Bran muffins

Bran muffins that aren’t good for you but are delicious. Crispy top, very moist center.  Like the ones I used to eat almost daily.

Based on this recipe; site has ~no ads, definitely worth browsing more.

• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sour cream (use less of this or less butter next time, maybe sub in some apple sauce or mashed banana?  moisture was perfect but muffins were too oily/heavy/rich.)
• 1/4 cup molasses (use less next time)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (use more next time)
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup bran
• 1/2 cup raisins (or any other mix-ins, this could support 1/2 cup each of 2 mix-ins I think)

Mix together the wet ingredients. Add all the dry ingredients.  Add the raisins.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Makes 12 normal-sized muffins.

Apple Pie Bars

I liked these!  They took a medium-long time to make, but that's nice on a weekend afternoon.  They were also very decadent -- I've made some suggestions in the recipe on how I think I'd change them for next time.

Based on this recipe.

Crust:

• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/4 flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Oil if needed

Filling

• 3 apples
• 1 scant tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt

Crumble

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup chopped (not ground) pecans -- I'd increase this to 3/4 or 1 cup next time
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.  Mix together the butter & sugars, then everything else.  If it's too crumbly, add a bit of oil until it comes together.  Press into pan.  Bake 20 minutes or until just barely golden.

While it's baking, peel, core, and slice the apples (I used roughly 1/4 inch slices).  Mix them with the other filling ingredients.

I put the butter for the crumble topping in an oven-safe bowl & stuck it in the oven while it was preheating/baking to melt, then mixed together all the crumble ingredients.

When the crust comes out of the oven, pour the apples over it evenly.  Then put the crumble over that evenly.  Then bake for 45 minutes, or until the crumble looks done & the apples are soft (poke one with a knife through a gap in the crumble).

Let cool for at least 10 minutes, cut, and enjoy!

New Year's Pretzel

Happy new year!  We've always had new years pretzels at home, but they don't seem to have spread beyond Germany/Pittsburgh, so I had to make my own this year.  I mostly followed this recipe, but have some tweaks I'd make for next year.  In particular, this recipe makes two reasonably sized pretzels, or one comedically large one -- if you only want one reasonable pretzel, halve this recipe.

Pretzel:
1 1/2 cups milk (the recipe calls for scalding -- as far as I could tell from online, scalding does nothing to non-dairy milks, so I just microwaved my almond milk until it was pretty hot)
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup warm water (yeast-rising warm -- you should be able to stick your finger in & hold it, but only barely)
1 tablespoon yeast
6 to 7 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs
vegetable oil
3ish tbsp cinnamon sugar

Toppings:
about 3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
water
chopped/ground walnuts
maraschino cherries

Put yeast, warm water, and a dash of sugar into a bowl; set aside for five minutes to get frothy.  In a separate bowl, combine milk, sugar, and butter.  Once the yeast is frothy, mix the milk mixture, 5 cups flour, and the yeast mixture together.  Keep adding flour 1/4-1/2 cup at a time until the dough holds together -- it shouldn't be as thick as bread dough, but it should be close.  Knead just a little to make sure it's well combined (1 minute maybe).  Put it in an oiled bowl, cover with oil, cover with a damp towel, and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Punch down dough, then roll out into a long rope.  I made one gigantic pretzel this year; it would be able to serve 10-20 people, depending on the people.  Alternatively, you could split this into two.  Either way, roll it into a long rope, and see if you can make a pretzel shape.  There should be large gaps in the pretzel, since the dough is going to double in size again.  If you can't make a gappy enough pretzel, roll the rope longer.  Once it's the right length, lay it flat (not in pretzel shape yet!) and make a deep ravine (almost all the way through) down the whole length.  Fill with cinnamon sugar -- it should be deep enough that some of it is still dry & not touching the dough.  Now, roll the rope around the long axis to swirl the cinnamon sugar through & lock most of it in (so it looks like a real rope, with the twisty spiral around it).  Take your twisty rope & make a pretzel shape on the silpat-lined tray you're going to bake it on.  Cover with the damp cloth & let it double again, another hour or so.

Remove cloth & bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.  If you stick your finger into the pretzel, it should still feel moist but not sticky/doughy.  Let cool on a wire rack.

Take about a dozen maraschino cherries out of the jar and let them dry off a bit.  A paper towel under them for about 5 minutes should do it.  I'm not crazy about this glaze -- it tastes too sugary for me -- so consider adding some extra extract or lemon zest or something to make it less like sugar.  I also added too much water, so I added ~2 tsp corn starch to try to fix it -- I'm not convinced they did anything, so I've excluded them here.  In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, extracts, and just enough water to make it into a glaze.  It should be thick enough that it holds onto a spoon for a few seconds, but thin enough that it still drips off.  Drizzle all over the pretzel.  It'll keep flowing a little bit after you finish, so try to keep most of it on the top -- the pretty drip marks will appear on their own.  Place the cherries along the top, then sprinkle with walnuts.  Let dry a bit, then mostly cover until New Years Day.  Don't completely cover, or the glaze will get too moist and flow off; don't leave totally uncovered for more than ~12 hours, or the pretzel will get stale.

This is my comedically large pretzel.  It was delicious, though!

Banana Cookies

I had some bananas that were getting too ripe.  I didn't want banana bread.  Behold, cookies!  They're the fluffy kind, like pumpkin cookies.

Based on this recipe.  Makes about 18 cookies, maybe 20 if you don't eat any dough.

1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
scant 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted, and whipped
1.5 eggs (I used 1 egg and a half egg's worth of egg replacer)
2 bananas (mine were small)
3/4 tsp vanilla

Mix together the dry ingredients.   Add the butter.  Add everything else.  Put them on cookie sheets -- they'll roughly double in size.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes.

I frosted half of them and left the other half plain.  I haven't tried the frosted ones yet because I'm waiting for them to dry.  For the frosting, I used 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 tbsp half-and-half, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and powdered sugar until it came together.  It covered 8 cookies.

They're very basic when they're plain, but I like them.  You could add raisins, pineapple, nuts, cherries, peanut butter frosting...

Frosted above, unfrosted below.

Monkey Bread

I was looking for a breakfast recipe before, and while I've never had monkey bread it looked delicious, and it turned out better than I expected!  The dough was perfect, but the goo between the dough balls needs some work -- I have ideas.  I based it on this recipe, but only made 1/4 of the original recipe, which was perfect for two people.

If I were making it again, I would:
- Use butter instead of margarine in the goo
- Add more flavor to the goo -- cinnamon & other spices, or nearly-applesauce apples
- Maybe follow some of the comments on the recipe, particularly rolling the balls in just butter, then brown sugar, so they get more on them

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon white sugar

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons margarine, softened

3 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp raisins

Heat up the water in the microwave -- warm enough to stick a finger in it & feel it's warm, cool enough to keep the finger there.  Mix in the sugar in, then the yeast.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until there's some amount of froth (I didn't get much froth -- I think the water was slightly too cool -- but it worked out anyways).

Mix flour, cinnamon, and salt together.  Add liquids and margarine.  Knead it just enough to mix everything together.  Cover with a damp cloth & let rise until roughly doubled, about 45 minutes.

Melt the remaining margarine in the microwave.  Mix in the brown sugar & raisins.

Squish the dough back down.  Tear off chunks & roll into 1 inch balls.  Roll those balls in the brown sugar goo.  Set them into a greased pan on top of each other -- I used pyrex & it turned out well.  Let rise for another 15-20 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until it's golden brown.  Flip pan over onto a plate & eat.

We ate this too fast for me to take pictures of it.  It didn't stay together, because it stuck to the pan & didn't have enough goo between the doughy bits, but it was very tasty.

Notes from making it a second time:
- The rise depends a LOT on temperature.  I left the dough out on the (cool) counter for 45 minutes, and it didn't rise at all.  I then moved it into the oven (slightly warmed then turned off), and it doubled in about 10 minutes.
- This time, I changed the goo.  First I peeled, halved, and boiled half of a small apple (the kind you get in the big bags) for 20 minutes until it was very soft.  Then I heated the butter, brown sugar, raisins (only 2 tbsp), and mashed up apple in a saucepan until it got slightly caramel-like.  This seemed to stay between the dough bits better.  I'd also recommend tending towards smaller dough bits -- the bigger ones were multiple bites, which isn't what I was going for.

Cherry Almond Muffins

I wanted to make muffins this morning and hand to work with what was around the house.  This is what came out.  If I were doing it again, I'd want them to be slightly more moist (they were about the consistency of a cornmeal muffin -- slightly crusty outside, which was good, but also a slightly dry & crumbly inside once they cooled, which was less good), but otherwise they were very tasty.  The comments on the site suggested using sour cream or applesauce to make them more moist, so maybe I'll try those.  Based on this bread recipe.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup dried tart cherries -- I used 1/4 cup whole and 1/4 cup chopped, and I liked the whole better
• 3/8 cup milk
• 1 eggs
• 3 Tbs. butter, melted
• 1 Tbs. oil (this was an attempt to make them moister, use all butter if you want)
• 1 tsp. almond extract 

Mix the four dry ingredients together.  Add the cherries & mix to cover them.  In a separate bowl, mix the 5 wet ingredients.  Pour them into the dry mixture and mix until just combined (mine had streaks of egg still in it and it was fine; next time I'll try mixing it even less, still trying to get the hang of the muffin mixing method).  Butter six muffin cups & split batter between them; if you want muffins with tops, butter only five muffin cups -- these don't rise very much, so you can fill the cups basically to the top.  Bake at 350 until a knife comes out clean from the middle (or just before that would happen) -- I don't remember how long this took, but it was somewhere between 20-40 minutes. 

Fruity Thumbprint Cookies

I have too many kinds of jelly in my fridge, so I decided to make these thumbprint cookies.  I only made a half batch, which made exactly 23 cookies -- considering I ate some of the dough, that's just about right.  I made some tweaks to make these easier & use the ingredients I had.  The cookie part ended up tasting basically like a butter cookie -- I suspect that if I'd let them sit for a day or two, the citrus flavor would've opened up, but I don't have that kind of patience.

1/4 cup jam or jelly (I didn't measure this, just used the spoon to scoop it directly from jar to cookie)
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 egg's worth of egg substitute
1 1/2 tsp dried orange zest
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix butter & sugar together until it's a little light & fluffy.  Mix in egg substitute, orange zest, lemon juice, and vanilla; mix until it's combined & fluffier.  Mix together dry ingredients, add to the wet mixture.  Put a silicone mat on a baking sheet.  Make 1 inch balls of dough, put them on the sheet -- they'll only expand a little bit, so leave a little space but you probably only need about an inch between cookies.  If you have a round 1/2 tsp measuring spoon, it works really well for making the "thumbprints" -- otherwise, just use your thumb!

I stuck the whole first tray in the freezer for about 10 minutes once I'd assembled it, and that worked wonderfully.  The second batch didn't work out as well. I just made balls of dough & put them back in the bowl in the fridge until the pan was free again.  What I didn't realize is that this dough gets really solid when it's chilled, so I couldn't shape it until I'd let it warm up a bit on the pan.  Even then, the cookies cracked, which led to the jelly spilling out of some of them while baking.  Maybe use two pans & stick one in the freezer while the other is baking?  Or find another way to shape the cookies before you chill them?

Bake for 6 minutes at 350, then take out & add your jam/jelly to fill the divots (if you used the measuring spoon, now's the time to use it again -- 1/2 tsp is the perfect amount of filling for these cookies).  Bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the bottoms just barely start to brown.

Cool on racks & enjoy!

First batch turned out beautifully

Second batch was less beautiful but still good

Dried Cherry Coffee Cake

I bought some unsweetened dried bing cherries at Trader Joe's this weekend, and I learned that there's a reason they usually sweeten them -- they aren't particularly tasty on their own.  So I started searching for recipes to use them in, and this one came up.  It's very sweet and very tasty.  I'd disagree with the comments -- it didn't turn out light for me, but that may be because I tinkered with the ingredients a bit.  It's still super moist & delicious.  The cherries & almond extract smelled awesome while they were soaking.  And the sugar on top gave it a nice sweet crustiness.

Original recipe here.

1/2 cup unsweetened dried cherries
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 (5.4 oz) container vanilla greek yogurt
A splash of milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1 tbsp white sugar

Chop the cherries into raisin-sized pieces (or slightly smaller than whatever size you're comfortable with finding in the middle of a coffee cake).  Mix with the hot water & almond extract; let sit for 20 minutes (maybe poking/shaking occasionally).  Mix together the dry ingredients (except for extra sugar & almonds), then add wet ingredients, then drain cherries & add them (I used the cherry soaking water to mix with my egg replacer).  Grease & flour an 8x8 pan (or two loaf pans).  Pour in batter.  Mix together almonds & extra sugar; sprinkle on top.  Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Granola

I wanted enough granola for the weekend, but not any leftovers.  This recipe scales up & down well and is super easy.

Original recipe.

2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats

Microwave the peanut butter & honey for about 30 seconds so they're melty.  Stir together, then add vanilla & cinnamon.  Add oats & mix well.  Squish into a granola-cluster-thickness layer on a baking sheet (silicone baking mats are nice here).  If you keep it all as one pancake, you'll be able to have bigger clusters; this will fall apart a little bit when you pick it up, but if it's all one big piece then that's okay.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.  It'll still be soft when it comes out.  Let it cool.  It's much better -- crunchier & more flavorful -- once it's cooled off.  If you're making it in the morning for breakfast, put as much as you want to eat that day into a bowl & stick it in the freezer for a bit.

I had already eaten half of it before I thought to take a picture.  Also, mine's slightly burnt around the edges; still tasty.

Cereal Sunday: Bran Flakes & Maple Pecan Granola

I was getting ready to go to the supermarket today, and I decided I wanted cereal for breakfast this week.  Then I thought to myself, why have I never made my own cereal?  I've made granola before, but that's as far as I ever got.  So, I took to Google, and found myself a recipe for a non-granola cereal: bran flakes!

I used this recipe, more or less.  I accidentally bought a bit more bran than I needed, so I made 1.5x the original recipe, and I didn't want to buy another kind of flour so I made them more oat-y than nutty.

3/4 cup bran
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (I think it'd be good with any flour)
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar (I bought this for another recipe a long time ago, and I'm slowly working my way through the box)
1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (I used hemp milk)
1/3 cup water

Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the two wet ingredients & mix it all together.  Because I made 1.5x the recipe, I should've done this in 3 batches; I didn't realize that until just now, but that's why my flakes ended up so thick.  If you're following the original recipe, take half the dough (1/3 of the dough if you're following this recipe) & put it on a cookie sheet sized piece of parchment paper.  Put a piece of plastic wrap over it & roll it out really thin.  The original recipe says to make it super thin, and I'd agree with it that it'd be best super thin.  Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the edges start to get a little crispy but the middle's still leathery.  Take it out, set it aside to cool, and do the same thing with the other half (or the other two thirds).

This is the part where I started assembling the granola, but I'll give details on that below.

Once the first sheet's cooled,  rip it up into pieces that are however big you want your flakes to be.  They don't shrink much more at this point.  You could probably just cut it into squares if you wanted to do this a little faster, though your flakes would look less pretty then.  Spread the flakes out on the cookie sheet + parchment paper, then bake at 275 until they're crispy, stirring every 5 minutes or so.  Because I made mine thick, this part took more than 20 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool, then store in an airtight container.

I decided to mix the flakes with some granola.  This is probably the best granola I've ever made, and probably among the best I've ever had, and it's super easy.

Based off of this recipe, which is on a site full of breakfast food recipes that I'll have to explore more in the future.  I halved the recipe because I only wanted enough granola (a) for me and (b) to go with the flakes.

1 1/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla (I almost always double the vanilla in recipes these days, so this is double what it calls for)
1/8 to 1/4 cup raisins (I forgot to add these, but I was planning on using a mix of raisins & dates)

Mix together all the dry ingredients except the raisins.  Mix together the 3 wet ingredients, then mix those two mixtures together.  Spread out, breaking the big clumps up into granola-sized pieces, on a parchment papered baking sheet (I reused the parchment paper from the flakes), bake at 325 for 15 minutes, flip the granola over, and bake for another 15 minutes.  If you're using raisins/fruit, toss those in here & bake for an extra 3 minutes.  Take it out, let it cool, and store it in your airtight container.  Super tasty, clumps perfectly, stays together, has a great texture... seriously, it's delicious granola.  The site says you can sub out any fruit or nuts, so I'll probably experiment with it some more in the future.

Breakfast is gonna be delicious tomorrow.

I made two sheets of this many thick 'n' tasty bran flakes

The only sheet of granola -- I already ate a few pieces before I took out the camera...

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies

While visiting home for the holidays, we baked some delicious vegan banana oatmeal cookies.  We had just a few too many bananas around the house, and these were a super delicious way to use them up.  We added raisins to the last batch of them, and those were good too; I'd guess you could add any pretty much any chopped dried fruit to these and they'd be tasty.

Based off the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-oatmeal-cookie/

Vegan Banana Oatmeal Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg (could be doubled)
3/4 tsp cinnamon (could be doubled)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 cup mashed overripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.  Add everything except the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Add the oats & walnuts, mix together.  Place cookies on a greased/silpat'd/parchment papered cookie sheet & bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until they look done.

Cinnamon rolls

Found this gem while browsing the baking subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Baking/comments/1ig2fl/mini_cinnamon_rolls_not_all_perfect_but_delicious/

I halved the recipe & it made 8 totally delicious cinnamon rolls.  They weren't hard at all to make.  I skipped the glaze -- I like icing better, and these were plenty decadent without it.  They also only needed about 8 minutes in the oven.  They were perfect when they were hot & fresh out of the oven; the filling gets a little crumbly once they cool, but it's still delicious.

Here's the recipe with instructions.

Dough:
2 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, softened/melted
3/4 cup milk (I used almond milk and it was fine)

Filling:
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tsp cinnamon (+ a dash extra because it's delicious)

Combine all the dough ingredients in a bowl.  Spread the dough out in a rectangle-ish shape on a not sticky surface (I used a plastic cutting board).  If you're making the full recipe, you may want to make 2 rectangles instead.  Make the filling.  Spread it all over the dough, getting it as close to the edges as possible (especially the long edges -- you can leave a little bit of dough exposed on the short edges).  Roll up the dough into a tube (put the long edges with all the goo on them at the ends of the tube).  Slice the tube into whatever thickness you want your rolls to be (mine were about 3/4 inch, & I got 8 from the half recipe).  Bake at 400 for 8 minutes or until done looking.

Edit: If you're going to eat these after they cooled (I had 2 for breakfast and am snacking on the other 2 now), you could definitely get away with less filling, since it just crumbles all over the place and is super sugary.