Muffins are the perfect breakfast, especially when made with whole-grain flours, oats, and plenty of eggs. Toss in some crème fraîche and some apples, and you’ll have a delicious reason to get up! But the best part about these muffins — aside from the taste, of course — is that they’re so satisfying that they [...]
Most people like brownies better than blondies — after all, brownies have a chocolate base and blondies don’t. But what about blondies spiked with two kinds of chocolate? Even better, what if the blondie batter is made with almond butter? (Or any nut butter, for that matter.) Then you’ve got a nutty blondie base that’s [...]
Whole-grain baked goods are, by nature, drier than baked goods made with refined flour. Sometimes this is a good thing — biscotti and crackers are supposed to be crunchy and dry, meant to be dunked into coffee or spread with savory soft cheese — but usually you want baked goods to be moist and perhaps [...]
When I lived in Germany over ten years ago, I fell just as much in love with Nutella as I did with Hefeweizen (German wheat beer, which is the only gluten-laden foodstuff I miss now). Nutella on toast, Nutella in ice cream, even giant crepes spread thickly with Nutella … the chocolate-hazelnut spread was everywhere. [...]
Continue reading about The Classic Culinary Marriage of Chocolate & Hazelnuts
Plenty of “convenience” foods are far more convenient to make yourself — while the commercial versions tend to have unpronounceable ingredient lists and a mind-boggling amount of sugars/sweeteners, you can whip up a homemade version with a few simple healthy ingredients…and in less than a minute. Sixty seconds spent preparing AND at least 30 minutes [...]
Continue reading about DIY Yogurt (or How to Make “Convenience” Foods Truly Convenient)
What’s a grain, a flour, and a sweetener? Hint: it used to be a popular foodstuff in the U.S. back in the pioneer days, and it’s still popular in African and Indian dishes. You can make beer out of it, too. It has more fiber (and iron) than and nearly as much protein as soy [...]
Continue reading about A Grain Too Useful to Ignore — Especially for Breakfast!
February may have turned into April overnight (44F? Weather gods, what is going on??), but there’s still enough of a chill in the air to warrant baking muffins. Especially whole-grain muffins with a jammy surprise inside. I opted for locally made, naturally sweetened blackberry jam for this batch; next time I might go for raspberry [...]
In the world of natural sweeteners — i.e., unrefined sweeteners like maple syrup and molasses — there aren’t as many solid sweeteners as there are liquid ones. Normally, this works out fine when baking, because most baked goods include liquids (which allows you to tinker with the overall total amount of liquids), but some baked [...]
Continue reading about Creating Tasty & Healthy Chiffon Cakes (Amongst Other Things)
Ice cream has to be one of the true joys of summer. (If you’re like me and love pumpkin ice cream, it’s also one of fall’s pleasures.) As much as I enjoyed the occasional scoop or two, however, I was getting dissatisfied with commercial ice cream–waaaay too much sugar and way too many unnecessary additives. [...]
When I was living in Costa Rica, I visited a sugarcane and coffee plantation. Standing in the 100-degree sun surrounded by bamboo-like sugarcane and bright red coffeeberries was an amazing experience…and so was tasting a piece of raw sugarcane that one of the workers snapped off and handed to me. Now I know what sugar [...]
