Day 45 - Apple Oatmeal Bars

     I laughed a lot today.  Life is good.  I have all three of my children at home for a week.  I can't possibly imagine what it will be like when it is just me and my hubby in the home alone (oh, and the dog, and my sous chef cat).  I will definitely miss all of it, even the arguments.  They are growing up so quickly.
     Today it's Apple-Oatmeal the New Doubleday Cookbook, p. 852; authors, Jean Anderson and Elaine Hanna; publisher, Doubleday, a division of Random House; ISBN, 0-385-19577-X.

     Apple Oatmeal Bars

     1 cup sifted flour
     ½ teaspoon salt
     ½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
     1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
     1 cup uncooked quick-cooking oatmeal

     Filling
     2½ cups finely chopped or thinly sliced, peeled apples
     ¼ cup sugar
     ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

     Preheat oven to 400ºF.
     Sift flour with salt and add brown sugar. 

Using a pastry blender, cut in 1/3 cup butter until the size of small peas; mix in oatmeal.  Pack half the mixture into a well greased 9" x 9" x 2" pan; top with apples and sprinkle with sugar and nutmeg. 

Dot with remaining butter and cover with remaining oatmeal mixture, pressing down lightly.  Bake 45-50 minutes until tan on top.  Cool upright in pan on a wire rack and cut into bars.

 

     The rating system on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the best is what I use for my recipes.  The family has discussed and decided these were worth a 2.  The bars were just kind of ok.  Unfortunately, there was no wow factor.

     Happy baking!

Day 37 - Lace Cookies

     I've always wanted to make Lace cookies, but have been a little intimidated to.  They're just so delicate.  This recipe is from my cook book, Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Thirteenth Edition, p. 619; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., division of Random House; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.

     Lace Cookies
     1½ cups uncooked oatmeal
     1½ cups light brown sugar
     2 tablespoons flour
     ½ teaspoon salt
     2/3 cup melted butter
                                1 egg, lightly beaten
                                ½ teaspoon vanilla

     Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Mix the oatmeal, brown sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.  Stir in the melted butter, then add the egg and vanilla and combine well.  Arrange the batter by half-teaspoonfuls, about 2 inches apart, on ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Cool slightly, removing cookies from the cookie sheet with a spatula as soon as they are firm.  If they become too hard, return to the oven for a few minutes to soften.

     Now I know why I was intimidated.  These suckers are not easy cookies to make.  They're quite tasty, but they have to be made "just so" or they're not going to come out right and you'll end up eating the 10 cookies that stick to the spatula (well, how else was I going to get them off?). 
     It says to leave the cookies in the oven for 5 minutes.  I did that with the first batch and when I went to remove them from the cookie sheet after allowing them to cool there for a minute or two, completely smushed (I love that word, but not when I'm making cookies) them together.  It wasn't pretty.  The second batch I knew I needed to leave in longer to harden, so I did that, and left them a little longer on the cookie sheet to cool, also.  I managed to extract a few off the cookie sheet without a major problem while some were still being smushed.  And then the last ones to be removed were stuck to the sheet like glue.  Once the cookies cooled completely on the sheet, they were not going to budge, and the couple I managed to scrape off had me thinking they might be good to use as spackle.  Making these brought me back to when I was first learning how to make crepes and the amount of time it took to learn the right temperature in the pan, the right consistency of the batter and knowing when the crepe was cooked sufficiently on one side so that it could be flipped.  These cookies took this baker some time to master in order to achieve a perfect finished product.  By the fifth and final batch, I had it down, but I don't think I'll be making these again.
     I really like how light and airy they are, but they are extremely sweet.  So sweet in fact that my kids don't want to eat anymore than the two that they had.  And there were enough of them for me to bring and share with my hairdresser and her salon (everyone there really liked them).  My rating scale is from 1 to 4 with 4 being the best.  So for these Lace Cookies, the rating is:  2½ rolling pins.
     Happy baking!

Day 35 - Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

         My mother-in-law gave me this recipe because my kids absolutely love when she makes these cookies, and it's also on the back of the Craisins bag if you're ever needing it.

      Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
     2/3 cup butter
     2/3 cup brown sugar
     2 eggs
     1½ cups oats
     1½ cups flour
     1 tsp. baking soda
     ½ tsp. salt
     6 oz. package Craisins (sweetened dried cranberries)
     2/3 cup white chocolate chips or chunks

     Beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. 

Add eggs and oats. 

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add to butter mixture. 

Stir in cranberries and chocolate chips.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

  Bake at 375ºF for 10-12 minutes.  Makes 4 dozen.

     I'm mixing the brown sugar and the butter together, then take out the salt and baking soda and realize I have less than ¼ cup of flour left.  How can this happen?  I'm doing an experiment/project/challenge that will last me a whole year on baking and I have less than ¼ cup of flour in the house?!  Not well prepared, so had to run mid-recipe out to the store.  I bought the 10 pound bag, so that should last me through the middle of next week...I hope.
     My kids love these cookies!  I don't know if I made them as well as Grammy did; things always taste better when there are some warm fuzzy memories associated with them.  But they were excited to come home from school to find them on the counter.  My husband gave them the thumbs up, too.  I preferred the plain ol' Craisins mixed with white chocolate chips personally.  Alright, so I had a little snack while I was mixing things together - just making sure they were safe to eat and weren't going to make anyone sick.  On a scale of 1-4 rolling pins with 4 being the best, these cookies deserve a 3½!
     Happy baking!

Day 10 - Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Bread

     OH MY GOSH!!!  Can I just tell you that I was in heaven this morning?!  I walked in and the smell just completely overtook me, as it usually does.  But this morning,...man!  Over the years I've come to learn that some people are auditory, some are visual, but I am DEFINTIELY olfactory which is why pizza crust sniffing is a big thing for me.  When I visit this establishment, some days the smell is much stronger than others (or maybe I'm just more sensitive to it) and today just happened to be one of those days I guess.  So naturally, it energized me and all of my other senses were immediately awakened as well; colors became clearer and more vivid, and the velvety voice of Michael Bublé weaved it's way through my ears and made me want to start moving to the music.  I became extremely happy and couldn't help but to smile.  I had arrived!  I'm sure you can picture it happening in your head and I'm sure you have all, at one time or another, experienced it yourself when you walk into certain places.  I have had a love affair with this place from the first moment I ever stepped across its' threshold many years ago.  I feel completely at home and could spend hours here if given the chance.  Barnes & Noble.  Those three little words that mean so very much.  Maybe it's the love of books I've had ever since I was little or the fact that I love to write and can imagine myself sitting there at one of their brown tables signing a book for the one person who has come to get my autograph (haha).  My hair is standing up on the back of my neck.  What a vision!  Hey, if you don't have your dreams or your sense of humor, what's the point?  So, the next time you step foot in a Barnes & Noble, take a deep breath and lose yourself to your senses, and just experience the being there and everything it brings you.  Then, take it to other places in your life and enjoy!
     I completely lost myself in the cookbook section and surprisingly walked out without buying even one book.  I know if I picked up one that I'd pick up another and another and probably would have come home with at least four.  They were all so very beautiful.  And the recipes in them were absolutely divine.  I'll wait until that gift card comes that I ordered.
     Today it's Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Bread from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook Thirteenth Edition, pg. 516; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.
    
     Whole-Wheat Bread
     ½ cup water
     1 cup milk
     ¼ cup sugar
     2 teaspoons salt
     ½ cup warm water
     1 package dry yeast
     2 cups whole-wheat flour
     4 cups white flour approximately

     Bring ½ cup water to a boil, mix it with the milk, sugar and salt in a large bowl, and let cool to lukewarm.  In a separate container, measure ½ cup warm water, stir in the yeast, and let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.  Add the dissolved yeast, the whole-wheat flour, and 2 cups of the white flour to the mixture.  Beat thoroughly, then turn out on a lightly floured board, adding enough flour so that the dough handles easily.  Knead for a few minutes and let rest for 10 minutes. 

Add as much of the remaining flour as necessary to keep the dough from being sticky.  Resume kneading for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm spot until double in bulk.  Punch down and shape into two loaves. 

Definitely NOT the way a loaf is supposed to look.  Grrrrrr......

Place in greased loaf pans, cover, and let rise again until almost double.  Preheat oven to 375ºF. 

Bake bread for about 45 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool on racks.

     Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Bread.  Knead in 1 cup of uncooked rolled oats with the whole-wheat flour.  You will need ½-1 cup less of the the white flour if you add the oats.


  The kneading part really got to me!  I literally hurt my left wrist and forearm haha.  I woke up this morning and my wrist was aching, so maybe that had something to do with it.  I think it's growing pains - at least it's my wrist and not my muffin-top.  The second kneading was the one where I overexerted myself.  I was getting a workout!  I was sweating, and I'm sure my arms'll be a little achy tomorrow.  It says in the book to get your whole body into it, and that's certainly what I did!  There's a section in the book before breads that talks about kneading, so when I thought I was finished kneading it and was concerned about over-kneading, I consulted the book.  "Knead the dough for 10 minutes, until the dough holds together, becomes smooth and satiny, and is not longer sticky but elastic to the touch.  Depress the dough with your fingers:  if it springs back, it has been kneaded enough.  SHUCKS!!!  Don't worry about kneading too much-it can never hurt.  If dough is not well kneaded, the resulting loaf may be heavy."  So, back to kneading I went.  At times, I was becoming frustrated because as I kneaded the oats and then more flour into the dough, it wasn't sticking together and was flaking.  Then, after kneading, and kneading, and kneading...SUCCESS!  I poked it, and it sprung!  I was so excited.
     Then I wasn't so excited when I took it out to shape it into loaves and put it into the pans as you can see from the picture.  One of the balls of dough seemed to take the shape ok, the other really pissed me off.  Sorry, I became very frustrated with that second one.  I kept trying to shape it, but it kept ending up like a pita than a loaf of bread.  It had so many cracks in it.  When I rolled it together to put it in the pan I wasn't sure if when I baked it that it would be filled with air.  I remember making wheat bread about 10 years ago, but don't remember it turning out like this.  It tasted ok, actually really good when it was fresh out of the oven with melted butter and wasn't filled with air.  I will definitely be making more breads that require kneading throughout the year to make sure I increase my skills.  I "knead" more practice. Haha Ok, I know, that was bad.  
I have to say that I've made this bread in the past and it turned out wonderfully.  This time, maybe it's from lack of practice.  It was delicious when I made it before.
Happy baking!