Gingerbread Cookies

This post is a little late, as Christmas has come and gone - (Happy New Year, by the way), but I've only recently had time to upload all the wonderful baking/holiday-ing that transpired. My friend Heather and I had a fun, but short-lived tradition of baking gingerbread cookies together, then she sadly moved away, and I was left to bake alone. Never fear, however - since it was the season to make edible gifts for coworkers, my lovely and capable friend Ann-Louise stepped in, and we stirred up a storm of flour, brown sugar, ginger, and other spices that made my apartment smell heavenly for a looong time afterwards...

I'm one of those old grandmas who likes her gingerbread cookies plain, but, since these were for gifts, we went crazy with icing, gumdrops, M&Ms, and such. These are really spicy-tasting cookies, (I use blackstrap molasses instead of the lighter, more common variety), and will be delicious decorated or not. One other note - if it seems like a lot of butter, don't worry - this recipe yields a HUGE amount of cookies, and they taste very light...

Gingerbread Cookies
1 1/3 cups blackstrap molasses
1 1/3 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbs. ground ginger
3 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. ground cloves
4 tsp. baking soda
2 cups (4 sticks) butter, cut into 1 Tbs. pieces
2 eggs, lightly beaten
8 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
decorating icing, candies, and cookie cutters

- In a large pot, bring molasses, brown sugar, and spices to a boil over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, and remove from heat. Stir in baking soda, then stir in butter, 3 pieces at a time, letting each addition melt before adding the next, until all butter is melted. Add the eggs and stir until combined, then stir in flour and salt.

- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead, dusting with as much flour as is needed to prevent sticking, until soft and easy to handle, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Halve dough, then wrap one half in plastic wrap and keep at room temperature.

- Roll out remaining dough into a 14" round on a lightly floured surface, (dough will be thick). Cut out as many cookies as possible with cutters and carefully transfer to 2 buttered large baking sheets, about 1" apart.

- Bake cookies in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until edges are slighlty darker, 10 to 12 minutes. (Every oven is different, so keep a close eye on them until you've figured out a good baking time). Transfer cookies to racks to cool completely. Make more cookies with remaining dough. Decorate cooled cookies as desired.

Orange Almond Cake with Chocolate Orange Cream

The name of this cake is pretty long I suppose, but I couldn't think of a simpler way to convey its organe-y-ness. I've been so busy the last few months that the Goodness has been sorely neglected - Sonja's birthday last week ended the dry spell, thankfully, and I'm happy to report she enjoyed the results. It was my buddy Eric's birthday last week as well, so Eric, if you're readin' this, you know I would have baked you somethin' too:)
This cake is basically an adaptation of a simple yellow cake recipe I pulled from my mother's collection some years ago - I substituted orange and almond extracts instead of vanilla, and used by beloved unrefined sugar instead of the white stuff.

For topping, I wanted something to contrast the relatively bland look of yellow cake, and continued the orange theme by blending chocolate and more orange extract into whipped cream.

A note about orange extract - I've usually shied away from citrus flavorings in my baking, simply because I had encountered too many lemon and orange cupcakes with that super-fake-gross-citrus flavor. I always thought *extracts*, as opposed to juicing and zesting the real thing, would yield something so fake-tasting, only sugar-crazed kids would enjoy it. I had a bottle of orange extract that I had bought on a whim a couple years ago, but it was so...ORANGE. I didn't want whatever I baked to taste like baby aspirin, and was happy to discover my local health food store carries a "natural" orange extract.

What qualifies as "natural" I'm not really sure, (there's a lot of debate about it, and to date there are no clear labeling regulations), but it looked and smelled nice, so I decided to go for it...

Orange Almond Cake

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 ½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

2/3 cup butter, softened

1 ¾ cups sugar, preferrably unrefined

1 tsp. orange extract

1 tsp. almond exctract

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups milk

- Grease and lightly flour pan(s). Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

- In a large mixing bowl beat butter with mixer on medium to high speed for 30 sec. Add sugar both extracts; beat till well-combined.

- Add eggs, one at a time, beating 1 minute after each. Add dry mixture and milk alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.

- Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Bake in a 375-degree oven for 50 to 60 minutes, (30 to 35 minutes for smaller layer cake pans), or till a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and remove from pan(s).

Chocolate Orange Cream

1 pint heavy whipping cream

2 Tbs. confectioner's sugar

1 tsp. orange extract

2 one-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted

- Combine cream, sugar, and orange extract. Beat on high speed until medium-soft peaks form. Using a spatula, quickly fold in melted chocolate, just until combined. If thicker cream is desired, beat until stuff peaks form. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

- Frost center and top of cake, or use as desired. Yields enough to fill and frost one two-layer cake.

Creepy Orange, meet Tasty Orange

the dry goods...

unrefined sugar, butter

all mixed and ready to go

chocolate cream

topped with toasted hazelnut goodness...

Coconut Cookie Bites

I had my holistic nutrition class over the other Sunday to watch a video, ("The Future of Food" - if you'd like a depressing primer on how food is grown, add this one to your "to rent" list...), and I wanted to make an easy sweet treat to go along with the obligatory salsa, black bean dip, whole grain bread, etc. I love coconut, and since it's maybe, finally, barely starting to feel like summer here, little cookies with this tasty tropical fruit felt like just the thing. They're light, chewy, and highly addictive. Since I used Rapadura sugar instead of the white stuff, they came out a lovely brown - a nice background for the flecks of white coconut...


Coconut Cookie Bites

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Rapadura sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flaked, unsweetened coconut


- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

- In a medium bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar and Rapadura sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in the flour mixture, then mix in the coconut.

- Using your hands scoop out tablespoon-sized chunks of batter. Roll each one around in your palms to form smooth balls and place on a greased cookie sheet about one inch apart, (they don't expand very much).

- These bake very quickly, so to keep their chewy texture, bake for 5 minutes and check on them - they should just barely be golden on the bottom, and still quite pale on top. In most ovens, this will not exceed ten minutes.

- Cool on wire racks. Yields about 3 dozen.

butter and the sugars

fluffy batter goodness

rolled and ready

I served these with an herbal cooler, (raspberry hibiscus tea mixed with apple juice and sliced oranges and lemons), and they were a big hit...

No-Bake Key Lime Pie

My parents visited last weekend, and I wanted to make something simple, tasty, and that wouldn't require babysitting an oven. Since it really is starting to feel like spring, (the cherry blossoms are gone, but intoxicating wisteria vines and lilac bushes have taken their place), I decided to make a rich, fresh-tasting key lime pie. Now, everyone has their sworn, favorite recipe, and there seems to be a schism between the basked-custard aficionados, and the no-bake, chilled filling fans. I'm happy with either one, (althought the baked merengue topping on the custard variety has always seemed like a bit much), but in the interest of time, I found a delicious, simple no-bake recipe.

A word about lime juice - key limes are occasionally available in supermarkets, but you may find juicing them tedious and expensive - they're very small, don't pack much juice per piece, and you could end up having to buy several bags of them. Many specialty markets now carry bottled key lime juice, but if you can't find it, (and I think fresh-squeezed is usually better than something that's been sitting on a shelf), use a combination of half regular lime juice/half lemon juice. The lemon juice imparts the tartness that makes key limes different from regular limes, and the resulting taste is the same...

Recipe
1 nine-inch graham cracker crust
1 pound cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup combined lime and lemon juice, (approx. 5 limes and 3 lemons)
14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. finely grated lime zest
whipped cream for garnish

Directions
In a food processor, or using an electric mixer, blend cream cheese, juice and condensed milk until smooth. Add zest and mix just until combined. Pour filling into shell. Chill pie, loosely covered, at least 6 hours and up to 1 day. Garnish with whipped cream and lime slices.

the mixed filling

store-bought crust

ready for chilling

dessert-time!

This pie is very rich, and a small slice is a plentiful serving...

Jewish Apple Cake

Spring is here, and even though the trees and shrubs are awash in blooming splendor, the nights in Vancouver are still chilly. The heat is still pumping in my building, and since I'm not quite ready to put away the down comforter, I felt like making a winter dessert - my Aunt Teresa's Jewish Apple Cake.
My family isn't Jewish, but we are Polish, and through centuries of living side by side and cultural intermingling, the two cuisines now have lot in common. This is not Passover-worthy cake, (it uses leaveners), however, it uses orange juice instead of milk, and therefore makes it an appropriate follow-up to a kosher meat meal.
For those who, like me, have no kosher-centered needs, it's just good cake...

A couple notes - I've modified the recipe slightly to make it healthier:

1) Instead of regular sugar, I used Rapadura - a whole, unrefined sugar made by a German company called Rapunzel. It's just like regular sugar, except it hasn't had all of the inherent minerals boiled away - this is what "real" sugar once was, and it has a lovely brown color, as well as a great, fruity/molasses-y taste. Rapadura is now easily available at health food stores, and works great in any sweet recipe. If you don't have any on hand, just substitute in regular sugar - the resulting cake will be a bit lighter in color...

2) The original recipe calls for a cup of vegetable oil, but I found it works very well with melted coconut oil. Coconut oil is not processed and denatured the way conventional yellow oils are - it's full of heat-stable, saturated fatty acids and hasn't been treated with metals, deodorized or bleached like canola, corn, or soy oils.. Coconut oil is available anywhere these days, you can store it in your cupboard almost indefinitely, and depending on the weather, it will alternate between becoming liquid and solid. If it's solid, just scoop some into a measuring cup, and heat until completely melted.


This is one of those throw-it-all-in-at-once recipes - a breeze to make, and pretty fool-proof:

Apple Layer
6 medium Granny Smith apples - peeled, sectioned, and sliced into bite-sized pieces
5 Tbs. Rapadura sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon

Combine apples, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Mix until well combined and set aside. (Some juices may accumulate, but that's okay - when it comes time you can just pour them into the batter).

Cake
3 cups flour
2 1/2 cups Rapadura sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup coconut oil, melted
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Place flour in a large mixing bowl, make a well in the middle, and crack in eggs, orange juice, sugar, baking powder, salt, coconut oil, and vanilla. Mix on medium approxiamtely two minutes, or until well-combined. (Do not overmix - the batter will be thick).

Pour about three-fourths of the batter into a greased flute pan. Spoon in apples and any juices - spread out to form a more or less even layer. Pour remaining batter on top. Using a spatula or spoon, spread the batter to cover the apples - don't worry if it's a bit messy, or if the apples aren't 100% covered - it bakes up nicely in the end.

Bake at 325 degrees for approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean, (allow for the wetness of the apples - the toothpick can have moist bits on it, but no runny batter).

sliced apples, cinnamon, sugar

first layer of batter

apple layer

top batter layer

the smell fills the apartment...

I've never had anyone refuse a piece of this cake - simple, moist and delicious. I've never tried any other variations, but I bet it would work well with sour cherries - if you give it a shot, let me know how it turns out...

Nanaimo Bars

As an inaugural recipe, I've decided to make that most classic of Canadian desserts - Nanaimo Bars. Supposedly invented in the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo, British Columbia, they're one of those simple, almost downright conservative dessert bars that most Canadians grow up with and therefore take for granted. They connote images of 1950s housewives, diligently making whole pans of the stuff for their eager, suburban families.

As a relatively recent transplant to the Great White North, I had never heard of this sweet, chewy confection, and was always slightly put off by their appearance in coffee shops - what was that extremely YELLOW goo sandwiched between the cookie base and the chocolate topping? As it turns out, it's a very basic vanilla buttercream frosting, mixed with custard powder, and even though the final product really doesn't look or taste anything like traditional custard, Canadians still call this layer "the custard".
But the important questions is - WHAT is custard powder? Well, I'm glad you asked - it's mostly corn starch, (sometimes combined with tapioca starch), sugar, a bunch of emulsifying/buffering agents like sodium phosphate, food dyes, (ergo that appetizing yellow), and of course, no processed pseudo-food would be complete without partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Since I don't like additives in my desserts, and especially don't like engineered franken-fats, I'm attempting to make a healthier version, (or as healthy as a sugar-based jolt to the brain can be). Corn starch is essentially a binding and thickening agent, so I figure if I substitute a bit of that and add some vanilla extract, (to replace the already artifically-flavored "vanilla-ness" of the custard powder), I should have a just-as-good if not better version of the classic Nanaimo bar. This recipe is the one listed by the City of Nanaimo as their official version, carefully selected after a city-wide contest...

shredded coconut, graham cracker crumbs, chopped almonds

the bottom cookie layer after it's chilled


vanilla buttercream


melting chocolate for the topping


ready for the dinner party!

Nanaimo Bars

Bottom Layer

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

5 Tbs. cocoa

1 egg, beaten

1 1/4 cups graham crumbs (I used Nature's Path brand - they're made with palm oil)

1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

1 cup coconut (unsweetened)

1) Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

Second Layer

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. heavy cream

1 1/2 Tbs. corn starch

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups icing sugar

2) Cream butter, cream, corn starch, vanilla and sugar, and beat until light. Spread over bottom layer and chill.

Third Layer

4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)

2 Tbs. unsalted butter

3) Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill until ready to cut and serve.

As these are very rich, you'll probably want to cut them into small squares - I'd say two-bite-sized pieces would be plenty. They were much enjoyed by all at the dinner party, though I have to say, if I were to make them again, I'd use less icing sugar for the custard layer - it was a bit sweet for my taste...but no one else seemed to mind:)