Birthdays and Baking and Biscotti, Oh My!

Would you look at that?!  It has been seventeen days (give or take maybe a handful of hours and minutes) since we chatted about baking.  And, as much as I would like to say it was just because I was busy, that’d be a little bit of a lie.  Actually, I think it would be better to state that it would be a lie of omission.  I have been busy, however, I have also been sick, sleepy and sore.  Stressed, sick, sleepy and sore do not a baking mood create.

So why, do you ask, am I posting?  Well, I’m certainly not throwing an internet-wide pity party (that’s for sure!).  I’m posting because, in the spirit of celebrating birthdays, I was quite the busy baker.

This past weekend was my father’s birthday!  Remember we had been talking about biscotti?  Why, why haven’t I baked more biscotti since Christmas?  How could I be so cruel not to make more biscotti?  Oh, I’m such a horrible daughter!

You can imagine the shock (followed by happiness) that greeted the biscotti that I baked up as a gift.  That is one thing that I must say I adore about baking; you can always bake to your heart’s content and then give the results as gifts!

I didn’t, however, just stop at cookies.  A good birthday has cookies.  A great birthday calls for cake!  Apple cake as a matter of fact.

Long story short, the coconut biscotti went over really very well.  I should probably mention that I never actually got to eat one of the biscotti.  Don’t get me wrong, I totally munched on the crumbs on the baking sheet, but it seemed cruel to eat part of a batch of cookies that I intended to give as a gift.  That’d be like opening the packaging of something before giving it away (in my opinion).  I fully intended to swipe one after they were opened though.  My dad, however, hid the tin and refused to share.  And you can’t guilt someone out of something that you gave them!  Gah!

I can say that the apple cake turned out absolutely lovely.  I give fully credit to my mandolin.  That little sucker is the newest addition to my arsenal of … random kitchen gadgets that I have always sort of wanted.  Next up, I dream of pizzelle maker.

Before I wrap this up completely, its probably worth mentioning that a student in our lab also had his birthday this week but 'didn't want to make a big deal about it and bother people'.  I mean, I can relate, but only because I really have a jar full of hate for my birthday; that majority of them over the years have been, shall we say, of a less-than-stellar nature.  But I digress.  Long story short, I cranked up the oven late at night to bake him a batch of short-cut cookies.  Is there nothing that Quaker Oat's Oatmeal Cookie Mix can't fix? ^__^


Oh, I should also mention, because I rambled so much, I hid the recipes behind a cut.  I didn’t want to be a spammer.  My bad!

'Hey There!' From The Abyss

Woah, the last little while has been a miasma of activity!  How's that for a two-dollar word.  Blame my word-a-day calendar for that one.

I have, however, somehow managed to do some baking in between.  Before I get right into things, though, I just wanted to say 'sorry!' for having delayed in doing a lot of writing to you guys.  I think I might be coming down with something (again).  Man, have I been tired lately!  Thankfully, the sniffling, nose running, can't-get-out-of-bed-to-save-your-life sickness hasn't descended.  Come on, let's rally, immune system!  Lay on the O.J.!

Right, baking.  I did attempt to be healthier this time around.  I tried really desperately very hard to be healthy.  Really.  I was going to bake cupcakes and then, when I thought about how much icing I would have to make (because inevitably I'd be doing a lot of cleaning with my tongue) and then how much further I'd have to push myself, I wimped out.  Cut me a little slack, though.  Its bitter cold outside!

So, I fired up the laptop and set my internet search skills to work (read: google).  Somehow, I came across apple quinoa cake from 'Anja's Food 4 Thought' .  Quinoa in a cake?  Intrigued...  Also, I'm a huge apple fan so finding a 'large apple' to use simply requires me to open the fridge to the bounty of apples from the farmer's market!  (In a word, awesome.  And the farmers who sell them are totally rad too.  Win-win!)

So, I baked 'em up just as the recipe online said to do.  Aren't you proud?  Okay, don't be too proud because I left out the sunflower seeds (allergic, my bad) and raisins (none in the pantry, bummer).  I even picked up some palm sugar that, let me tell you, smells wicked.  Sort of like a more buttery, coconut-y version of brown sugar in a powder form.  I think we will have other cullinary adventures together in the future.

Those muffins were reserved for personal use.  They freeze pretty okay, too.  I just let them cool completely then wrapped in saran, placed them into a Chinese take-out container and shoved 'em in the freezer.  Somehow, that sounded a lot more succinct in my head.  Why freeze them?  Well, those muffins were a bit of a selfish bake.  They made the apartment smell awesome and were for my nom-ing purposes.  Since I started this blog for the recipes that I share, I'm going to skip over copying that recipe here.

Okay, I did say that I baked some things so I still owe you guys a shared adventure right?  Very yes.

Do you guys eat PB?  I grew up on the stuff (Kraft, the one with the teddy bears on the jar, and Skippy, I think, intermittently).  Combined with jam, I really can't make a lot of complaints.  Also, peanut butter cookies with a few chunks of actual peanuts are lovely (Tim Horton's classic, anyone?).  Growing up, however, my love for the PB has really died.  The final nail in the coffin was figuring out how they make the commercial stuff.  Its was like figuring out that atoms don't have discrete shells of electrons; don't get me wrong, the math is cool, too, but I liked the shell concept while it lasted.

Okay, given that I gave up PB.  I switched to almond butter and am much happier.  Its just a richer, nuttier flavour without needing like a ton of it.  Buying a big jar of almond love, however, was not my smartest move.  It separates and, if you don't eat it quickly enough, it can go bad.  So I had a jar that needed some using up.  I was worried it would go bad and, honestly, good AB shouldn't go to waste.  The solution?  Skip the bread and make some cookies.  Oh wait, first, check that you won't kill anyone in the work place *then* bake some cookies.  'Cause some people are allergic, you know.  Just saying.




AB&J Cookies 

From wet crumbles, to crumbs before arriving at baked awesome!  I was scared that this might not turn out because the almond butter was inherently a little bit runnier than your standard PB.  I mean, when you have to mix the crap out of something to get it spreadable as opposed to I-opened-the-jar-for-use, things are going to be a little different.  I think this might be why mine spread more.

What You'll Need:

• 1 cup almond butter, properly stirred (You can't have it all separated, after all.)
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• jar of your best preserves, my kind sir (or ma’am) (I'm kidding, any jam you use will do nicely.  Like the jar of preserves your mum made you about a year and a half ago... ^__^;;)

How It's Done:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Line a couple baking sheets with some foil.  (You can use a greased cookie sheet, but I love my pyrex pan a little too much to gum it up just yet.)
3. In a bowl, combine the AB and sugar with a mixer until its well combined.  (Basically, you want to mix it up until it looks even and, turning it over, you don't find any sugar hiding from you.)
4. Add the egg and baking soda and mix again for 2 minutes.
5. Add the vanilla and mix briefly to get it throughout; it will come out a little crumbly.  (For this, my batter looked much like the sand that you find on the beach underneath the dry powdery stuff; it looked pretty damp and crumbly.)
6. Grab a cloth and set near the mixing bowl.  (This is pretty key; it will come in handy later!)
7. Using your hands, form balls of dough and drop them on the sheet.
8. With a finger (or your smallest measuring spoon), press a small hole in the top of each ball.
9. Give you hands a wipe with the cloth to clean them off a bit so you don't get batter everywhere.  (Because I used the almond butter, my hands had some of the almond oil there so the towel was pretty handy.  Told you it would come in handy.)
10. Drop a bit of jam in each little well.
11. Stick the cookies in the oven for 10-12 minutes.  (I found for mine that they needed about 11 minutes but, as I'm sure I've mentioned, my oven is tricksy!)
12. Once they're done, cool them on the sheet for five minutes then transfer to a rack to cool. (I let mine cool a little longer than usual because it took the pan a little longer to cool too.)
13. When you're done, tin 'em up and separate layers with wax paper.  Or just enjoy!  (But wait for them to cool.  As I quickly learned, hot cookies not only crumble all over the place but stick and burn.  Its a yummy burn, but it makes tasting a little tricky for a while! =P)

I found the recipe for these beauties on Joy's webpage.  Originally, it's done with peanut butter and, I have to say, her cookies look a lot cuter than mine.  T__T;;;  Jealous!  I think the reason is that the almond butter had more natural oil than solids (probably because my mixing skills were lacking once when I went to use it).  They still turned out okay so I guess I shouldn't belly-ache.  =P