A stretched-out applesauce cake

We've been making this since the days of the Grocery Cart Challenge Blog. Here's the recipe.

Baked in a slow cooker, this cake turns out small, round and fragrant with cloves and cinnamon.

But it also works in a long, thin baking pan, or other cake pan, or muffin tins. (Photo of today's cake)

Happy eating.

Making gingerbread (photos)

 Here's the Frontier Gingerbread I posted about earlier. It's good, not too sweet, and the mustard powder seems to blend well with the other spices. (You're not wondering why the gingerbread tastes like mustard.)

Here's the 1977 magazine with the recipe.

Easter baking

These are what I'm calling Easter Morning Muffins, and they're going in the freezer to save for our church's annual bring-your-baking-before-church event this Sunday. Also known in MB circles as the Paska Party.

What's in them, besides sprinkles? Basic muffin batter, white chocolate chips, one banana, and a spoonful of raspberry jam.

(This is Paska. I don't make Paska.)

It makes more sense when you see it (Do-Vember #16)

Do-Vember

Scientists experiment. They change the variables and see what happens. What's the optimum range for whatever? How much is too much, what amount is just enough, and how much margin do you have? This kind of testing goes on all the time, everywhere from high-tech labs testing pharmaceuticals, to parents figuring out how long a child's afternoon nap should be or how many toys are enough without being too many, to the people who figured out that Ted Talks should be exactly 18 minutes long.

Sometimes it's nice when someone else does the work for you. If you trust their reporting, it could save you having to reinvent the wheel, or, as in today's Pinterest link, the cake and the cookie. What happens if you put in one egg? Two? Three? How do cookies change if you use white sugar? brown sugar? Some other sweetener? Butter, margarine, or some other kind of fat? You may have seen magazine articles illustrating this before (I have one stuck in my recipe binder that shows different oatmeal cookie results), but the post linked on Pinterest has collected up a few useful ones. It's helpful when the muffins turn out tough or pointy, or the cookies spread too much. Like a scientist, you can ask: what caused that? What do I need to change?

This kind of experimenting is actually something that Charlotte Mason wanted her students to practice--within reason, as they didn't want to waste food on things that wouldn't work. There were times when you might want your little cakes to be richer, or sweeter, or have some other special quirk--so knowing how to adjust a recipe for taste or ingredients was a useful thing to learn. If I were teaching that to children now, I think I'd use muffins as an example: there's a basic formula (I took mine from The Tightwad Gazette years ago), but the special ingredients, amount of sweetener, amount of fat and so on can be up to the baker.  Sometimes you can take advantage of a material's particular quirks: a non-food example would be strips of crocheting that tend to curl and twirl around themselves. That can be a problem, but if you're making legs for an octopus, it's exactly what you want.

But it can be useful just to see someone else's results.

A Borrowed Wednesday Hodgepodge

There is no official Wednesday Hodgepodge today at From This Side of the Pond, but I've borrowed questions from "Volume 236," September 2015.

1. What have you 'fallen for' recently?

Fallen for, as in fallen in love with, or as in been suckered by?

Greek Yogurt baking chips from Bulk Barn. It's been too hot to bake, but that's supposed to end soon, so I'm thinking yogurt chip-cranberry-oatmeal cookies.

2. What's something you're 'squirreling away' for later?

Besides the Greek Yogurt chips? I also squirreled away a package of Happy Cherry candies as a back-to-school treat.

3. How do you like your apples? Sweet? Tart? Crisp? Cooked? Apples are one of the superfoods for fall...how often do you eat an apple either plain or as part of a favorite recipe? What's your favorite variety?

OK, now we're done with the candies...I'll eat pretty much any apple, any way, except for some of the green varieties that taste all fake and waxed. Mr. Fixit eats apples almost every day. We prefer to get fresh local apples, but we don't seem to be able to get enough of them the last few years; good apples have gotten expensive.

Favourite recipes? I'll link back to my post about apple pie, which I haven't made for quite awhile.Or if I had a whole lot of apples, I might make apple butter.

4. According to Fodor's the ten best fall foliage trips in the US of A are-Aspen Colorado, The Catskills New York, The Berkshires Massachusetts, Columbia River Gorge Oregon, Green Mountain Byway Vermont, Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway New Mexico, Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, Upper Peninsula Michigan, Lake of the Ozarks Missouri, and Glacier National Park Montana. Which would you most like to visit this fall and why?

Agawa Canyon photo found here

Actually we have lots of nice places to see autumn leaves right in Ontario, so I probably would just head north towards cottage country, and the really classic way to do it is from a train, especially through the Agawa Canyon.

But if I were going to the U.S., I would pick either the Catskills or Tennessee.

5. The topic of legalizing marijuana was raised in the most recent televised political debate so let's wade in too. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia currently have laws legalizing marijuana in some form. Four states have legalize marijuana for recreational use. Your thoughts?

No opinion, sorry.

6. Are you okay to watch a movie already in progress or do you need to always see it from the beginning? How about jumping into a TV series somewhere in the middle? Is that okay?

OK, that's a different question.

Having not had videos and such options until I was in high school, I grew up being reconciled to the idea that no, you wouldn't always get to see all of everything, because real life happened too. People came over and you turned off the T.V., or you didn't get home from Brownies until halfway through Little House on the Prairie, or whatever. The thing I like these days is that, if you start watching some old movie and you don't know what it is, you can usually get enough clues to look it up online. ("That's Fred Astaire...that's Mrs Kravitz from Bewitched, the first one not the second one...what movie were they both in?" "The Belle of New York, 1952." "Good, now I can sleep tonight.")


(See, you didn't even need to see more than a clip to get the gist of it!)

7. Thursday (September 24) is National Punctuation Day. What rule of punctuation trips you up most often? What rule of punctuation, when broken by someone else, bugs you the most?

I never knew how many places I wasn't using enough commas until I started using the grammar program that comes with Microsoft Word and now it tells me all the places I should be putting them in.

And if you think there should have been some in that last sentence, according to the grammar checker it was fine.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Recently I have been working on a writing project involving Roman tribunes. I never realized there was a difference between military and non-military tribunes, having watched too many religious movies where the Roman soldier is generally addressed as "Tribune." The non-military sort was a watchdog position, a "champion of the people," and he had the job of speaking for them and upholding their rights. It suddenly made me wonder why some newspapers are called The Tribune, so I looked it up and it turns out that's exactly why. The voice of the people. Who knew?

Not linked from anywhere, but the regular Hodgepodge will be back next week.

Apple cake from a homemade mix

I have mentioned The Perfect Basket here before. It's just a little book I picked up a long time ago from a pile of books in a liquidation store. It turned out to be worth the $2.99, not so much for the gift basket ideas as for the mixes and recipes that were created to go in them. Pumpkin Bars to go with a fall basket, and so on.

So today I decided to use up some baking supplies and also some of the apples I bought in Point Pelee, and make the Spiced Apple Cake recipe from the book. I baked one cake right then, and put the dry ingredients for two more in plastic bags. When I pulled out the powdered vanilla, I realized that it had been on the shelf for probably a couple of years, so I asked Mr. Fixit if he would kindly pick up some while he was out radio-hunting this morning. (The bulk store is next to the antiques market.) 

The cake recipe sounds like it shouldn't work, or taste good, but it does (both). It has no salt in it; it contains baking soda, but nothing acid like yogurt or sour milk for the soda to act on, so I'm not sure (kitchen-chemistry-wise) why the soda instead of baking powder, but it did rise. I don't have the Bundt pan that the book called for, so I used our 10 x 15 inch glass pan.

Success!

Use-it-up Cranberry Blueberry Bran Flake Muffins

Use-it-up Sweet and Crunchy Cranberry Blueberry Bran Flake Muffins

Dry ingredients:
A lot of crumbly bran flakes from the bottom of the box (at least a cupful)
Enough flour to bring the total up to 2 to 2 1/2 cups of cereal and flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder

Wet ingredients:
1 cup of homemade cranberry sauce that also had some blueberries stirred into it
1 egg
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup milk, or enough to moisten

Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then combine gently. Don't mash the fruit too hard. Don't worry if the batter starts to get that strange greyish-purple blueberry tinge, it will mostly bake out. Bake in sprayed or lined muffin tins, at 375 degrees F or whatever your preferred muffin temperature is. Makes 1 dozen regular or 2 dozen mini muffins.

Sometimes I bake things: Pumpkin butter pie

I've posted a recipe before for apple butter or pumpkin butter pie, but this is a different one.  I had some homemade pumpkin butter, and I thought it would be good in a pie, but I didn't have any cream of tartar. I also didn't feel like whipping egg whites for our special Thanksgiving-style pumpkin pie..

So I decided to use the recipe for Squash Pie, or Sweet Potato Pie.. I adapted it a bit to the amount of pumpkin butter I had--used a bit less milk and sugar, didn't add any extra spices.  The edges got a bit dark, but that often happens. And as you can see, it's already half gone.

Magic Blueberry Muffins

Magic because they looked so weird going into the oven, but they turned out fine--actually one of my better blueberry efforts.  Blueberry muffins can come out strangely green if the berries react with the other ingredients; these started out frighteningly purple, but baked into just a nice brownness.

I don't have the exact recipe, but this is what I did: combined all the wet ingredients for basic muffin batter, plus some frozen blueberries and a spoonful of strawberry jam, in the blender.  I combined the dry ingredients in a bowl, stirred in more whole blueberries, and then mixed in what looked like the purple smoothie from the blender.  It looked seriously yucky at that point, but since I had gone that far, I carried on, spooned the batter into muffin papers, and baked them.  Success!

Two other things: they peel out of the papers better if you let them cool first.  Most muffins do, but fruity ones especially.  And store any leftovers in the fridge.

How to make a cranberry cake

Mama Squirrel's Applesauce-Cranberry Cake (adapted from this Canadian Living apple-spice muffin recipe)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat bran or rolled oats (I used quick oats)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg (I used only about 1/2 tsp.)
1 tsp allspice (I used about 1/4 tsp.)
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup sweetened applesauce (I used unsweetened)
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups diced peeled apples (I used about a cupful of chopped cranberries instead; you could use a combination)

Mix the dry and liquid ingredients separately.  Blend together and add in the cranberries (or chopped apples).  Spread into a large (greased) pie dish, or a 9 x 13 inch pan, and bake at 350 degrees as a cake, for about 30 minutes (roughly); or spoon into muffin cups and bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until done.  If you bake it as cake, test to be sure it's done in the middle; the middle of mine was done but just slightly squishy.  Eat for dessert or for breakfast.

Fancy Fruit Bars: Vegan or Not

I made some unintentionally-vegan fruit bars tonight, using the Cinnamon Raisin Bars recipe on the Hillbilly Housewife website.  The vegan part was because somebody had eaten the last egg; but as the recipe says, it works pretty well without.  The fancy part?  I got a bag of mixed dried cherries, blueberries, and cranberries as a Christmas gift, and I used those instead of raisins, along with a few chocolate chips.  The dried berries work well in this recipe because you pour a cupful of boiling water over them (or the raisins) and let them sit a few minutes while you mix the other ingredients.

Cut in bars, eat for dessert, and send some back to university with returning offspring.  And remember to buy eggs.

Showers of blessings (what's in your hand?)

This is sort of a Make-it-from-Scratch roundup, with a list of things we have here that need using, or using up.

1 cup of molasses:  Vegan gingerbread for a family Thanksgiving potluck tonight.

Package of brown paper lunch bags (nobody here takes lunch in a paper bag):  homemade paper-lunch-bag albums (there are tutorials on You-tube as well).

About two pounds of navy beans:  cook them in the pressure cooker, freeze them, and use some to make soup or a casserole.

1 small chicken and 1 small ham in the freezer:  Maybe Mr. Fixit will make his grandma's chicken soup.

Frozen "Nature's Balance" vegetable mix, bought on sale:  white vegetable lasagna, when I get some mushrooms.

Six square foil pans and a stack of foil pie plates:  I know you can string up pie plates to scare critters away, but we're in the wrong season for that.  I also don't have a birdcage that needs lining, or any need for a homemade tambourine.  I guess I will just keep using up the pie plates for sending cookies and so on, and as freezer containers combined with foil.

One springform pan we don't use much:  I am looking at this recipe for stuffed pizza.

Cinnamon, ginger, cloves & nutmeg:  homemade pumpkin pie spice mix.

Rolled oats, coconut, honey, and wheat germ:  granola, granola bars.  Ponytails really likes the Chewy Granola Bars recipe on Budget101.com, especially made with butterscotch chips.

Enough long bamboo skewers to make a lifetime of shishkabobs and fruit bouquets:  some food ideas here.  I'm thinking fondue.  And some craft ideas here.

A lot of cornmeal and a package of cornbread mix (gifted from a neighbour who couldn't use them):  well, I guess we're going to be eating corn muffins.

A mess of old Easter baskets:  I found a bunch of recycling ideas here.

Cream cheese, bought on sale:  Baked Potato Soup.

Non-alcoholic beer:  Beer Bread, to go with the soup.

Sweet potatoes, because I bought too many:  baked (or oven fries), puree the leftovers to make muffins or doughnuts

Library card:  Go explore the Dewey Decimal system.

Basket of yarn:  Go explore some amigurumi sites, thinking Christmas?  I like this one (link fixed!), and also this one.  Also this egg carton, although the pattern isn't free.

Two kinds of oat flour muffins

Last night I had a committee meeting here, and the snacks had to be wheat free and dairy free.  (Oats were okay.)  So I ran some rolled oats through the food processor and made a batch of mini-muffins from the Common Room's Banana Oatmeal Bread recipe.

I had enough oat flour left to make these Carrot Spice Cupcakes from Canadian Living.  They're not meant to be wheat-free, but the oat flour does work in them--I just added a bit more than the cupful of all-purpose originally called for.  I also left out the nuts, and blended the last little bit of oat flour with some oil and cinnamon sugar to make a streusel sprinkle for the tops.

It worked!

Raspberry Ripple Muffins--your style

How do you make Raspberry Ripple Muffins?

1.  Make a regular muffin batter, or buttermilk muffin batter, or sour cream muffin batter, or cake-mix-clone batter, mixing in some rolled oats for texture.  Don't make it too thin, because you'll be adding fruit.

2.  Mix in a leftover cupful of the raspberry sauce that you very quickly concocted for last night's dessert (frozen raspberries, microwaved with a globule of jam that had a spoonful of cornstarch stirred in).  Don't mix it too hard or you'll lose the ripple effect.  If you don't have said cupful of fruit puree, you can always cook some up fresh.

3.  Bake in muffin papers until firm and just a bit browned.  Eat while fresh, or store in the refrigerator (I think--I wasn't sure about leaving them on the counter).

4.  If you don't want muffins, you could try this with pancakes.

That's all!

Butterscotch drizzle: stretching what you have

Today I made a double batch of Doreen Perry's oatmeal cookies, using crushed cornflakes and butterscotch chips as the extras.  I purposely didn't use the whole bag of butterscotch chips, because I wanted to use them somehow as topping to fancy up the cookies.  But there weren't a lot of chips left, maybe a cupful, and the double recipe made five panfuls of cookies.

So I thought about that while the first two pans baked.

And this is what I came up with:  I mixed about two-thirds of a cup of icing sugar with a bit of milk, the same way I do when I'm making glaze for pumpkin doughnuts.  I melted the butterscotch chips in the microwave and mixed them into the glaze. It was too thick to drizzle, so I added just a bit more milk and then put the whole thing back in the microwave for half a minute, reasoning that sauces and syrups get thinner when they're heated.  (You know the old trick of warming up honey or pancake syrup that has crystallized in the jar?  It also works with jam, if you want it thinner to pour on pancakes or spread over a cake.)

Expecting a disaster at this point?  No, it actually worked.  There was enough butterscotch-flavoured glaze to give each cookie a good drizzle. 

And now I just have to go figure out what we're having for supper.

Banana...and butterscotch...and strawberry--yes, it did work (What's in your hand?)

 What do you do with two frozen bananas,  some leftover strawberry crisp, and a handful of butterscotch chips?

Make muffins.

The recipe is our usual Canadian Living Banana-Yogurt Muffins, with a few butterscotch chips stirred in.  I thawed and mashed the bananas, added the rest of the batter ingredients, and then mashed the strawberry crisp with a fork and plopped a small spoonful on top of each muffin (before baking).  Jam would work instead.  I left a few untopped, for those who like them better plain.

Photos: Ponytails.

Things we've been doing

1. Shovelling snow. A lot of snow. The most snow that fell in 24 hours in the past four years, and that includes a blizzard three years ago. Having this much snow on the ground, but still having daylight at 7 p.m. to shovel it by, is something my head can't quite put together.

2. Making crackers (a recipe from the first Tightwad Gazette book). The Squirrelings are starting a Homemaking unit about making things from scratch.

3. Getting ready for the local homeschool conference.

4. Getting to "Cornwallis surrenders" in Crayons' history book. (Seemed like the War of Independence would never end.)

5. Ponytails realized that she never did what she wanted to do with some of her yard-saled fabric, so she's been making plans for that. Plus, The Apprentice gave her a box of clothing pass-ons to refashion for spring!

Frugal substitute: Leftover Sweet Potato Cake

Southern cooks have done this for years--used pureed (cooked) sweet potato where Northerners might use pumpkin, such as in pie.

But have you ever tried it in Pumpkin Cake? It works very well. Just make sure you puree the sweet potato very well--you can mix all the wet ingredients in the blender or food processor, just to be sure. I added a sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar on top before baking--sweet potato always tastes good with a bit of extra cinnamon.

Beats putting out a couple of dollars for a can of pumpkin.

(And of course you can do the same thing with any winter squash that you can get to puree smooth.)

What's for supper? (and why not to buy cheap baking powder and cocoa)

Tonight's supper:

Subversive Tuna Wrapup with white sauce
Combination of broccoli, red peppers, and a bit of frozen broccoli-red pepper-other mixture veggies
Small panful of frozen french fries

Choice of pie (left over from the weekend) or homemade chocolate pudding

And now a comment on cocoa.  The kind you bake with, not the kind you drink.

Some of us do not normally buy gourmet-type ingredients, nor do we particularly care or notice the difference, say, in whether the cheese mixed with the macaroni is on-sale store-brand or something grander (and necessarily more expensive).  And in many cases, unless you're feeding gourmets who make it their mission to care about such things, or have other reasons such as dietary concerns for wanting a particular level of organic or something-or-other-free, the cheap brand of most ingredients will do nicely for everyday cooking.  Well, okay, so we're a bit fussy about canned tuna--we prefer the next level up from the dog-food-type cheapest kind.  And we do look for a few low-sodium options such as a particular brand of sauerkraut.  But in general, generic is okay with us.  Even in baking, I often go for cheaper alternatives such as imitation vanilla.  I am not trying to win a baking contest, I'm just making oatmeal cookies.

However, there are at least two baking ingredients that it pays to fuss over.  One is the lumpy cheap generic baking powder that leaves little bits of bitter near the top of the muffins.  Blech.  It also comes in a nasty container like a Parmesan cheese can (if you ever buy that kind of Parmesan cheese--I don't) with a swivelling top that's almost impossible to get a tablespoon into, therefore requiring me to decant it into another container, and this shaking-up-and-down-and-out process is time out of my life that I could really spend doing much more interesting things.

So no more of that; I'll either buy it in bulk or spring for the name-brand, which comes with a regular old screw-on lid.  Or substitute cream of tartar plus baking soda (see the Tightwad Gazette or search online for simple instructions).

The other thing I've decided it's worth paying more for is cocoa.  If your cocoa-using recipes come out kind of so-so, it might be the recipe, but on the other hand--it might be the cocoa. The Bulk Barn stores here sell Ruddy Red Cocoa, a Dutch-process alkalized cocoa.  According to their site, "the alkalizing process neutralizes the acidity, leaving a mild but rich tasting cocoa powder that lends a deep chocolate colour to your favourite recipes. If a recipe calls for "Dutch process" cocoa, this is the one to use!"  In the past year or so I've tried it in most of our favourite cakes, brownies, puddings and holiday recipes, and I am a convert.  I much prefer it to the lighter brown supermarket stuff, even if it's messier to scoop.   It's like the difference between fresh-ground pepper and powdered gray stuff.  Or Parmesan cheese in a can vs. freshly grated.  Or fresh nutmeg and pre-ground; not that I always use fresh nutmeg either, but you get the idea?

I finished off the end of the bag in the chocolate pudding, and I guess we will now have to use up some of the regular stuff I have in the pantry.  But I am planning to buy more of it before too long; good cocoa does make a difference.

Here's the chocolate pudding recipe; it's enlarged and adapted from the vanilla/butterscotch/chocolate pudding recipe in Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

Chocolate Pudding

3/4 cup white sugar
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cocoa, see notes above (I might have put in slightly more, since I was dumping out the plastic bag)
3 cups of milk (I used a can of evaporated milk, thinned with water to make 3 cups)
1/2 tbsp. vanilla
chocolate chips for topping, optional

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cocoa with a whisk.  Over medium heat, gradually stir in milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Be patient, this will take a few minutes and you don't want it to burn; turn on a good radio station or contemplate something worthwhile, but don't forget to pay attention to what's in the pot.  Keep whisking and remove from heat when it comes to a boil; stir in the vanilla.  Pour into a container of some kind--I prefer a square Pyrex cake pan so that it thickens and chills evenly.  Chill in the refrigerator with plastic wrap spread over the top to reduce skin buildup; you can sprinkle the top with chocolate chips first if you want.  Serves 4 to 6.

Christmas Cookies: Last Minute (now with photo)

We got to Christmas Eve and the cookie stash was depleted...even the Butterscotch Bars were almost gone.  Note to self:  stop making the kinds of cookies that people like too much too many days before Christmas.

OK...time for one batch of something quick.  The fastest sugar cookie recipe I know!  (Remember Speed Baking?)

Push onto the pans.  Press with a glass.  Just about ready to go into the oven--and I thought of Grandma Squirrel's little canape cutters in the drawer.  I found the flower and star cutters, and cut a shape through each cookie--not lifting out the dough, just leaving it in the middle.  As they baked, the cut-out part baked back into the cookie, but left us with an impression of the shape. 

The stars turned out clearer than the flowers...but we had a bit of strawberry-flavoured frosting in the fridge (from the Apprentice's class brownie project), and that went on about half the cookies...plus...oh, up on the top shelf we had some pastel star sprinkles from someone's birthday! Yes!

So we have plain star cookies, and icing star cookies.  Sometimes last-minute baking turns out the best of all.

(How do you get strawberry-flavoured frosting?  Ice-cream/milk shake flavouring--The Apprentice had bought some last year to put in milk shakes.)

Photo: Ponytails.

Linked from Four Moms' Christmas Baking, December 2011.