Strawberry Season

 It is Strawberry season in Wisconsin! I was so excited they ripened in time to take our cousins when they visited two weeks ago. We had a lovely time. Sine there was so many of us we got a bit carried away and ended up picking 28 quarts! 

 I could of stayed all day in the strawberry patch! 

 Needless to say, we have gotten our fill of strawberries. (Enough to give me hives several times! Ha!) Including strawberry shortcake, strawberries and cream, plenty of plain strawberries and strawberry muffins! I used my favorite muffin recipe, omitting the cinnamon and adding chopped strawberries and vanilla extract. Strawberries and vanilla go so well together!

We also made 28 pints of strawberry jam! 

What is your favorite way to eat Strawberries? Have you ever picked your own?

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Peach Crumble

This summer the fruit has been luscious and plentiful. And I must admit, I have been in heaven! Cherries everyday for a month straight. Blueberries in muffins and smoothies, atop oatmeal and cereal and by the handfuls. Raspberries, blackberries and peaches so juicy and perfect. And apricots that taste like apricots. It has been pure bliss!

I haven't had too much of a chance to make and bake with all the fruit (it gets eaten too fast!), but have managed to squirrel away a bit in the freezer. This week as I stared at a basketful of almost-overripe peaches I decided a simple crumble would be the perfect dessert. A quick chop and mix and it could bake while we ate dinner. A lovely ending to the meal!

This is just a basic crumble top found in just about every cookbook. This one I barrowed from "Family Meals" by Maria Helm Sinskey, with a couple of tweaks. And since Mandy (the non-dairy eater) was out of town, I used butter!

Crumble Top

1/2 cup soft butter

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3-4 cups chopped fruit

Mix together flour, sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture starts to stick together. Sprinkle on top of fruit in 9" pie plate or 9" x 9" pan or pretty tart pan. Bake at 400 for forty minutes.

If you think your fruit is too tart or too juicy, you can mix a bit of sugar and flour with the fruit too. My peaches were perfect and the crumble was quite sweet enough. There might have been a bit too much too. I think if I had a bit less, the top would have crisped up a bit more instead of being slightly gooey in the center.

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CookBook Project: Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies, with plenty of raisins, are one of my favorite cookies!

While reading the King Arthur Flour baking blog; Flourish (I found the post on reducing sugar in cookies fascinating); I came across the mention of molasses in oatmeal cookies. Sounded intriguing to me!

A look through the cook book collection turned up these two recipes from Good Housekeeping's Book of Recipes and Household Discoveries. I was delighted to see that version 2 used molasses and cooked oatmeal. What I didn't realize is the recipe called for a half of cup of molasses!

Yes, they turned out to be molasses cookies with raisins and odd lumpy bits of oatmeal. Not too good. The cooked oatmeal also gave the cookies an odd texture. Perhaps I didn't cook the oatmeal enough, but the dough was very sticky and I had to drop by spoonful onto the pan. Once on the pan, they cooked just like I had dropped them.

Not really cookies with a spongy-gummy cake-like texture. I decided not to waste time and put the dough/batter into a 9 x 9 pan. It made a not too terrible molasses cake.

Now that I had a taste for Oatmeal Raisin cookies, I decided to go ahead and give version 1 a try. They turned out lovely! Lots of raisins, a bit crispy on the outside, but soft inside.

I found it interesting the recipe called for rolling and cutting out the cookies, even though I just rolled the dough in balls and flattened onto the cookie sheet. 

Have you ever had/heard of oatmeal cookies with molasses? I am still intrigued with the idea and will keep looking for recipes.
It has been such a long time since I have posted a Cookbook Project post! What is it all about? Read Here For more Cookbook Project posts Here.

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Easter Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter Friends!

I hope your Easter weekend was lovely. Mine was full of sunshine, daffodils, hot cross buns and insulation. Yes, we know how to celebrate holidays in my family. We plan work parties! So Saturday Mandy and I helped insulate our brother's house. This has been an ongoing project which we have been working on for about two weeks, so glad to finally be finished!

 We had daffodils for Easter! Actually, they were up last week and I was going to post about them, but the week flew by before I had a chance. Our Easter celebrations were last weekend on Palm Sunday as that is when all the family could get together. It was lovely and I was so happy to have daffys for both weekends!

 I finally got around to making Hot Cross Buns! Something that has been on my to-bake list for awhile. They were quite easy to make and scrumptious! The recipe is from my Great British Bake Off Cookbook, but here is a recipe from Mary Berry that is very similar. I really liked the piped on flour paste cross instead of the usual (American) icing cross. When I checked on the buns shortly after putting them in the oven I was sad to see the cross had soaked in and was barely visible. But the next time I checked, the buns were a lovely golden brown with a pale cross shining through!

 Oh the new leaves! Everyday there are trees with new leaflets. I am so enjoying laying in bed soaking up the green view!

 These beauties came with the little house. I usually prefer my daffodils yellow, but these have been especially lovely this year.

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Apple Buckwheat Muffins

 Do you like buckwheat? It is a stronger flavored flour and is usually the overwhelming flavor in baked good. But oh, it makes fluffy muffins and pancakes!

I think it was sister Becky, that first introduced me to buckwheat via a vintage recipe for Buckwheat Griddlecakes (pancakes). Mandy and I love to make thick fluffy buckwheat pancakes, but we still haven't gotten the hang of getting them to not stick to the pan. Part of the problem is that we are also making them dairy free with water and coconut oil. Anyway, the house always ends up smelling like a greasy diner and burnt oil.

So, I thought buckwheat muffins would solve the problem nicely. A quick search online and nothing. Nothing that met my critia (dairy-free, but not gluten free and easy). I did a quick look through my vintage cookbook collection, nothing. A look through the "modern" cookbooks, nothing. I decided, fine, I will just add a bit of buckwheat to one of my favorite recipes. The first try was not good and I didn't get around to another go....

Then last week while looking for an oatmeal cookie recipe, I grabbed Mandy's Betty Crocker Country Cooking off the shelf and came across several lovely muffins recipes. Including Apple Buckwheat Muffins!

I was focused on oatmeal cookies at the moment. But after an unfortunate egg incident (Have you ever had an egg explode when you cracked it open?!?) in which I used up all the raisins, I thought muffins might sooth my nerves. Oh my! These are some of the best muffins! Soft, moist, flavorful, satisfying.....

 I am not really sure if I should be posting the recipe (It always seems like a gray area to me. Most recipes are variations, so should they really be copyrighted?), but it is too good not to share!

Apple Buckwheat Muffins (dairy-free version)

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 cup apple juice or water

1/4 cup melted coconut oil

1 egg

1 large tart apple, grated

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix flour, buckwheat flour, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl. Stir in grated apple until well coated with flour mixture. Beat together egg, water or apple juice and coconut oil in a small bowl. Add to flour apple mixture, stir until just blended. Spoon into 18 muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Tip muffins up on edge in pan to cool.

Maybe this is my recipe now that I have tweaked it a bit.(?) If you don't have/like coconut oil, I am sure another veggie oil will work fine too.

AS you can see, they didn't last long!

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Baking Day

The last couple of weeks I have  been baking up a storm! I don't think I have been in this much of a baking mode since moving to the little cottage. Somehow, for me baking requires a clear, quiet mind.(I am not talking about whip-up-the-tried-and-true-favorite-muffins-and-biscuits baking, but the let's-go-on-an-adventure-and-try-something-new baking). There has been a lot going on since we have moved! But now that the house projects have slowed and nothing needs to be urgently finished, I am ready to bake!
I have also been setting aside a  weekly "baking day", depending on the schedule, whichever day I have an empty evening. It has been so fun to plan what I want to make and something which I look forward to all day!

Suddenly I find myself reading cookbooks just for fun, making a list of things to bake. Wondering how a recipe would turn out if I used this instead of that or added in this or possibly add more of that. I know some of the enthusiasm has come from a Christmas gift, The Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking. (I didn't even know there was a cookbook!?!) I have tried a few recipes so far and have a long list I would still like to make. Which I will be sure to share!

Last week I tried 100% Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread from King Arthur Flour. It turned out fabulous! I have been trying to eat more whole grains for a bit more staying power to meals (I have a fast metabolism).

It is kind of an interesting recipe. You start by making a starter to give the yeast a bit of a boost. There is also orange juice to counter the bitterness of the whole wheat flour and instant potato flakes for moistness.

I've never tried brushing the dough with a beaten egg before sprinkling on the cinnamon and sugar filling, but it works really nice. No falling apart of layers or getting stuck in the toaster! 

A lovely dense texture and the perfect sweetness!

The only thing I changed was to make it dairy free; used water instead of milk and left out the powdered milk completely.

This bread sure didn't last long! I just barely managed to photograph the last slice before it vanished!

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Valentine's Day Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies

In our house February is a busy month. It is birthday season! About three-quarters of the family celebrates their birthdays in February. So Valentine's Day often gets over looked. This year, my contribution to the day was making cookies!

 I used the Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies Recipe from On Sutton Place. They turned out really good. Right out of the oven warm, they were like eating a warm brownie, once cooled they are more cookie like.

A word of caution; it is really hard to tell when these cookies are done! The recipe says to bake for 6 minutes and that was right on. I just wish I would have set a timer! As the second batch was in a bit too long and ended up very crispy and crunchy.  

I did change the recipe to make it dairy free by substituting canola oil and coconut oil for the butter. I also skipped the dipping in melted chocolate and made a simple chocolate glaze. Just enough to make the sprinkles stick! Aren't the little hearts fun? (It will probably take me years to use them all up!)

It has been a long time since I rolled out my favorite vintage Valentine. For the month of February, his home is on my dressing table mirror.

Happy Valentines Day Friends!

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Cozy Autumn

 We are moving on to that time of autumn where there are less and less leaves on the trees, hats and mittens are needed for morning walks and the days are shorter. Not only are the days shorter, but around here it is usually rainy. My favorite way to beat the dreary-ness? Do a little baking! Nothing makes the house more cozy then the aroma of fresh baked goods!

Continuing on with my muffin craze this year, my newest recipe are these pumpkin muffins from King Arthur Flour. A lovely fall treat! 

Below is a list of past baking posts.

Autumn Spice Cake

Rock Buns

Apple Crisp Deluxe

Chelsea Pies

Apple Upside-down Cake

Brown Sugar Cookies

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

What is your favorite cozy autumn activity?

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3 Varieties of Apple Muffins

Muffins of all kinds have been top on my baking list this year. They are quick and satisfy my cravings for comfort food and baked goods. I even have time in the morning (if I don't get too distracted!) to whip up a batch before leaving for work. Perfect start to the day!

 I dug this recipe out of the recipe basket last night and remembered how good it was. It has been around a long time. Written across the card is "Double it!" in large letters. When the brothers were at home, twelve muffins didn't go far!

Cran-Apple Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1/3 cup veg.oil

In large bowl combine above ingredients. Fold in 1 cup shredded or chopped peeled tart apple. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Use 1/2 cup whole cranberry sauce to top muffin batter(about 1 tablespoon on each muffin) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. Combine 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar with 1 tablespoon orange juice for icing. Drizzle over cooled muffins. Makes 12 muffins.

I am sure once the weather is a bit colder I will make the Cranberry version. But for now I am all about apples! So I chopped my apples kind of chunky, used apple cider instead of milk (to make it dairy-free) and threw in raisins in half the muffins (orange liners- apple. purple liners- apple raisin). I found an apple and raisin bread recipe online that looked good, but the tried and true was simpler.

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