Whole Wheat Cheddar Scones

The last bout of baking books I ordered, I had two I knew I wanted - The Essential Baker & Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins and More. Either those two books didn't add up to $39 to get the free shipping, or I just got really enticed by this little Simply Scones cookbook. Because really, what's better than scones?? I think the brownie scones really helped win me over, but so far all I've made are the cheese scones. Cheese scones are the kind I grew up eating (and I'm undecided as to whether they have to be refrigerated).

Lisa and I have been talking about scones as she seems to be the master of making healthy and delicious scones - like Coconut, Currant and Cashew Yogurt Scones and Sour Cherry Jam Scones! And go check out how beautiful and high they are. Mine were so flat. Lisa says that you can take out the eggs without replacing them with anything and the scones should be fine, though they will be drier (correct me if I'm wrong Lisa!) My guess is that you'd need to add a bit more milk though if it seems too dry, or yogurt can act as an egg replacer. Mmm yogurt cheese scones. (Edit: Lisa says she replaces an egg with 1/4 cup soy yogurt. And that "a scone made with eggs gives you a more "cake-like" texture where as a scone made without eggs has a more "bread-like" texture".)

This is a simple scone recipe that you can modify and make whatever kind of scone sounds good to you! I think it would be good with a mix of dried fruit, such as apricots, figs and raisins. And I like that there's no sugar in it.

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Scones
Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits
Apricot Orange Scones

Whole Wheat Cheddar Scones
Adapted from Simply Scones

Makes 8 scones.

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Generous dash ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup unsalted butter, chilled
1/3 cup milk
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400F.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Stir in the cheese. Cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes and distribute them over the flour mixture. With a pastry blender or two knives used scissors fashion, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, stir together the milk and 2 eggs. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Spread the dough into an 8 inch diameter circle in the center of the prepared baking sheet. With a serrated knife, cut into 8 wedges. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned and a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean.*

Transfer the scones to the wire rack to cool. Serve warm, or cool completely and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

*Personally it seems really weird to test a scone with a toothpick, but maybe that's just me.

Pomegranate Smoothie

This is the first beverage I've ever posted about, and possibly the last. I like trying out different drinks but I don't really care that much about making them at home. Except for smoothies, which I make with yogurt, frozen fruit and fruit juice. Not that I've been making many recently due to the cold weather. (Where are you summer? And who ever thought I'd be wanting summer to come and not relishing the cold weather?)

Anyway, so I subscribe to Everyday Food magazine but haven't been looking through the issues recently. I came across this pomegranate smoothie recipe and was both sad that I had missed it in the issue, but also happy that I had stumbled across it on the internet. It's really quite a perfect, delicious and healthy smoothie. The silken tofu gives it this really nice mouthfeel (a term I've gleaned from my food technology program) - as though there's heavy cream in there or something and it doesn't taste like tofu at all. And it's full of antioxidants, especially if you use frozen berries.

Pomegranate Smoothie
Adapted from March 08 Everyday Food magazine (found on Husband Tested Recipes From Alice's Kitchen)

1/3 cup silken tofu (about 3 oz.)
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1 teaspoon honey (add more if you like it sweeter)
2 ice cubes (or just omit because the frozen berries make them kind of pointless)

In a blender, combine all ingredients. Puree until smooth. Serve immediately. (If the smoothie seems too thick, just add a bit more pomegranate juice.)

TWD: Orange Berry Muffins

Jaime from Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats invited me a few days ago to join Tuesdays With Dorie! Tuesdays with Dorie is a group of 6 people now (Jaime as mentioned, Quirky Cupcake, Sugar & Spice, Abby Sweets, Crazy Delicious and Queen of the Marginally Bright) who choose one recipe a week and all make the same thing from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. Such a great idea as I really love this cookbook and haven't made nearly enough things out of it. So this was my first week with them and we made orange berry muffins!

I wasn't sure that I was going to make them as I was trying to be healthier this week with my whole wheat blueberry muffins. But when I found out that today was a snow day and my school was closed, I had to make them! And I'm really glad I did. They're such soft, fluffy and tender muffins. And so beautiful looking too! I went all out and even buttered the muffin tin instead of using muffin cups, making for nice crispy muffin edges all around, mmm. I didn't have any buttermilk, so I used milk with a bit of vinegar and it seemed to work fine (my first time using a buttermilk substitution).

The blueberry and orange flavours were perfectly balanced and the muffins were just the right sweetness. The muffins were very easy to put together and I love that the recipe uses melted butter instead of room temperature butter, meaning you can bake them on a whim! Thanks ladies for welcoming me to your group. Go check out the others' blogs to see their yummy muffins!

Other muffins I've made:
Almond Coconut
Snickerdoodle
Lemon Poppyseed
Healthy Banana Bran
Healthy Pumpkin Banana

Orange Berry Muffins
Baking: From My Home to Yours (Dorie Greenspan)

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
About 3/4 cup buttermilk*
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons honey
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries - fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)

Decorating sugar, for topping (optional)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey and melted butter.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough - the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

*I did 1 tbsp vinegar then fill up to the 1 cup line with milk. Then I used this mixture for the required buttermilk.

No Fail Granola

I've been wanting to make my own granola for quite some time now. So you can imagine that I was really excited when I came across this incredibly easy and versatile recipe at Everybody Likes Sandwiches. It does take longer than I'd like to make since I chop up all the fruit and nuts, but it's definitely worth it.

I use apple juice instead of oil so I assume that's why the granola doesn't turn out hard/crispy at all, which is how I would prefer it but I don't want to add oil. At first I tried eating just a bowl of this granola with milk (as I would cereal) but it was so soft and soggy. Then I started doing half box cereal (Vector or Special K usually) and half this granola, with an extra sprinkling of almonds, and I really love it. I also love knowing that without even trying, I'm eating lots of things that are good for me every morning!

I extremely adore this jar for keeping my granola in. Originally it was purchased for cookies but I think the granola has now staked its claim on the life of the jar. (It's from Ikea.)

On top of the oats, flax and wheat germ in the granola, I like to have a real mix of seeds, nuts and dried fruit so I've been doing:
1 cup of seeds (half sunflower, half pumpkin)
1 cup of nuts (half almonds, half walnuts)
1 cup of dried fruit (mix of raisins, apricots and apples, though I'd really like to add blueberries, pears and figs - if only the dried blueberries I've seen weren't packaged using some oil!)

No Fail Granola
slightly adapted from Everybody Likes Sandwiches

4 c rolled oats
3/4 c wheat germ
1/4 c flax seeds

Plus 3 cups of any of the following suited to your tastes:
Nuts* (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, etc)
Seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin, etc)
Dried fruit* (raisins, apricots, apples, cherries, cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, pears, peaches, coconut, figs, etc)

Mix all of your grains and nuts together and add some spice:
1 T cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground ginger
1/8 t nutmeg
1/8 t ground cardamom

In a large measuring cup, mix together the following:
1/3 c + 2 T apple or pear juice, ideally the cloudy kind
1/3 c sweetener (honey, brown sugar, molasses, or maple syrup)

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and mix well with a wooden spoon until everything is well coated.

Pour onto a cookie sheet or large rectangular pan and bake in a 300 degree oven. Stirring every 20 minutes or so for about 45 minutes until mostly dry. Remove and cool. Store in a tight lidded container.

*I always chop up the fruit and nuts into raisin size pieces. Obviously I do not cut up the raisins!
Note: Next time I might try baking everything without the dried fruit to make sure it gets all nice and toasty (and adding the fruit in after).

Orange Yogurt Hotcakes

Another recipe from my favourite cookbook, Rebar. There are so many yummy sounding recipes in this cookbook (every single one actually, ex. roasted yam pierogi with smoked gouda, leeks and caraway). A good portion of them are fairly time consuming so it will take me a while to get through them all, but I will - happily munching all the way. These pancakes had a really wonderful orange flavour, and I like the use of yogurt in them. The big problem though is that they're not light and fluffy pancakes. In fact, the middle part of the pancake remains at least somewhat gooey, even when the pancake is cooked for a long time. I tried to make really thin pancakes and that didn't seem to help much. Not sure if that's just the way these pancakes are, or if there was something I could've done to make them fluffy inside. The taste is really good though so I would make them again.

I don't make pancakes very often, and I really shouldn't make them for dinner when they're the only thing that I'll be eating, but it takes eating a few pancakes to remember that and by then it's too late. Mental note to self about pancakes. Anyway, I ended up freezing a lot of these ones, and they taste really good reheated in the toaster oven.

Orange Yogurt Hotcakes
(from the Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook)
Serves 3-4

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour*
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
zest of 1 orange, minced
1/2 cup fresh orange juice**
1 tbsp butter, or oil for cooking

*I used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour.
**I used the juice from the orange I zested, and then topped it up with a mango strawberry juice.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the eggs. Add the liquid ingredients to hte eggs ands tir well to combine. Add the wet mix to the dry mix and gently fold them together. Let the batter rest fo ra few minutes as your griddle heats up to 350F.

Brush the griddle with a light coat of oil or butter and use a 1/3 cup measure to ladle the batter onto the pan. Cook until small bubbles appear on the uncooked surface and the edges begin to dry. Flip the cakes ove rand cook a few minutes more.