Category Archives: Baking

Exploring Gluten Free Cheddar and Scallion Scones

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Here we are, 2013, and my husband just figured out that years of gastro issues is relieved with eliminating wheat from his diet. OMG. Dietary restrictions in my own home ! Mostly I’ve decided to just eliminate those pesky wheat products, as the imitation ones just don’t measure up. Instead of bread he gets seasoned rice, potatoes, corn tortilla or some other grain mix.
But I do have to give gluten free baking a shot- to see if I can come up with something that is good even if you don’t have to eat gluten free. These were pretty tasty. Scallions are going crazy in the garden right now and you could use whole wheat pastry flour too.

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3 Cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
Plus extra flour for dusting.
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup buttermilk or soured milk
( to sour milk put a tablespoon of cider vinegar per cup of milk and let stand at room temp for 10 minutes)
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 cup finely diced scallions or chives
To Do:
Oven to 425* – Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl whisk together dry ingredients. Mix in chives. Make a well in the center and add buttermilk / sour milk. Then add cheese.
Knead until it’s evenly moist. The gluten free flour makes this receipt wetter- so heavily flour your work surface. Transfer dough to floured surface, shape into oval and dust top with coating of flour.
Cut lengthwise and then into 14 triangles.
Place on sheet and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.

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White Chocolate Ginger Cookies

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I get bored following a recipe even if its my own.
I’m making boat loads of cookie dough and freezing it for upcoming events. Of course we have to bake off a few of each kind to make sure it’s as delicious as I imagined. These were winners for sure! Add a pinch of black pepper if you are making them for grown ups.
I also don’t have a stand mixer, just my muscles, so I melt the butter in the microwave first. Oven at 375*
2 1/4 cups Whole Wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. powdered ginger
1 Bag white chocolate chips
1 cup finely diced candied ginger
1 cup butter
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 eggs
– Mix all the dry in one bowl
– cream butter, sugar, vanilla, one egg at a time with good amount of beating to fluff up. Slowly mix in dry. Stir in candied ginger and white chocolate.
About 12 minutes until yum.

Whole Wheat Soda Scones

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I love Irish Soda Bread. After making all this jam I was thinking about something simple I could make to serve with, and really highlight my jams. I came up with these mini scones and they are so EASY and perfect. Firm, but with a tender crumb, they would also be fantastic served with soup or stew. You could also add some raisins for “Spotted Dick” style soda bread.
I never have buttermilk when I want it so I do the buttermilk substitute of a Tablespoon of cider vinegar per cup of milk- let sit on counter for 10 minutes.
You need:
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup buttermilk or soured milk
To do: Oven to 425*
Cover cookie sheet with parchment
In large bowl whisk all dry ingredients.
Make a well in the center and add most of the sour/buttermilk .
Knead with one hand until evenly moist, leave enough milk to brush each scone with.
Transfer dough to floured surface, and very gently knead and shape to about an 8in round inch high oval.

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Cut lengthwise and then into triangles. I came out with 14 mini scones.
Place on sheet and brush with the milk, and dust with flour. Bake for 20 minutes or until nice and golden. You can do toothpick test too.
Try this for brunch sometime. It’s possibly the easiest thing to bake. You could also experiment: add dry herbs or dried chopped fruit and dust with sugar.

Oatmeal Cookie Kinda Night

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Soft oatmeal drop cookies you can feel good about giving your kids, and they still taste like cookies. We are making them while we have a They Might be Giant dance party.
Ingredients: Organic is best.
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped unsulphured apricots
1 tablespoon Bourbon Vanilla ( or regular)
1 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups oats
To Do:
In small bowl combine eggs, dried fruit and vanilla. Cover and chill 1 hour to plump fruit.
Oven to 350.
In medium bowl cream butter, sugar, cinnamon.
Separate bowl for mixing flour and baking soda. Add dry to wet and mix well. Next stir in egg/fruit mix and then oats. Will be stiff, use your muscles.
Drop with teaspoon onto parchment lined pan.
10-14 minutes until slightly golden.
Just finished my fourth while writing this. Tomorrow it’s all about salad. 😉
Update: this recipe makes such a large batch, I’ve taken to rolling 2/3 of it in sheets of parchment and freezing it.

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Here they are cut from the frozen log.

Solving some zucchini problems.h

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Anyone with a garden or CSA share usually ends up with more zucchini then they know what to do with. Since I have both a CSA share – plug for Enterprise Farm in Wately MA here, and my own garden, here’s what I’ve worked out.
MY Zucchini Bread:
3 Cups flour (2 whole wheat pastry)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cup turbinado (or maple )sugar (sub 2 Tbsp. organic molasses for 1/4 cup sugar for healthier version)
3 tsp. vanilla
1 Giant oversized garden zucchini OR 3-4 cups grated and pressed in a clean kitchen towel to remove moisture

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1 cups chopped nuts or raw pumpkin seeds(optional)
Grease and flour two 4×8 pans, oven 325.
Dry in one bowl, beat wet in another, add dry to wet.
Mix in zucchini and nuts/seeds, Bake 40-60 or until knife comes out clean.
Raw Zucchini Salad:
Zucchini rounds cut fine on a mandolin.
Mint Yogurt dressing: Fresh mint and any other green herbs you got. Love chives, basil, thyme and oregano works, as long as fresh. This dressing is a great way to use up your garden herbs that are over growing.
1 cup yogurt 1 clove garlic, some honey, salt, and pepper to taste. If you have a stick blender that’s the way to go. No need to chop anything!
Zucchini Cakes/Fritters:
2-4 cups grated zucchini with the moisture removed very thoroughly.
3-4 eggs depending on how much zucchini, you want it wetter for fritters.
1 finely diced small onion
Juice and zest from 1 lemon.
Instant mash potatoes until right consistency. The ones at Whole Foods are plain dehydrated potatoes and not full of additives and preservatives.
Serve with a garlic aioli.

Blueberry Picking.

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Here is our almost 8lbs of blue booty. Everyone pitched in to gather this many yesterday. The heatwave should subside later in the week and there’ll be pie! You really can’t beat the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, it’s on their website. I’ll use their no fail Vodka crust recipe as well, but sub in 1 cup of Barley Flour for the awesome texture.
fourstarfarms.com for great unusual and small milled flours.
The rest of the berries go into the chest freezer for cooler days when we’ll make jam. Don’t let anyone fool you into jam kits. One less cup sugar per cups of fruit is all I do, or less if the fruit is good and sweet. You just have to boil it down a good long time in a decent double walled pot. Put fruit and sugar in the pot, bring to boil, simmer on low. Put a small plate in the freezer, you know your jam is done when you put a little on the fozen plate and tip it. If it’s real runny keep simmering. Small batches can just go into recycled glass jars in the fridge. If your going for a big batch like this, you do want to go through the whole canning process, so they’ll keep in the pantry.
Don’t be intimidated by getting into canning. Fruit us actually very easy.

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