Walnut Butter, why not.

 I love to make my own nut butter using my Champion juicer, I usually use a combination of almond, cashews and peanuts. Awhile back, a friend ask if I could make him some walnut butter. My first reaction was, no, as I have never heard of it or seen it anywhere. Ever the intrepid chef, I did a quick search and found a great recipe that you can make with just a food processor. I have been making it ever since. It's slightly sweet and unctuous, great on cracker or toast, a nice change from the usual nut butters. Walnuts are a great source of Omega 3 fats, antioxidants and vitamins.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup raw, unsalted walnuts.

1) Preheat oven to 300 F.

2) Line a rimmed cookie sheet or pan with parchment or a silicon baking mat.

3) Place walnuts of the pan and bake for 12 minutes. Be careful not to over bake them.

4) Add the hot nuts to your food process and whiz for 1 minute, scrape down the sides and continue to process until they become runny. It may take a while depending on the size of your food processor. Be patient. Eventually they should turn into a smooth paste. You can add a dash of salt if you like.

5) Store in a jar in the fridge and enjoy.

Coffee cake, Betty Crocker's Best

Genna called me the other day to complain that she could not find my coffee cake recipe on this blog. I realized it had been a while since I have made it. Lately waffles have been the fare on Sunday mornings.
So I dug out old Betty Crocker, the cookbook, of course.

I grew up with this cookbook. I can remember leafing through the pages to admire all the colorful baked goods.

Strangely the book opened to the coffee cake recipe ;-)

I went back to this cookbook after my hippie-whole-wheat-in-everything phase in the 70's.
Don't get me wrong I do love whole flour in many things but it can go too far. I found some very simple basic recipes that I modified to fit my own tastes, mostly baked goods.




Here's my version of the coffee cake.

Laurie & Betty's  Streusel Coffee Cake


Ingredients

The batter:
 3/4 cup sugar
1/4 canola oil*
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

The streusel:
1/2 brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons canola oil*
1/2 cup chopped walnuts of pecans.

* you can use melted butter if you prefer.


1) Preheat the oven to 375 F, grease a 9 inch square or round pan.
2) Mix together in a bowl: sugar, oil, and the egg.

3) Add the milk and stir.

4) Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.

5) Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir together.

6) To make the streusel, mix together in a small bowl: the flour, cinnamon and brown sugar.

7) Add the oil, mix well.

8) Add the nuts and mix again.



9) Into the greased pan, spread a little less than half the batter to cover the bottom of the pan.

10) Sprinkle half the streusel on the batter in the pan.

11) Now carefully spread or drop the rest of the batter to cover that layer.

12) Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on the top.

13) Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes.


 14) Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting, if you can wait that long.

Cranberry Walnut Oatmeal Cookies.

My dear sweet yoga teacher made cookies for all her classes this week in honor of Valentines Day. She loves to bake and cook and has a wonderful food blog of her own.

Monday she brought these chewy oatmeal cookies to class. If she had not told us, I would not have guessed they were vegan.


Cranberry Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

1/3 cup  coconut oil, softened
1/3 cup brown sugar packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons soy or almond milk
1 tablespoon  cornstarch
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon*
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cardamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries, chopped if they are whole.
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

* The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, which contains the spices I used plus some others. If you have the pumpkin pie spice use that. You can just use cinnamon if that's all you have.

1) Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease 2 large baking sheets or cover with parchment paper.
2) In a large mixing bowl ( you can use a handmixer or strong fork) cream together the coconut oil and sugars.

3) Mix in the vanilla. Add the cornstarch and milk, and mix until the cornstarch is dissolved.

4) Whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt, then add to the bowl, mix to combine.

5) My cranberries were whole.

 So I chopped them into smaller bits.

6) Add the oats, cranberries and nuts, to your mixture, mix well.

7) Scoop cookies out with a tablespoon or server, using about two tablespoons of dough per cookie.

8) Place about 2 inches apart. Flatten a little with your hand.

 
9) Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until edges are lightly browned.

10) Remove from oven and cool for about 5 minutes then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

As you can see from this photo, or at least I can see...some of the cookies spread more than others. I think this was due to incomplete mixing of the dough, next time  ;-)

Very Very Chocolate Cookies

"When it comes to chocolate, more is always better."
That's the tag line for these super rich chocolate cookies with walnuts.
They are almost like a round brownie and will make any chocolate lover smile.

Remember to plan ahead as this dough needs to be chilled before baking !!

Ingredients:

5 oz. unsweetened chocolate*, chopped
8 oz. bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup butter
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted

1) In a small pan over low heat, melt the unsweetened chocolate and 4 oz. of the bittersweet chocolate. Set aside to cool.

2) Using a standing mixer or large bowl with a hand mixer, whip the eggs and sugar on medium speed for 10 minutes until thick and light in color.

3) With the mixer on low speed, add the melted chocolate mixture and the vanilla until blended.

4) With a rubber spatula, fold in the flour, baking powder and salt, scraping the bowl.

5) Fold in the remaining 4 oz. of chocolate and the walnuts.

6) Refrigerate the dough until it is firm enough to scoop, at least 1 1/2 hours.

7) Preheat oven to 350 F. The original recipe says to use an ungreased cookie sheet, I lined mine with parchment.

8) Drop scoops or large rounded tablespoons of dough onto the cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.

9) Bake until the cookies are cracked on top, dry on the surface but soft inside, about 15 minutes.

10) Allow to cool for a minute before removing to a cooling rack.

11) Store in a closed container and see how long you can keep them around ;-) They do freeze well if you have that much restraint.

* The second time I made these cookies I did not have unsweetened chocolate, so I used the darkest chocolate I did have. They still came out VERY chocolaty !!

Decadent bars searching for a name...

Hard to believe these bar cookies don't have a name...partly because I just made them up. They are a combination of two different bar cookies and the marriage worked very well ;-)

Sooo, if you can come up with a very clever name and I use it, I may just make you a batch of them !!

They are very gooey and dense, chewy and rich, packed with coconut, walnuts and chocolate chips.

Ingredients
The Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oat bran or rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2  tsp. salt

The Filling:
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1  cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 350 F.
2) Mix together all the crust ingredients thoroughly and press into 9 X 13 inch baking pan.

3) Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven.
4) In a mixing bowl combine the eggs, brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla, beat together.
5) Stir in the nuts, coconut, and chocolate chips and pour onto warm crust.

6) Bake for 25 minutes.
7) Here comes the hard part, you really should allow them to cool before you cut them into squares.

Didn't happen for this batch. They are sticky and very gooey if you try to cut them too soon Bob didn't care he wanted to sample them warm ;-)
They store well in the fridge or even in the freezer, if they last that long.