Cranberry Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies (what a mouthful)

I'm calling these "Cranberry Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies" (see above) but really, the versatility of this recipe is key. You can add or substitute or subtract based upon what's in your kitchen. For instance, they're based upon an Epicurious recipe for "Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies." But when I woke up and wanted to make "thank you" cookies at the end of an internship segment, I didn't have any chocolate on hand. You see where I'm going with this.

I always think these photos are going to come out better - oh well, here you can see how I used golden raisins, dried cranberries, and chopped pecans.

Admittedly, I committed the cardinal sin of altering a recipe before trying it out as written first - but it worked out! I also made the mistake of automatically turning the oven off when I took out the first batch, and put the second batch in without noticing. Whoops. It took me about 10 minutes to notice, at which point my nice cookie balls had spread out pretty thin. I cranked up the oven back to 350, baked them for 10 minutes, and took them out. That batch of cookies ended up much thinner (obviously) but still chewy - almost like a softer lace cookie. Some people even preferred them to the heftier batches! So, I'd call this recipe pretty forgiving.

Thinner cookies

Cookies baked according to plan.

You may not be able to see the difference, but both were delicious! If you're after the thinner cookie, I'd suggest either lowering the baking temperature, adding back in the tablespoon of butter that I omitted from the original recipe, or making the same "mistake" I did. Good luck!

Cranberry Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies (based on an Epicurious recipe)

Ingredients:

1 C flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C golden brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 C old-fashioned oats
1/2 C dried cranberries
1/2 C rough chopped pecans
1/2 C golden raisins (plumped in hot water)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. In another bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter and the sugars. Cream for about 4-5 minutes, or until mixture has lightened up. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour and oats to the sugar mixture, and mix together until smooth. Add in the raisins, cranberries, pecans (or whatever else your heart desires!), mix until just incorporated. Drop in roughly 1 tablespoon sized balls - can be a little bigger if wanted. Should make roughly 30 cookies.

Put cookies in oven, one cookie pan at a time. I fit about 10 balls per pan, alternating rows of two and three in order to leave enough space. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown at the edges. Remove from oven, cool, eat.

A Celebrity Recipe - and a camera fail

I baked Irish Soda Bread. I forgot to take pictures. (If I bake something in my kitchen and don't take a picture, does it exist?) I also did it on March 25, just a little over a week after St. Patrick's day. But I figure that procrastination is an Irish thing, or at least it is in my family.

Anyway, the point of this post is - it was Anjelica Huston's Irish Soda Bread. And after just watching The Witches for the first time, I was inspired (and a bit frightened) by all things Anjelica. The link is right here - it's a very wheaty, rustic loaf that my friend referred to as a "wheat flower" (my attempts to draw a cross on the bread apparently weren't so successful). It bakes up extremely dense, even after I added a cup and a half of buttermilk to the dough to make it hold together. However, and perhaps this is due to the free-flowing wine at the housewarming, people loved it. Especially good with a thick layer of butter or cheese on top (who wouldn't?).

Buttermilk Spice Cake

Not perhaps the most springlike of desserts I could have gone with, but after seeing this cake featured on Epicurious, I knew I had to make it. It's just the sort of cake I love to make for small gatherings - simple, just one layer, nothing overwhelming either in the baking or the eating of it - and I had a housewarming coming up.

pears up top...

The texture was lovely - perhaps a little on the dense side, but certainly still crumby and tender. I loved the flecks of lime peel throughout, with just a bit of the lime showing through on the pear topping as well.





As per the suggestion of one of the reviewers on Epicurious, I substituted Chinese Five Spice for Star Anise. I'm sure it affected the flavor profile, but I thought it also gave it a slightly musky, mysterious scent (and I mean musky in a good way, somehow). A few friends claimed it smelled like gingerbread. The pears definitely provided a nice contrast, transforming the dessert into something lighter and more playful. So there you have it: musky, mysterious, light, and playful. All in one dessert! Also - the original recipe called from creme fraiche, which I just wasn't feeling. I think a dollop of homewhipped cream might be a lovely addition though.

Buttermilk Spice Cake from Epicurious

Ingredients:

Pear compote:

2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Large pinch of salt
3 Bosc pears (about 1 1/2 pounds total), peeled, quartered, cored, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Buttermilk spice cake:

1 C plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/4 C cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon (scant) baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground whole star anise (or substitute chinese five spice...and I used a heavy hand)
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 C sugar
2 large eggs
1 3-inch piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1/4 teaspoon finely grated lime peel
3/4 cup buttermilk
Powdered sugar*
1 1/2 cups crème fraîche*

*optional

Directions:

For pear compote:
Mix sugar, lime juice, and salt in heavy large saucepan. Add pears and toss gently to coat. Cover and cook over medium-low heat until pears are just tender, stirring occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer mixture to bowl. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill until cold, then cover and keep chilled.

For buttermilk spice cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 9-inch-diameter cake pan with 2-inch-high sides; line pan with round of parchment paper. Sift first 9 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating to blend between additions. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add lime peel; beat to blend. Beat in flour mixture in 4 additions alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions, scraping down bowl occasionally. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake cake until beginning to brown on top and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool cake in pan on cooling rack. DO AHEAD: Cake can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.

Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Turn cake out onto rack; peel off parchment and turn right side up onto platter. Sift powdered sugar over (optional, I don't think it needed to be any sweeter). Cut into wedges. Serve with pear compote and dollop of crème fraîche (optional).

NYT: In the Night Kitchen

Just a link to a whimsical little piece on how we feel as we cook, the way certain times of day or half-snatched memories or a mouth-watering cake at an unfamiliar bakeshop can nudge at us persistently.

In the Night Kitchen, by Leanne Shapton.

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins

Not the pithiest name out there, is it? This recipe jumped to the top of my ever-growing list when I saw it on the blog And then I do the dishes. I've been looking for some healthy muffins to make for on-the-go breakfasts, and this one fit the bill. To my personal taste, it's still a little too sweet for my average breakfast, but that doesn't mean I won't grab one if I'm in a rush. All it really means is that I'm just as likely to grab it for a late-night snack...

I made these with old-fashioned oats, not quick-cooking. I'm pretty sure it resulted it a slightly chewier muffin, but it was still soft - no dense bran-like muffins here. I love baking recipes that use applesauce - I find they result in a really nice, moist finished product, and there's just something so healthy-seeming about it. Which allows me to add some extra chocolate chips.

No liner! A nice, hearty, naked muffin...

I'm copying And then I do the dishes' recipe and directions pretty much verbatim, which I'm not quite sure of the blogging ethics of, but at least this is full disclosure. Head on over there for much prettier pictures!

Buttermilk Oatmeal Muffins Recipe (adapted from Sweet Savory Southern)
Makes 16 muffins

1 1/2 C oats (either quick-cooking or regular, but accept it may change the consistency slightly)
1 1/2 C buttermilk 2 eggs, beaten 3/4 C packed brown sugar 1/4 C vegetable oil 1/4 C unsweetened applesauce 2 teaspoons vanilla 1 1/2 C all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt Handful of chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease a muffin tin (or use muffins cups, but I just never see the point). In a bowl, soak oats in buttermilk for 15 minutes. Stir in eggs, sugar, oil, applesauce and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; stir into oat mixture just until moistened. Fill prepared muffin tin three-fourths full. Sprinkle with chocolate chips, if using. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool in pan 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Ricotta Cookies

I hate cakey cookies. I like chewy cookies, or sometimes even crunchy cookies. Serious cookies, in other words, and if you want to throw in some chocolate or dried fruit, who am I to stop you? But these cookies are the quintessential "prove the rule by breaking it" cookies. These ricotta cookies are soft and cakey, completely subtle flavorwise, and absolutely addictive. Throw a little citrus-flavored icing on top, and they're an elegant midday cookie. Or any time of day. No judgments.


My friend Katherine used to make them in college - all it took me to get hooked was one night. I started off muttering about the intrinsic superiority of chocolate chip cookies, and that muttering gradually died down in favor of stuffing more and more of these ricotta cookies in my mouth. Lesson learned. And it's not just me - more people have fallen, and fallen hard, for these cookies than almost any other that I make.


Anyway! To the making! Really easy to mix together, this is a quick recipe that makes a ton of cookies. I always buy super fresh ricotta from the East Village Cheese Shop because I'm convinced that the fresher and sweeter the ricotta, the better. The dough is pretty dry - almost the same spongy consistency of lefsa dough, actually. It's not a slick, fully-incorporated dough like you get with sugar cookies, so don't worry if it's a little clumpy. I usually whip up a quick glaze with powdered sugar and a little fresh lime (or lemon) juice. Katherine swears by adding a little butter (and who can blame her?).

oops...

Recipe:
*note: this makes a huge amount - more than 40 cookies - so I often half it.

1 C unsalted butter
2 C white sugar
2 large eggs
16 oz. ricotta cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 C all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat eggs in, one at a time, and add the vanilla extract. Fold in the ricotta. Combine the dry ingredients, then add to the ricotta mixture. I then roll the dough into balls slightly smaller than a golf ball, and place on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for roughly 10-12 minutes, until bottoms are light golden brown. Let cool on the sheet, then remove and frost.

Banana Bread

¨There’s a fruit called a banana colored yellow like a June sun and curved.¨ Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse

Bananas make me think of a lot of things. Home - I was extremely devoted to my mom's dense version, which stood up well to being shipped off to a college-age daughter thousands of miles away (until I started making my own...) Books - the quote above comes from a children's book about a young Jewish girl escaping Nazi Europe (and the moment of her first sublime meeting with bananas). Politics - Ever since reading this NYT oped how the everyday banana is emblematic of long-distance food chains, I have tried to limit my banana intake (just being a general Latinamerican-phile, what with the continent's tortured United Fruit history, adds a whole 'nother dimension). (Note: Smitten Kitchen blogged on just this not too long ago - and with much better pictures!)

But I can't shake the habit of slicing them into my once-a-month bowl of oatmeal, and I adore banana bread. So with a slight sense of guilt offset by the pure joy of that Letters from Rifka quote, I present Banana Bread.

Most quick breads are made with oil, but this one uses melted butter in its place, in addition to yogurt. It's moist, flavorful, and a bit sweeter than some other versions I've tried - and to top it off I usually throw in a handful of dark chocolate chunks. This time I only had a few leftover walnuts rattling around in a plastic container. That's one of the reasons I love making quick breads - they're hardy, versatile little recipes that can take a fair bit of tweaking (and stand up well in altitude baking!).

This recipe originally comes from All Recipes, and can be found here. For a while I was slicing the bananas as directed, but I really think that mashing them allows for a more consistent banana flavor and less gummy chunks in the bread.

While looking up that op-ed, I stumbled across the NYT's topic page on bananas. No, really. It's bananas! Recipes, op-eds on the terrible banana trade, and other goodies galore! NYT, why must you confuse me so?

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup yogurt
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
- 2 medium bananas, mashed

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. (I made four small loaves - though I would have been happier with three slightly bigger small loaves, if that makes any sense.)
- In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar.
- Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well.
- Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth.
- Fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.
- Bake for around 35 minutes (small loaves) or 60 minutes (large loaf pan), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean (best test ever). Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.