Blueberry Coffee Cake

Do you get the urge to bake when it is cold and wet and stormy outside? I sure do. Today was one of those days - with a winter storm giving me a snow day and putting me in the mood to bake.

I decided to make a version of Ann's blueberry coffee cake (from On Sutton Place). Naturally I can't just make a recipe as is, but have to tweak it somewhat. The husband and I are trying to eat healthier so I cut down on the sugar slightly, used whole wheat flour, and added sunflower seeds. After a long snow-shoveling session this afternoon I had a piece of cake and a cup of tea, and man, did it taste great. 

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup margarine or soft butter
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup unsalted sunflower seeds
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
For topping: 
1/3 c. Sugar 
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup soft butter or margarine

METHOD:
1. Mix the first four ingredients together.
2. Add the baking powder and flour in a separate bowl.
3. Add slowly to butter-sugar mixture.
4. Fold in blueberries
5. Pour into 8 x 8 greased pan.
6. Sprinkle topping over blueberry batter.
7. Bake at 350F for 40 – 50 min. or until a pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Christmas Cookie Week - Speculaas Cookies

 

The Speculaas cookies I made last year were such a hit that I had to make them again this Christmas. Last year I used the cookie plank I was given when I lived in the Netherlands years ago. This year I wanted to try decorating them with almonds which I remember was often used on speculaas cookies in the Netherlands. It was fun to arrange the whole almonds and slivered almonds into flowers and stars or just into patterns. Sometimes I got lazy and just put an almond in the middle of the cookie though, which also looked good.

I always consider it a happy coincidence that my husband was born on the day when Sinterklaas is celebrated in the Netherlands (December 5th). When I met my husband I had just returned from living in Utrecht for a year and I loved that his birthday was on such an important Dutch holiday. Well that day is today and my handsome husband is celebrating a milestone birthday, which he feels the less said about the better. I however am quite excited about the plans I have cooked up (can't reveal anything on the blog in case he finds out though).  Happy Birthday Honey!

Christmas Cookie Week - Mom's Oatmeal M&M Cookies

Last year I made M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were fantastic and very popular, but the life of a blogger is that you have to change things up. So this year I decided to make similar cookies, but with a slight variation - my Mom's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies with festive M&Ms.

Ingredients:
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
I cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 1/4 cups quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 package Christmas M&Ms

Method:
1. Combine first five ingredients
2. Add flours, put soda on top and mix into flour
3. Beat into liquids
4. Add oats and raisins, sunflower seeds, and chocolate chips
5. Drop by teaspoon onto baking sheet
6. Bake 350F for 14-15 minutes. When there is about 5 minutes left on the baking time gently put a few M&Ms on each cookie. Makes 45 cookies.

I can never decide which I like better - chocolate chip cookies or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Life is full of difficult decisions. So if you want regular chocolate chip cookies you can check out last year's post (here) or if you want oatmeal chocolate chip cookies you can give these ones a try. They both taste fantastic.

Christmas Cookie Week - Brownie Bites

I know I have shared this recipe on the blog before, but it is a great tried-and-true recipe and you can never have too many of those. Our family loves brownies so I have to make them every year for the Christmas cookie plate. I thought long and hard about how to change them up this year and finally decided to make them into mini two-bite brownie muffins. 

I put chocolate chips into the batter rather than icing the brownies so they would be easier to freeze. Using chocolate chips might sound like a good idea, but I had my doubts when I tried to take the first batch of cooked brownies out of the tray. All the chocolate chips had stuck to the pan and most of the brownies came out broken into pieces. So I'm passing along my tip for how to avoid this problem. What I did was pour the batter into each well and then add a few chocolate chips on top and gently smooth some of the batter over the chocolate chips. That worked like a charm and the brownies all came out of the pans like they should after that.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1/3 cup butter or margarine

2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup chocolate chips (or more if you want a thicker icing)

Method:

1. Melt chocolate with butter in microwave on medium heat.

2. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Beat eggs, then gradually add in sugar.

4. Blend in chocolate mixture and vanilla.

5. Stir in flour mixture.

6. Spread in greased 8-inch square pan (or muffin pans)

7. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan.  

You can can see my usual easy brownie icing here and my brownie s'more version here.

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Don't forget to come back every day this week to see what other cookies and squares I made.

Christmas Cookie Week - Butter Tart Bars

I love butter tarts so when I saw this recipe for butter tart bars in my recent Canadian House and Home magazine I thought they would be even better than making tarts - less fiddling around with crust and more of the yummy gooey filling. 

I understand that butter tarts are a Canadian delicacy and if you have never had one then you should run, not walk, to your kitchen and start baking right now because they are fantastic. Butter tarts are usually made with a flaky pie crust filled with a sweet, gooey, runny filling containing raisins, although they can also have chopped walnuts or pecans. These butter tart bars have a buttery shortbread crust with the usual gooey filling. 

I made a few modifications to the original recipe, so here is my version:

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 cup butter, cold, diced

Filling: 

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 tbsp white vinegar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

2 cups raisins

Method:

1. Grease 9 x 13 inch pan and place on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Combine flour and sugar to make crust and cut butter into mixture until it is a fine meal.

3. Press evenly into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

4. Combing filling ingredients in a bowl and blend together. Pour over crust, spreading evenly.

5. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the filling is brown and is set. Cool completely and then cut into squares. 

I found the edges of my bars were a little overdone and didn't look as nice as the middle part ... so... I cut up the centre part into squares and froze them to be used at Christmastime and ate the outside bits. I know, I know, but someone had to do it. Another little tip that I will pass along is that they cut much more neatly when I let them sit for 24 hours. The crust came out with nice clean edges just the way it should rather than crumbling.

Have you had butter tarts? Are you a fan? This is a new recipe to me and one that I foresee becoming a family favourite.

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Don't forget to come back every day this week to see what other cookies and squares I made. 

Christmas Cookie Week - 3 Holiday Shortbread

Every year I make shortbread cookies using my Grandmother's recipe at Christmas time. Our family loves shortbread and it just wouldn't be Christmas without them. 

This year my friend Kim and I were discussing the merits of different Christmas cookies and she told me that every year she makes shortbread cookies and in addition to decorating most of them for Christmas, she also decorates a few for Valentine's Day and a few for St. Patrick's Day and puts them in the freezer. How clever is that?

So I decided to emulate my wise friend and that is what I did this year.

I cut out most of the shortbread cookies in traditional trees and stars and other Christmas shapes and decorated them with regular Christmas sprinkles until I had a lovely pile of red and green cookies.

And I also made some of the shortbreads in hearts and neutral shapes and decorated them with red and pink sprinkles. They are tucked away awaiting their debut in February.

And finally I decorated a few with only green sprinkles and sugar and will pull them out of the freezer in March. Won't they make a pretty addition to our St. Patrick's Day dinner.

How clever is that? I wish organizing all of life was that easy.

By the way, you can read about my Grandmother, whose shortbread cookie recipe we use every year, here (and see a picture of her and her house and the view from her kitchen window) and find the cranberry-orange shortbread variation I made a few years ago here.

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Don't forget to come back every day this week to see what other cookies and squares I made. 

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

A few moths ago I posted this tried-and true recipe when I was guest posting, but I wanted to make sure I don't lose track of it and the safest way to do that is to post it on my blog.  Do you use the search button on your blog to find some of the great recipes you have made in the past?  I love that about blogging.  

So if any of you missed this recipe for Pumpkin Bread Pudding, here it is.   It is a great combination of healthy because of all the pumpkin in it and practical because it uses up all your leftover crusts.  Or is that just me who has leftover crusts?

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I love this bread pudding recipe.  I have tweaked and perfected it by reducing the sugar, eliminating the butter, and using skim milk instead of cream to make it healthier than the original.  I have made it with raisins or dried cranberries and they both are great.  I use any kind of bread/bun/crust that is in my freezer and needing to be eaten.  You should see how nice and neat my freezer looks now.  Just kidding - it's still a mess.  But I'm not kidding about how great this bread pudding is!

INGREDIENTS
8 cups bread, cubed
1 cup dried cranberries or raisins
3 cups milk (I used skim milk)
5 eggs
1/2 can (796 ml or 28 fl oz) pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

METHOD
1.  In a large bowl, cover the bread and cranberries/raisins with the milk and set aside.
2.  In another bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin, sugar, vanilla, and spices.
3.  Add to the bread mixture and stir to blend
4.  Put bread mixture into a greased 9 x 13 or large casserole dish 
5.  Bake uncovered at 350F for 45-60 minutes or until the centre has set (test with a knife)

Let's Eat Pie

Today is March 14th.  You know what that is, right?  3.14!  Yep, pi which means it is Pi Day.  And Pi Day means you eat pie.  Makes sense?

I got together with My son and his wife to celebrate a pre-Pi-Day Pi-Day since I knew I would be busy on the actual day.  We all worked together to make a savoury pie, aka a quiche, and a sweet apple pie for dessert.  They worked out so well and tasted fantastic.

My daughter-in-law is the master of the crust so she worked her charms for all the pies and even wove a fancy lattice crust for the apple pie.  My son and I chopped and mixed and cooked.  Good times!

The quiche was the best I have ever had.  It was loaded with veggies which is my favourite kind.  You could add different veggies than the ones we used if you prefer, like mushrooms or zucchini, as long as you keep the proportions approximately the same.

Here is the recipe for the vegetable quiche we used (makes two quiches).

Ingredients:
2 cups broccoli florets, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 onion, diced
1 package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 red bell pepper,diced
1 tbsp olive oil
8 eggs
2 cups low fat milk
2/3 cups grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or white flour or brown rice flour)

Method:
1.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare crust for two 9-inch pie pans or spray pans with cooking oil if making crustless quiches.
2.  In a skillet, heat oil over medium heat and cook the onion for about 3 minutes.  Then add the broccoli and red peppers and cook for about 5 more minutes until just tender.  Stir in the spinach and transfer the vegetables to the prepared pans.
3. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, cheeses, salt, pepper, and oregano.  Whisk in the flour and pour evenly over the vegetables.
4.  Bake until set, about 45 minutes.  Cool quiche about 10 minutes before serving.

Apple pie is always a favourite so that is what we had for dessert, after our quiche ... and a walk.

Ingredients for one pie:
7 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored,and thinly sliced (about 7 cups in total)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
pie crusts for top and bottom of a 9-inch pie pan

Method:
1.  Preheat the oven to 350F.   Prepare the dough for the pie pan.
2.  In a large bowl, combine the apple and all the other ingredients, except the butter.  Mound the apple mixture in the prepared pan making the centre higher than the sides.  Dot the top evenly with pieces of butter.  Cover the top with a crust, press the top and bottom crusts together to seal, trim the excess dough, and cut vents.
3.  Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour or until the top crust is golden brown and the apples feel tender when pierced with a knife.  Let the pie rest for 20 minutes before serving.

There is nothing like an excuse to eat pie.  I'm totally on-board any celebration this delicious.  Do you celebrate Pi Day?  It is a new-to-me-tradition, but one that I will be repeating.

Christmas Cookie Week - Brownies

Do you know what happens when your kiddos are good - they collect Brownie points.  And one day they redeem them for brownies.  I must have good kids because I sure made a lot of brownies in my time.  

This is our family's favourite brownie recipe with a few additions to make them more fattening festive.  I added chocolate chips to the batter and melted chocolate chips for the icing with M&Ms to decorate them.  

When you take the brownies out of the oven and they are still piping hot, sprinkle a good amount of chocolate chips on top.  After a few  minutes they will melt and can be spread like icing.  Definitely the easiest icing I know of.  

At Christmas I often make M&M holly on the icing because it is easy and looks pretty - all you do is use two green ones as the leaves and one red one as the berries. Couldn't get much simpler.  And they are always a hit.

Today is the last day of Christmas Cookie week ... and in case you missed some of the cookies, here is where you can find them - here, here, here, and here.

Also don't forget to check out what the other bloggers have been up to.  I've seen a lot of fantastic cookies that I really need to try.

Angie from Echoes of Laughter

Julie from Sober Julie

Stacey from This Lil’ Piglet

Joann from Women In Real Life

Jo-Anna from A Pretty Life In The Suburbs

Grace from Sense & Simplicity

Donna From An Anglo In Quebec

Ricki Jill from Art@Home

Christmas Cookie Week - Speculaas

I'm having a walk down memory lane this year with the cookies I'm baking.  Today is Sinterklaas in the Netherlands so I thought it would be appropriate to bake Speculaas cookies.  

I was a Rotary exchange student to the Netherlands many years ago so I experienced a Sinterklaas celebration first hand.  We watched Sint Nicolaas (also known as Sinterklaas) arrive from Spain by steamship on TV.  We left our shoes out at night filled with carrots for Sinterklaas's horse and were rewarded with candies and chocolates in exchange.  We received chocolate letters and ate speculaas, and pepernoten.  We wrote poems teasing the person who was receiving the gift and exchanged presents secret Santa style with others in the family.  We sang Sinterklaas songs, one of which, over 35 years later, I can still sing the chorus to:
Sinterklaas kapoentje,
gooi wat in mijn schoentje,
gooi wat in mijn laarsje, 
dank u Sinterklaasje.

One of the things I brought home from the Netherlands was a speculaasplank - the wooden board with cut-out molds that you press the cookie dough into. I have had it on display in various places around our homes all these years, but I have never actually used it for baking.  So I was keen to try it out.

I actually made these cookies twice because the first recipe tasted good, but was too crumbly and dry and they didn't look good.  I then found this blog and make his recipe (with a few modifications) and the texture was perfect.  It molded nicely into the speculaasplank and then held together when I unmolded the cookies and kept the design fairly well while being baked. 

I want you to look closely at the plank and tell me what on earth those designs are.  I recognize the windmill, but apart from that I have no idea.  Is that a Sinterklaas fire hydrant?  Are those mutant chickens? cats? cat-chickens? 

The most intriguing thing about Speculaas cookies is that they contain pepper.  I had no idea they did.  While you can taste it if you know it is there, it mostly just adds to the tangy spiciness of the cookies.

Ingredients:
1 cup cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Method:
1.  Cut the butter into small cubes and blend with the sugars, baking soda, salt, and spices.
2.   Add the eggs and vanilla.
3.   Add the flour and beat until mixed.
4.   Roll out half the cookie dough to a 1/2 inch thickness.  Lightly spray the Speculaasplank and dust with flour (knocking any loose flour out before using).  Press the dough into the plank and then carefully unmold onto the ungreased baking sheet.  If using cookie cutters then roll the dough out to be 1/4 inch thick, cut with cookie cutters, and place on the baking sheet.
5.   Place the baking sheets in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375F.  Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes or until golden around the edges.  Let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes and then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Mmmm!  Enjoy that spicy crispness of these speculaas and think of wooden shoes and windmills.

Happy Sinterklaas to you all!

Angie from Echoes of Laughter

Julie from Sober Julie

Stacey from This Lil’ Piglet

Joann from Women In Real Life

Jo-Anna from A Pretty Life In The Suburbs

Grace from Sense & Simplicity

Donna From An Anglo In Quebec
Ricki Jill from Art@Home

Linked to Foodie Friday at Rattlebridge Farm