This article from the San Fransisco Chronicle makes a good case for only buying C&H CANE sugar!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Cream Cheese Frosting
3 oz cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
.75-1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp. vitamin D milk
Powdered sugar: start with 1 cup, and add until it is the right consistency/taste. I think I ended up at 1.25 cups.
I use the KitchenAid mixer with the wire whip attachment.
Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Then put in the 1 c. of powdered sugar. Throw the vanilla and milk in on top of that and beat some more. REALLY whip it.
PUMPKIN BARS
Some good and bad news from last night's cooking adventures.
1) I had time to make one of the things I had planned this weekend. I made the two versions of pumpkin bars as a test. That is probably all I will get to, since we are going out of town at the spur of the moment (leaving early tomorrow!). I cannot handle the spontaneity.
2) Also, I got to see some good old friends tonight, and one subsequently sent me a cooking blog she has been reading. When my husband heard one of the posts was for Homemade Turkey and Chicken Jerky, I realized I would be adding yet another distraction. In return, I promised her links to two site that I like that have information about preserving food (i.e. how long you can store fresh fruits and veggies in the fridge).
They are:
The bad news:
1) I ate two (good sized) pumpkin bars. This is after some inevitable "quality control" tests of the cream cheese frosting. My stomach is less than happy with me.
2) I used to cook almost exclusively late at night. Now I remember why that is a BAD idea. Since it is late, and I was getting impatient. I definitely frosted both types of bars before they were cool. The "bar-like" bars may be slightly undercooked (or I just cut into them too soon). Actually, I think this contributed to the fact that they won round one of the test! They tasted a bit like pumpkin pie, but with cream cheese frosting! Yum! BUT, the bad part of this, is it is not a very good test of the recipe.
3) I did not update the original recipes with my amendments, comments, and pictures. This will happen soon. Here are the originals, plus the cream cheese frosting recipe (which I actually did type up with my changes!)
Our parents will be guinea pigs today for the two recipes. Verdict and full recipes will come later. I will also post the recipe that I finally recorded this morning for the muesli mix that I make. It is modeled off of the ratios of grains, nuts, and dried fruits in Dorset Cereal's Simply Delicious Muesli.
UPDATE: New winner! Apparently, the bar-like pumpkin bars are only better gooey and warm straight out of the oven and very late at night. Unanimously, my in-laws, husband, parents and I chose Shelly's good old recipe (of course not quite Shelly's recipe--my minor amendments still to come). My mother especially (Shelly is her niece) enjoyed the good old recipe.
Bar-like pumpkin bars
Paul's pumpkin bars from Allrecipes. I have noted changes according to advice from the comments on that site to make them more bar-like.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 2/3 cups white sugar (less, still over 1 c.)
- 1 cup vegetable oil (1/2 c. oil, 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce)
- 1 (30 ounce) can pumpkin puree
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder (less than this--a little more than half)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (less than this--a little more than half)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- Chocolate chips or nuts?
- Need to put some vanilla in here!! Pioneer woman does 1.5 tsp for half the size recipe!
Frosting:
- 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (more)
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir into the pumpkin mixture until thoroughly combined.
- Spread the batter evenly into an ungreased 10x15 inch jellyroll pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in preheated oven. Cool before frosting.
- To make the frosting, cream together the cream cheese and butter. Stir in vanilla. Add confectioners' sugar a little at a time, beating until mixture is smooth. Spread evenly on top of the cooled bars. Cut into squares.
Shelly's Pumpkin Bars (updated with step-by-step instructions)
My cousin Shelly always brought these to Thanksgiving. As a picky kid, I refused to eat pumpkin or cheese in cake. Oh, what I have been missing all of my life.
I made these from her recipe (with my own slight amendments -- even family recipes I can't resist altering) for the first time this fall. These overwhelmingly beat out the Bar-like pumpkin bars altered from Allrecipes.
Since my husband's pants are really taking the beating from my cooking addiction, he requested trying to make these with 75% of the sugar. I will try this next time. However, I am quite averse to sugar substitutes, so I will probably do this by reducing the amount of frosting and the amount of powdered sugar in the frosting, and by just reducing the amount of sugar in the cake itself a bit. It will take some experimenting to see how far I can go.
.5 c. canola oil
.5 c. unsweetened applesauce
2 c. sugar
2 c. pumpkin
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
Raisins or nuts, optional
Bar Directions
1. Combine the first six ingredients (oil, applesauce, sugar, pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla) in the kitchen aid mixer, until well mixed, light and fluffy.
2. Sift in the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice.
3. Mix until well combined, scraping the beater and sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is mixed.
4. Pour the batter into a greased (Pam works fine) commercial cookie sheet pan.
Note: In the step-by-step pictures, I was using a 11 1/2 by 8 in. pyrex, because I made a half recipe. The volume was not exactly half of the commercial cookie sheet I use for the full recipe, so the pictures in the pyrex are a bit thicker than what the cake looks like in the cookie sheet pan.
5. Bake in a jelly roll pan at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let the bars cool a bit before frosting with Cream Cheese Frosting. I am not sure exactly how much frosting I use for the full sheet pan or how long I let these cool! I fail as a food blogger, clearly.
Something is missing from that pan!
Ah, here it is:
Where do these keep running off to ;) ?
Note: This Cream Cheese Frosting is my preferred cream cheese frosting. Below is the original recipe with Shelly's bars.
Frosting:
3 oz. cream cheese
1 3/4 c. powdered sugar
1 tbsp. cream
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 stick margarine
Flax and Walnut Bread
I really like this bread. A nutty wheat bread with good flavor.
Flax and Walnut Bread
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1 1/3 cups whole wheat bread flour
- 1.5 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast (or bread machine yeast)
- 1/2 cup flax seeds (ground)
- 1/2 cup crushed walnuts
Add in the order specified by your bread machine.
Apple-Cinnamon Granola Bread
This bread has a very good flavor, and is very dense as are most breads with this much whole wheat. However, it is not as good as other multi-grain recipes I have tried, because there are no nutty/chewy bits to go along with the generally dense texture of the bread.
1.5 lb Loaf
1 c. water
1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
1 tbsp. walnut oil (or olive or canola oil)
3/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 1/4 c. bread flour
3/4 c. granola
1/3 c. nonfat dry milk powder
4 tsp. packed brown sugar
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1.5 tsp. bread machine yeast
Place all ingredients in the bread maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Bake on the whole wheat, lightest crust setting.
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