Adventures in Baking

Man, I’ve been on a baking jag the past few days.  I think its because I was trying to organize my bookmarks, so I moved all my saved recipes over to one ‘folder.’  Which made me review some recipes to see why I kept them.

So here’s what I’ve made in the past few days.  Some of them were so good, and the recipes were a bit unusual, so I wanted to share that information with you, in case you got on a baking jag.

First off, I made an old recipe of mine–Apricot Oatmeal Bars.  These are very lightly sweet, and they have additional protein powder in the recipe, so they are a most worthy breakfast treat.  The only thing I want to recommend about these is the dried apricots I got recently at Costco.  They are the best dried apricots I have ever gotten–naturally sweet and flavorful, and still pretty moist, not all dried out like a lot of dried apricots that I have bought.  There is no added sugar in them either.

Next I tried this recipe for “Amazing Chocolate/Banana Oat Jumbo Muffins.”  LOL, you know the word that caught my eye was JUMBO, don’t you?  I followed the recipe exactly, except that I made 8 muffins instead of 6, which brought the calorie count down to 275.  Still pretty significant in my eye, because the muffin wasn’t THAT jumbo (I know you volume eaters will understand.)  Still I found the recipe intriguing enough to try.  A bit of butter, which I rarely use, and flax seed meal and chia seeds!  Finally, a use for that little package of chia seeds I’ve had in the cupboard forever.  The verdict?  These muffins are EXCELLENT.  So delicious, just like a really great bakery muffin.  And best of all, they did hold me for 3 1/2 hours, so that is a most worthy use of 275 calories.  I used spelt flour, just because I like it, and I think next time I would leave out the very small amount of chocolate chips (1 TBSP for the whole recipe) and substitute walnuts.  The chia seeds reminded me of poppy seeds in lemon poppyseed muffins.

Next up was this recipe for “healthy cookies.”  The description said “butter-less, flour-less, egg-less, and potentially sugar-less.”  Hmmm.  Interesting.  Plus the picture looked absolutely decadent.  The list of ingredients was interesting.  A little almond meal and oats. Lots of banana.  Coconut and coconut oil.  And LOTS of chocolate.  (for sugar free, they mentioned unsweetened carob.  Anybody ever tried this?)

So again, I followed the recipe exactly.  Well, I halved the recipe.  I didn’t need 36 of these babies laying around the house if they were good.  And if they weren’t good, I only had to toss 18 instead of 36.  Oh, the only thing I changed was the chocolate.  When I got to that part I thought it was actually a ridiculous amount of chocolate to add, so I used half of what was called for, and I added–let’s all say it together–WALNUTS.  Hey, if I’m going to make chocolate chip cookies, I AM going to have them with walnuts.  THESE WERE SO GOOD.  Their stats say 75 calories/per cookie.  I didn’t re-check the stats with my changes, but figure its close to that.  I have to admit I eat three at one sitting.  But if I save for it, that is a reasonable dessert calorie allotment for me.  They are safely in the freezer for now.

And last, but not least, I tried this recipe on Cammy’s recommendation.  Again, I followed the recipe as written (what has happened to me?)  They came out of their little muffin molds so nicely.  This is the only recipe I took pictures of, because the other two, while tasting fantastic, did not look as pretty as the pictures in the original recipes.

Okay, I just went and tasted one so I could give you a review.  Tasty, but not as ‘fantastic’ as the other baked goods.  However, I love the stats on these.  That 100 calories of treats on that plate?  TEN GRAMS OF PROTEIN!  Now that is a good deal!  Also, I used frozen fruit (that I thawed before adding.)  I think the frozen fruit is juicier and might have affected the texture somewhat.

I’ve got more to say, but that’s enough for tonight.  I’ll leave you with this picture of Noah being stupid.  It rained all day today.  Most of the day he relaxes and stays inside.  And then its like he JUST. MUST. CHECK. THINGS. OUT.  He just goes and sits in the pouring rain for hours sometimes, staring at the neighbors house, just in case there might be ANY action over there that he might need to bark at.

He noticed the camera.  It only distracted him from his ‘guard duty’ for a split second.  That guy should try out for the Buckingham Palace guards.  Oh.  The Queen reminded me that he already had a similar job.