Golden Braid

Still on the subject of cooler weather and what that means in the kitchen, it is also fun now to bake bread. It did get cool enough in the house that I used a heated pitcher of water to help the dough rise by putting both in the microwave and closing the door because it just wasn't rising in the chill of the house. The good news is that the oven warms everything up once it gets going and the fragrance of fresh yeast bread has a soul satisfying warmth for the spirit all its own.

This particular bread was made for today's auction at P.E.O., the women's scholarship group I belong to. Every year we have a silent auction to raise funds for the scholarships and freshly baked bread gets lots of bidders. I made a golden braid of dried fruit laced deliciousness. Orange zest complements the dried cranberries, golden raisins and chopped citron. Since the bread has very little sugar, it can be used with soup or sliced thin and buttered for a breakfast or afternoon nibble.

The recipe is from a book that has festive holiday bread recipes. I added dried cranberries and chopped citron, increased the amount of orange zest and added a bit more water. The recipe said to put the dried fruits in with the flour, but next time I think I'll knead them into the dough once it it mixed and kneaded.

Fruited Braid
Makes 1 loaf
Adapted from a recipe in The Festive Bread Book, by Kathy Cutler

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water (105 – 115 degrees F)
2 ¼ - 3 cups unbleached bread flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons grated orange zest (colored part only)
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons golden raisins
½ cup dried cranberries
¼ cup chopped citron
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup warm milk (105 – 115 degrees F)
1 egg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened


Dissolve yeast in warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes.

Combine 1 ½ cups flour, salt, orange zest, raisins, dried cranberries, citron and sugar in mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly.

Mix together the warm milk and egg. Add the milk mixture, yeast mixture and butter to the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth, about 10 minutes.

Place in greased bowl, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in warm place until double in bulk – about 1 hour.

Punch down dough. Divide the dough into thirds. Make three ropes. Braid on a greased, parchment covered, or silicon mat covered baking sheet.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until double – about 30 -45 minutes.

Brush with melted butter. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 20 minutes, then turn down temperature to 325 degrees F and bake another 20-30 minutes until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the back.

Cool on a wire rack.

OPTIONAL: If you want to decorate the loaf: Make the Confectioners’ Icing, then drizzle it over the cool loaf. Sprinkle with the almonds and candied cherries to decorate. Let the icing dry before serving.

Confectioners Sugar icing: Mix together 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest and 1-2 tablespoons milk. 

Orphan Bread

You probably know someone who is a vegan. We used to call them vegetarians, but then vegetarians divided up that world and some were ovo-lacto vegetarians, meaning they could have eggs and milk, some were non-meat eating vegetarians, so they could have fish, too, and then the strict vegetarians who don't consume meat, poultry, fish, eggs or milk decided to call themselves vegans to make sure that it was clear.

There is a lot to be said for eating that way, but it is not an easy diet. The same is true for Paleo eaters, although they can't eat half (or more) of what vegans eat and they do tend to eat a lot of meat. If you find that either works for you, then go for it. If you are Paleo, this bread probably isn't for you.

I recently spoke with my older sister and she is a vegan. Her description of how to know if something is OK to eat is it can't have a mother. I doubt that it can have a father, either. This bread qualifies, so I'm calling it Orphan Bread.

This bread is based on a recipe from Soups and Breads - The Irish Kitchen by Nuala Cullen, but I increased the Irish whole meal flour and decreased the bread flour for added texture, flavor and fiber, plus I took out the walnuts and put in pecans. For one thing, the walnuts tend to tint the bread pink. Pecans don't do that and are delicious, too. The apricots are the same and they go really well with pecans.

To keep it an orphan bread, the milk was replaced with almond milk. It is a really wonderful, full flavored bread and lovely toasted. In keeping with the vegan theme, don't use butter on the toast, but top it instead with a nut butter or apricot jam...or both. I admit it, I added a bit of butter to the toasted piece, but then one feels so sorry for an orphan.

Apricot and Pecan Orphan Bread
Based on a recipe in the cook book Soups and Breads - The Irish Kitchen by Nuala Cullen
Makes one loaf

75 g finely chopped dried apricots
75 g roughly chopped pecans
405 g strong white flour (bread flour)
120 g coarse brown flour (I used King Arthur Irish Whole Meal)
one packet instant dried yeast
325 ml/12 fl oz/1 ½ cups liquid with 2/3 water and 1/3 almond milk
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons almond milk
additional 1 tablespoon finely chopped pecans for topping

In a large mixing bowl mix together the flours, apricots, nuts, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the yeast and water or water mixture and let stand 10 minutes for the yeast to 'bloom'. Add the olive oil and stir.

With dough hook in place and mixer on low speed, gradually add the dry mixture until the dough is soft and cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead with the machine for 3-4 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead 2-3 minutes until dough is satiny.

Oil the mixing bowl, put in the dough, turn to coat with oil, cover with plastic wrap/clingfilm and allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Knock the air out of the dough and knead briefly before turning out onto a floured surface. Shape as desired. I did a three strand braid. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Brush some almond milk over the risen loaf and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon chopped pecans.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree F oven for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and tap underneath. If a hollow sound results, the bread is cooked. If not, bake a little longer and test again. You could also shape the dough in two loaves and bake them in two 8 x 4 loaf pans.

This is the kind of bread recipe that you can play around with, substituting different dry fruits for the apricots, different nuts for the pecans. Have fun with it!

A Bread For and With Tea

One of my Christmas presents was Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads and it is a beauty. Hundreds of breads, both yeasted and not, dozens of new techniques to try, lots and lots of new flavor combinations, too. It was difficult to know where to start.

One recipe that caught my eye was the Tea Brack. Brack comes from the Irish word brac, meaning speckled – you can see that each slice is speckled with dried fruit and candied peel. It makes one loaf and the author plainly states that he loves to drink tea and that this lovely loaf has tea as one of its main ingredients as well as being a great thing to eat while drinking tea. It also has golden raisins and currents and I love both of those dried fruits in baked goods. You do need to start this the day before you bake it so that the fruit has plenty of time to marinate overnight.

I had expected a dense somewhat dry bread but it turned out to be very moist and chewy and fairly light for a bread with such a lot of fruit in it. I love the spiciness and hint of brandy, too. Truthfully, even though I used a good strong Irish Breakfast brew for the tea, you really couldn't taste the tea as such. It does, however, go really well with a cup of hot tea and a good book. Although Sweetie enjoys it so much that there probably won't be any left by day's end, this kind of bread usually lasts quite a while without getting stale because of all the fruit.


Tea Brack
one medium loaf
from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

1 cup white raisins
3/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup chopped candied peel (I used half lemon and half orange peels)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cold tea (orange pekoe is fine, I used Irish Breakfast)
1/4 cup rum or brandy (I used brandy)(optional but nice)
2 cups bread or all-purpose flour (I used all-purpose, unbleached)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon EACH ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and salt
1 egg, room temperature, well beaten

Grease and line sides and bottom with buttered waxed paper - 1 medium (8" x 4") loaf pan. Leave the paper ends sticking out about 1/2 inch so the loaf can be pulled from the pan. Set aside. (You can prepare the pan the next day after the fruit is marinated.)

In a bowl combine the raisins, currants, candied peel, brown sugar and cold tea. Add a dollop of brandy or rum to give it a secret goodness, although this is optional. Cover tightly with plastic wrap so that no moisture escapes and let marinate overnight.

The next day...Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. while making the batter.

In a clean bowl mist together, with your clean fingers, or a spoon, the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Pour the dry ingredients into the marinated fruit mixture, stir well to combine, and add the egg. The mixture will be on the thin side. Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the loaf slowly in the 325 degree oven until a toothpick comes out dry when pierced into the load, about 1 1/2 hours. If using a convection oven, reduce heat; bake at 300 degrees F.

Remove the bread from the oven. Place on a wire rack about 5 minutes to cool, then remove the bread from the pan, discard the paper, and let cool completely before slicing.

Serve with butter or cream cheese...and tea!

Edge of Winter Bread

I still read the daily newspaper. That does, indeed, make me something of a dinosaur, but I enjoy reading the paper during breakfast and I have difficulty mixing food and drink and computer use...guess it's because I'm prone to spilling things and I would hate to have scrambled eggs all over my keyboard or coffee splashes on my screen.

One of the things that has been really brought to the front time and again this past week or so are all of the extremes of weather around the globe, from flooding followed by a cyclone in Australia to cold so extreme in Taos where my sister and brother-in-law live that the natural gas from Texas is unavailable...most likely it turned to a liquid and is just sitting in the pipes.

Snow continues to confound New York city with it's persistence and depth, snow sliding off the Superbowl stadium slid onto an unlucky bypasser, and we are having a long dry warm spell. Now this might sound like boasting, but they tell us that we should worry because February is supposed to be wet...we don't usually get much rain during the summer and early fall, so we need it now.

Being an optimistic sort of person I'm not going to worry about the lack of rain. Instead I made bread and since it IS still winter I added lemon zest and some Meyer Lemon flavored olive oil, plus dried fruit. I even used the last of my Michigan dried cherries! Maybe I'll get some for Christmas.

This bread is fine grained and moist, just slightly sweet, and makes excellent toast. I divided the dough in half and used one half to make 6 mini-breads, baked in custard cups and ramekins. The other half was shaped into a ball and baked in a pie pan. That loaf will work for sandwiches or some great French Toast.You can shape your as you like. This dough is easy to work with.

If you want to use it as a sweet bread for breakfast, you could add another 1/3 cup brown sugar when you mix the liquid ingredients. Shape one piece of dough in a braid...and you could even top it with the second piece, braided. When baked and cooled a milk and powdered sugar icing drizzled on top and a scattering of sliced almonds will make it quite impressive.

This bread is going to Susan at Wild Yeast for the Yeastspotting weekly event, one of the most inspiring and fun weekly collections of bread you've ever seen.

Lemon Winter Sourdough Mini-Breads and Round Loaf
Recipe created by me

Pre-Ferment
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup flour
1 cup water

Dough
1/2 cup water at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 cup milk at room temperature
all of Pre-Ferment
1 egg
5 tablespoons Meyer Lemon or regular olive oil
grated zest of 1 medium lemon
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 1/2 - 3 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt

Fruit Mix
1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Pre-Ferment
Whisk the flour and water together in a medium bowl, then whisk in the sourdough starter until well combined. Let sit uncovered on the counter 2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for at least 1 day or up to 1 week.

Dough
Add the instant yeast to the water and let proof. In the bowl of an electric mixer with dough hook, or in a large mixing bowl, combine the water-yeast mixture, milk and pre-ferment. Add the egg, olive oil, and brown sugar, lemon zest and combine well.

In another bowl combine the all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, 1 cup of the bread flour and the salt with a whisk until well mixed. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour about a cup at a time, for the first 2/3 of the flour mixture. The dough should come together and start climbing the dough hook. Add the remaining 1 cup flour mixture in 1/3 cup increments then continue to add the rest of the bread flour in small amounts until the dough fully climbs the dough hook and cleans the side of the bowl. Let dough knead for 3 - 5 minutes, or until soft and supple.

Turn dough into an oiled bowl or container for rising, cover loosely with an oiled piece of plastic wrap, then a tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.

While dough rises, combine the Fruit Mix ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

Turn risen dough out onto lightly floured surface and press down to release gases. Divide into 2 pieces of dough. Set one aside.

Knead 1/2 of fruit mix into one piece of dough. Knead the other 1/2 of the fruit mix into the other piece of dough. Shape dough as desired. Cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise until nearly doubled in bulk, about 2 hours for a loaf or 1 hour for rolls.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven until golden brown and loaf sounds hollow when bottom is tapped.

Let cool completely. Makes great toast!

How About a Muffin?

When the kids were still at home I used to whip up a batch of muffins about once a month. Savory ones to go with soup for dinner or sweet ones for a weekend breakfast were something I just baked without thinking much about it.

Muffins really are quick breads...you combine the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another, make sure the oven is hot and the muffin tins are greased and it's only a few minutes later that the muffins are in the oven. By the time you've cleaned up they are just about done and the kitchen smells heavenly!

Not very many people know it, but I had a muffin business in the East Bay when my boy was a baby. I called it Mega Muffins and I filled the cups of the muffin tin all the way up so that the tops practically met on the muffin tin top. This was before super sized muffins became popular (see, I'm ancient). I called the scone trend before it happend, too. Too bad I have no desire to run a big baking business...I might even know the next thing that will become big in the personal baked goods area. Cupcakes are almost over so you know something else (besides whoopie pies) is coming :)

But today's topic boys and girls is muffins. Last month Lisa of Parsley Sage Desserts and Line Drives did a contest and I won a gift certificate from OhNuts! Thank you Lisa and OhNuts! One of the items I ordered was a dried cherry and almonds trail mix that also has dried candied pineapple and golden raisins (plus some little chocolate ovals which I removed for the muffins).

Sweetie ate some and declared it a good mix, but I wanted to use it in muffins, too, so he kindly hid the bag until I could bake muffins...otherwise the whole bag would have been snacked on. He also really enjoyed their cashews for snacks. I was very impressed with the freshness of their products. (Yes, I did order more than the gift certificate amount, but it was too hard to choose because so many things looked ...and were...good!)

You can use any combination of your choice of dried fruits and good nuts. I used 1 cup of the mix, but a cup and a half would have been even better.

Some hints for successful muffins: In order to have your muffins be moist and tender, use as few strokes as possible to combine the wet and dry ingredients. Then scoop the batter into the muffin tins right away and get the tins into the oven right away, too. Since this recipe used both baking powder and baking soda (to react with the acid fo the buttermilk) you'll get the best oven spring if the oven is preheated so its good and hot, and if you get the muffins in the oven quickly.

The flavor of these muffins depends totally on the ingredients (there are no spices or extracts or citrus zests to hide behind) so use fresh nuts, milk, eggs and butter. Check to make sure that your whole wheat flour is also fresh smelling before using it. If your dried fruits are really dried out, you could soak them briefly in hot water then drain well on papertowels before using.

I'll bet you are going to love these muffins. They don't even need butter! Of course if you like your nice hot muffins with butter, who am I to tell you no?

Fruity Almondy Muffins

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1/2 cup milk, at room temperature
4 tablespoons melted butter, cooled
1 cup dried fruit and nut mix, large pieces and nuts chopped roughly (I used OhNuts! Cherry Almond Trail Mix, but removed the chocolate pieces)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (optional)

In a medium bowl combine the first 6 ingredients (dry ingredients). Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the next 4 ingredients (wet ingredients). Set aside.

Add the roughly chopped fruits and nuts to the dry ingredient bowl and stir to coat the added ingredients with the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center.

Pour the wet ingredients into the well of the dry ingredients. With a fork quickly, with as few strokes as possible, combine the wet and dry ingredients. Scoop roughly 1/4 cup of the batter into each cup of a 12-portion muffin cup pan where the cups have been sprayed with baking spray or greased with oil or butter. Cups should be about 2/3 full.

If desired sprinkle the tops of filled muffin cups with the granulates sugar. Bake in preheated 400 degree F oven until golden brown, about 14 - 20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Christmas Strong Bread

Most of my adult life I've been an explorer of sorts, almost always ready to try something new, to learn a new skill, read a new book, look at something in a new way. Success has not always followed, but I learn from my mistakes, too, so they are valuable in their own way.

For the last half year or so the impetus to try new things has hibernated while I worked on getting a handle on what I really want...probably easy for some people but lately a struggle for me. Not too surprisingly to those who know us, top of the list of what I really want is to be with Sweetie. Since I turned into a bit of a shrew during the bathroom project it's good to know that he still feels the same way and he is happy that I've returned to being the loving and mostly reasonable woman who was hard to find during the summer and fall. The optimistic office worker has also resurfaced perhaps because there are new tasks to master and a change of venue coming up.

So 'what does all this have to do with food blogging?' you ask...it means I'm back to looking for the enjoyment of challenges in the kitchen...and my first High Five entry in quite a while. As you may or may not remember, Lynn, known in the blogosphere as Cookie Baker Lynn, challenged us last winter to stretch ourselves in the kitchen, blog about it and then let her know our High Five accomplishment. The idea was to do one a month. Hahahahahaha. Great idea, but hasn't happened.


My High Five this time is for baking Pan Forte di Siena, a sort of Tuscan fruitcake with a honey base. I've seen it at the specialty stores for an absurd amount of money for a small wedge and was sure that I could make it myself. Still, there is an awful lot of costly ingredients in this 'strong bread' so I was a little nervous about making it...it IS very different from anything I've made before.


For starters I scoured the Internet for recipes, looked at suggested techniques and proportions, then put together my own recipe with what I like and had on hand. The basic unit of measurement for my version is 3/4 cup. The toasted nuts add up to a double of 3/4 cup. The dried fruit is the same. The dry ingredients combined equals 3/4 cup and you use 3/4 cup each of sugar and honey for the syrup that binds it all together.

This cake/bread uses no oil other than to butter the pan and parchment and it has no eggs either. The syrup is boiled to a soft ball stage in all the recipes I looked at and almost all baked it in a low oven for about 30 minutes. There is far more fruit and nuts than 'cake' in pan forte (and it has no resemblance to Aunt Hattie's fruitcake brick).


This pan forte is a thin cake filled with fruit, nuts and spices with a lovely honey-citrus note. A little goes a long way, so you can see why this was historically considered the Crusaders Power Bar. There are versions with figs and walnuts, too. If you have made candied orange peel you will probably want to increase the amount of orange peel and decrease the citron. Dates would work in this, too, and pine nuts would be great for some of the nuts. Just keep the 3/4 cup and 1 1/2 cup proportions.

Pan Forte is available year round now but used to be one of the treats of the Yuletide in Italy, especially in Sienna. This is not a difficult recipe, although prepping the dried fruit and roasting the nuts takes some time. Sweetie and Straight Shooter assure me that it was well worth the time. Try it yourself and you, too, can have a High Five from Lynn!


Pan Forte di Siena

1 ½ cups toasted nut…mix of whole almonds and slivered almonds and chopped hazelnuts
½ cup diced citron
½ cup diced apricots & ½ cup diced dried cherries
2 tablespoons diced candied orange peel
zest of 1 lemon and zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon each: cloves, nutmeg, cardamom
pinch of pepper
½ cup flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup honey
2-3 tablespoons almond meal or ground almonds
parchment paper

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Butter a 9” springform pan, line bottom with parchment paper, butter that, sprinkle on the almond meal or ground almonds evenly & set pan aside.

In a bowl mix together the nuts, citron, apricots, candied peel, citrus zest, spices, flour and cocoa.

In a heavy pot stir together the sugar and honey. Over low heat, stirring constantly, melt the honey and sugar together. Increase heat to medium high. Stop stirring and let cook until mixture reaches 245 degrees F (soft ball stage), using a wet pastry brush to wash down the sides of the pot to keep crystals from forming. When soft ball stage is reached remove pan from heat and pour mixture into dry ingredients, stir it all together quickly to combine all ingredients. Pour mixture into the prepared pan and using slightly wet hands smooth the top. Work quickly as mixture hardens fast.

Bake in preheated oven for ½ hour - 35 minutes with pan set on rimmed cookie sheet.

Set on a rack to cool. When cool remove from pan, invert and remove the parchment paper. Invert again and sift liberally with confectioners’ sugar. Serve in small slices. To store wrap twice in plastic wrap and then in foil and store at room temperature.

Racing Cherries - a Guest Blog Event

Doesn't that sound special...a Guest Blog Event? NoHandle, who has blogged here before in a wonderful way is pretty special to me and he has sent on a post that will intrigue you. Seeing as I live in wine country this one will be easy for me to replicate. I might have to use blackberries...we finally got some heat today...high 90s...so ripe blackberries will surely follow.

Give this one a try, especially if you can gather a group of friends to try it with.

Thanks NoHandle! Keep 'em coming. XO Elle


Racing Cherries

This blog has a lot of baking, so by way of contrast I wanted to contribute a brief blog entry about food, but one that is fun, and does not require actual cooking, although there is a small bit of preparation. This was something my friend Runt and I discovered together one summer evening, and we found it so much fun (particularly after a few glasses) that we pass it on to other fun loving foodies. Most recently we shared, and experimented, with a couple of friends, and in the process went on to expand to other fruit, which we found to display different behaviors. All were eager to repeat the experiments. I’m saving a description of the behaviors for the end of the article. Don’t peek!

We tried several different sparkling wines (which I will call champagne as a generic), including Barefoot Bubbly Brut, and Cristalino Brut Cava, Codorníu Brut Cava, possibly a Bonny Doon sparkling, and a Prosecco whose name is now lost. An Asti might provide slightly different results, as might sweeter wines. By the way, these are all inexpensive sparkling wines that are good enough to enjoy drinking, even without the silliness. We are not wine snobs. Don’t get the wrong impression from the number of bottles, these “experiments” were conducted over several evenings, and no one had to drive home.


Hardware:
Champagne flutes (one per diner; Crate and Barrel has nice but cheap 9 oz. ones, for about $4)

Software:
1 pound of cherries (any variety)
Smaller quantities of blackberries or red raspberries
Champagne (one or more bottles; 4 or 5 servings per bottle) Well, sparkling wine really, but as I said earlier, I’m going to use that as a generic term throughout this blog.

Directions:
Open the Champagne (Use care so as not to injure anyone with a flying cork.)
Place one cherry (or other fruit) in each flute
Partially fill the flute with Champagne

Now just sit back and enjoy the activities, noting which cherry moves faster (this is the racing from the title). Share with all your friends.

Optional variations:
Discover which other fruit has the physical properties to mimic this behavior. Hint: dried cherries even work, but I don’t think grapes did. You may need to empty and re-fill the flutes to keep the action brisk, and add to the enjoyment.

What you should see:
What you will observe is the cherry first sinking to the bottom of the flute, then gathering bubbles and floating to the top. If it is not overly ripe, the cherry will sink after a few minutes, only to rise again. It will cycle five or six times if you have enough patience, or are not too thirsty. The berries tend to float, but will flip over every so often. Feel free to experiment with other fruit (Hint: don’t bother with star fruit) and beverages; beer might work; try lagers and ales to see.

Scientifically, it’s all about physics; specific gravity and carbonation. But after several evenings of experimentation, none of the “scientists” involved had a coherent theory as to why any of this worked. Science is about predictability, and we were able to successfully predict most of the behavior, and that we would have fun verifying those predictions.

Play, but play responsibly,

NoHandle.

Let's Bake Cookies!

The Inner Elf has been slow to surface this year, but this weekend I had the the urge to bake cookies. Going to sleep at night after reading recipes in Dorie Greenspan's iconic book Baking, From My Home to Yours certainly helped. So many cookie recipes, so little time.

Chockablock is the whimsical name that Dorie gave to these everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cookies. Not only do they have molasses and oats, two of Sweetie's favorite ingredients for cookies, but they also allow me to throw in lots of dried fruits and nuts, which always appeals to me. Making them even more popular is a large dose of chocolate and some coconut. What's not to like?

This is my contribution to a great food event, Eat Christmas Cookies, at Food Blogga.

"Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without ... eating cookies," is a perfect reason to get out the baking sheets and the mixing bowls and bake some great cookies. These would make a great addition to the cookie platter or a delicious gift. I'm taking a box of these to a Christmas Party on Wednesday and I know they will be a hit.

Chockablock Cookies
Dorie Greenspan, from Baking From My Home to Yours

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup solid vegetable shortening (I substituted 4 oz. unsweetened applesauce)
½ cup sugar (I used dark brown sugar here)
½ cup molasses
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I mixed walnuts and pecans about half and half)
1 cup coarsely chopped dried fruit (I used a combination of diced apricot, dried pear, dried apple, plus some golden raisins and dried cranberries)
2 cups chocolate chips
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Working with a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the apple sauce and mix well, about two minutes. Add the sugar and beat for another two minutes. Pour in the molasses and beat for 1 minute more.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating 1 minute after each addition. Reduce mixer speed to low and mix in the oats, then add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the dough. Toss in the nuts, fruit, chocolate chips and coconut and, turn the mixer on and off quickly a few times to incorporate.
Drop by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared pans, leaving about 1 ½ inches between the mounds.
Bake for 15 – 18 minutes, rotating pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until the cookies are golden and just about set. Remove the baking sheets to cooling racks and let the cookies rest on the sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring them to racks to cool to room temperature.



These cookies were so dark from the dark brown sugar and the molasses that it was a bit difficult to tell when they were done. They were moist and the nuts, fruit, chocolate and coconut were barely held together by the dough. The molasses flavor was strong when the dough was unbaked, but the fruits and nuts mellowed the molasses flavor when baked.