washing a lot of dishes that day — I tried out KAF’s zucchini bread. KAF, I love your cookbook, but one of your recipe developers has a serious nutmeg fetish. Many of the recipes have about twice the nutmeg I’d normally add to things, taste-wise, and I like nutmeg. On the bright side, my victims friends thought it was just the right amount.

The zucchini bread came out fine, cooled fine, cut a few slices to photograph, perfect texture. Until it sat a few hours, and became an uber-moist blob. Ick. All I can think is perhaps I should have chopped the zucchini up more finely after grating it, or let it sit and drain a bit before adding to the batter. Maybe my zucchinis are just really watery. It improved upon toasting, at least, and K liked it a lot that way. :p

Also simultaneously, I was madly putting together this crust and the blueberry pie, which I’ll go into in more detail in the next post. I know. Such a tease.

a more awesome crust you will not find

No siree. Not if you like oats and walnuts. And if you don’t like those, you don’t like food, and you aren’t reading this anyway.

It’s a crunchy crust, of decent thickness, about 1/4 inch. Crunchy kind of like those crunchy granola bars, but not to quite that tooth-breaking extent. The crunchiness crumbles right away in your mouth, and the butter and brown sugar enhance the warm toasty flavor of the baked oats and walnuts. This walnut-oat crust is the perfect foil for lightly sweetened fresh fruit pies. I’d like to try it with the currant pie. I bet cream pies like that would work great with the contrast of smoothness and crunch.

Look no further. This is the perfect press-in-pan crust.

gluten-free walnut-oat pie or tart crust

italic:
This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever. Reprinted with permission.

prep: 20 minutes
total time: 35 minutes
servings: 8
special equiment: food processor, 9- or 10-inch pie plate
oven: 350 degrees

1-1/3 cups old-fashioned or quick-cooking rolled oats (not instant — and be sure the label says gluten-free)
1 cup walnuts
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Spread the oats in a round cake pan. Spread the walnuts in another round cake pan. Bake the walnuts until they smell toasty and are beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Bake the oats until they begin to brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Watch both the oats and the walnuts carefully; they go from brown to burned quite quickly.

After removing the walnuts from the oven, let them cool for a few minutes. Then, while the oats are still toasting, coarsely chop them. There’s no need for fineness as they’re going into the food processor.

When the oats are done, remove them from the oven. Transfer both the toasted oats and chopped toasted walnuts to a food processor. Add the sugar and salt and drizzle in the melted butter.

Process until the oats and walnuts are finely ground and the mixture is cohesive. Happily for us, this stage will be obvious — all the ingredients will be moist and stick together.

Remove the mixture from the food processor and press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9- or 10-inch pie plate (not deep dish) that’s at least 1-1/4 inches deep, or a similar tart pan.

Bake at 350 degrees until it’s just barely beginning to brown, 14 minutes. Remove from the over and set it on a rack to cool. Use with your favorite prebaked-crust pie or tart recipes.

Variation: Use pecans instead of walnuts.

Ignore the “gluten-free” in the title. These are not some saintly cardboardy cookie things.

And I’m really not trying to be All About Baking here. Honestly.

And I’m not trying to be all health nut vegetarian gluten-free, either. FSM knows I’m a crappy vegetarian and an even more piss-poor health nut.

But you know what? These cookies are really good. I don’t even care that as far as cookies go, they are on the saintly side. They’re vegan. They’re whole grain. They even have ground flax seed.

These cookies have no right to be as yummy as they are. They should taste like nice healthy cardboard, but instead they have some kind of awesome nutty oaty crunchy thing going on.

I ran across them a while back when I didn’t have eggs, and I didn’t have the time or the patience to wait for butter to soften, but wanted chocolate chip cookies. You know when that is. At night, in winter, when some horrid wind is howling outside and PMS is prodding you to find something sweet and chocolate now or it’s going to get really cranky and take you along with it.

Oh, look. I had a helper. This is why these cookies happened today. Little voices.

“AUNT AMY, CAN WE MAKE COOKIES? I WANT TO MAKE COOKIES. LET’S MAKE COOKIES. I WANT TO HELP. I CAN HELP. LET ME POUR THAT IN. I DIDN’T SPILL IT ON PURPOSE. I DON’T KNOW HOW THE DOUGH GOT ON THE FLOOR. THIS LOOKS FUNNY. HOW CAN YOU MAKE COOKIES WITHOUT BUTTER?”

Let’s see. These chocolate chip cookies bake pretty flat. They aren’t fluffsters. They are also better crunchy; when you bake them til they are medium brown. They’re good with nuts but I also think they’re good without nuts, which is rare — I tend to prefer nuts in my chocolate chip cookies. The recipe only makes about 18 cookies, so double it up if you want lots.

To be sure about the gluten-free-ness, make sure to use gluten-free vanilla, and check your canola oil and oats. Oats are naturally gluten-free but apparently some cross-contamination can occur or something in processing bla bla.

gluten-free chocolate chip cookies

Two notes: One, if you don’t have flax seed and soy milk, replace those two ingredients with one egg. That’s basically what the ground flax seed and soy milk are standing in for. Two, I make my own oat flour. Run regular or quick oats through the food processor for about 30 seconds, until a floury consistency. Store unusued oat flour in an airtight container.

I’ve only ever made these with homemade oat flour, and it’s nowhere near as fine a consistency as a store-bought flour would be, so the cookies have a kind of nutty oat crunch to them. If you make them with some fancy oat flour, let me know how they turn out in comparison.

prep: 15 minutes
into your mouths: 40 minutes
servings: 18 cookies
oven: 375 degrees, bake 10-12 minutes

1-3/4 cups oat flour (see notes)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/3 cup walnut oil or canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

In a large bowl, mix together oat flour, soda, and salt.

In a small bowl, whisk together ground flax seed and soymilk. Stir in white and brown sugars. Add walnut or canola oil and vanilla and whisk together until the mixture is emulsified (the oil is no longer separate).

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired.

Scoop onto cookie sheet. I use a medium size cookie scoop. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool. If you let them sit on the pans too long, they’ll be really hard to get off.