Sweet Temptations

My husband is the cook in this family, while I am the baker.  I do cook sometimes, but he truly enjoys cooking and experimenting with dishes in the kitchen, so who am I to stand in his way? :)   I, on the other hand, love baking breads, and whipping up cakes, cookies, pies, etc. We make for a balanced kitchen partnership and that ensures we always have great meals, followed by tasty desserts.

Lately, I've found myself baking two particular treats over and over again, so I wanted to share them with you.

First up is a Fudgy Brownie recipe from Gluten-Free Fix. Michelle has a whole slew of gluten-free recipes on her site, but I'll admit that I'm so hung up on this brownie recipe--I've fixed it twice a week for the past several weeks--that I haven't tried any of the others. Based on how delicious these brownies are, I should try some of her recipes soon!

I don't have gluten-intolerance issues, but I do like finding alternatives to using wheat flour in my baking. Whether or not you can eat gluten, these brownies will be a favorite. They are decadent, made with wholesome, simple ingredients, and are so quick and easy to assemble.

BOOM.

Here's how I make them:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease an 8x8 baking dish.
• Melt 10 tablespoons of butter in a small-to-medium sized bowl in the microwave.
• Whisk 6 tablespoons of cocoa powder into melted butter. I prefer dark cocoa powder, but they taste great with regular cocoa powder, too.
• Add 1/2 c. of honey, sucanat or brown sugar and stir into chocolate mixture to bring down the temp of the liquids.
• Whisk in one egg.
• Stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla, a dash of salt and a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
• Whisk in 2 tablespoons of packed coconut flour.
• Fold in a 1/2 c. chocolate chips and 3/4 c. chopped pecans or walnuts.
• Pour into prepared dish and bake 20-21 minutes--don't overbake!
• Let cool completely before cutting. These are best if stored in the refrigerator and served cold.  A caveat to this is that they're delicious hot out of the oven with ice cream. :)

The other treat I've enjoyed baking and eating is a tweaked version of Oh She Glow's Rustic Chocolate Chip Banana Oat Cake. Angela's an innovative baker and a vegan, so the original recipe is vegan friendly. However, I have no problem eating animal products, so I made a few changes.  This cake is dense and moist, with just the right amount of sweetness that I don't feel guilty if I decide to eat some for breakfast. Angela's version has a peanut butter glaze that I haven't tried since I enjoy the cake so much on its own.

MMMMMMMM.

This is another recipe that comes together quickly, features only real food ingredients, and can be made gluten free if GF oats are used. Here's my version:

Banana Chocolate Chip Oatcake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of rolled oats processed into flour (you can use a blender or food processor to do this)
• 1/2 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. honey, sucanat or brown sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. melted coconut oil or butter
• 2 black/very overripe bananas, mashed
• 1/4 c. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. chocolate chips
• 1/4 c. chopped walnuts
• 1 ripe banana, cut into chunks

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8" round cake pan or baking dish.
• Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
• In a small bow, mix fat, milk, vanilla and mashed bananas together, then stir into dry ingredients.
• Fold in chocolate chips, nuts and chopped banana.
• Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes.
• Remove from oven and cool about 30 minutes before attempting to slice, otherwise it will be too crumbly. 

When strawberries are in season in May, I already have grand plans to make a strawberry-banana version of this cake.  Can't wait!

So, there you have it. Two delicious treats that I can recommend whole-heartedly. Let me know if you try them and tell me what you think!

Erin

Linking to:
Whatever Wednesday at Momma Hen's Coop
Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop
Saturday Nite Special at Funky Junk Interiors

Easier-Than-Pie Apple Crisp

This past weekend we went to a cookout at our friends' house. Despite the fact it's late October, we're still experiencing unseasonably warm weather here in North Carolina, making cookouts quite possible!

Ross, Caroline and I have known each other since 6th grade, which means we've been friends for almost 20 years, or about two-thirds of our lives. (I'm not going to dwell too long on that measure of my age!) Their relationship reads like a movie script: friends forever, even went to senior prom together, started dating three years ago (at which point us friends all breathed a sigh of relief that the inevitable had finally happened), then got married in spring 2009.  Last fall, they moved out to the country, not far from where I live (jumpy claps!) and after settling in, hosted this weekend get-together.

We were asked to bring dessert and so I made an appropriately autumnal apple crisp, cribbed from Laura at Heavenly Homemakers. Laura calls her crisp healthy, but since I found from past experience that doubling the amount of crumbly topping only improves this dessert, I'd hesitate to call my version healthy. 

However, this recipe is the epitome of easy and can be adapted to use pretty much any kind of fruit that bakes well. And it takes hardly any time to prepare, which was good because we'd had a busy day and I kind of forgot that I was supposed to make it until 30 minutes before the cookout began!

Since we didn't eat all our apples this week, I simply grabbed five--three were Red Delicious and two were Honeycrisp--then proceed to core, slice and peel them.

If you don't have one of these cheapy apple corer/slicer tools, please, go buy one. They make life so much easier when dealing with apples!

To keep things simple, I laid the sliced apples right into the pie pan, then tossed them with sucanat and a liberal amount of cinnamon.

Aerial view of the cinnamon-sucanat-covered apples.  The chickens enjoyed the apple peels on the left later.

Next, I (hurriedly) made the topping. I love it when I don't have to cream butter and can just stir ingredients together!

Then, I spooned/mashed the crumb mixture on top of the apples.

In an effort to actually get somewhere on time, I opted to bake the crisp at our friends' house and here it is fresh out of the oven.  I know, it doesn't look radically different from the pre-baked photo, but take my word for it, it's baked. :) 

And it was a delicious way to end a lovely meal with good friends.


Erin



Easier-Than-Pie Apple Crisp 
adapted ever so slightly from Heavenly Homemakers

Filling:
5 c. sliced and peeled apples (1 medium-to-large apple yields about 1 c. sliced fruit)
2 tbs. sucanat or brown sugar
cinnamon - I don't measure, but use enough to coat the apples lightly

Crumb Topping:
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, melted
1 c. old-fashioned oatmeal
1/2 c. sucanat or brown sugar
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. (or more) cinnamon

Tossed sliced apples with sugar of your choice and cinnamon in 8-9" pie pan or baking dish.


In a small bowl, melt butter, then stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon crumb topping over apples. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes.