Healthy Pumpkin Struesel Bread - by popular demand!

I made this delicious pumpkin bread this week during a cold snap. Sadly it was so good, it didn't last more than 24 hours in our house. But, its not too naughty for you given the whole wheat flour and lower sugar.

Healthy Pumpkin Struesel Bread
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 in loaf pan.

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t allspice

1 stick butter melted
3/4 c sugar
1 c pumpkin puree
1 T vanilla extract
2 eggs

2 T brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon

Mix together dry ingredients (flour to allspice) in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl thoroughly combine wet ingredients until smooth (butter to eggs). Fold in and gently mix dry ingredients. Pour into prepared pan (batter will be stiff). Mix together brown sugar and remaining cinnamon and sprinkle on top.

Bake for 50-70 minutes - check for doneness with a cake tester. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes and then remove from pan.

Fruity oatmeal cookies

These are tasty, and almost healthy enough for breakfast cookies. They end up chewy, not crunchy and - for this very lazy baker - they are mixed by hand.

Adapted from Cape Cod Oatmeal Cookies in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (hands down the best cookbook ever - if I could own only one cookbook, this would be it).

1 c whole wheat flour
2 c uncooked oatmeal
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
3/4 c brown sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
2 ripe bananas mashed
1 T vanilla
1/2 c melted butter
1 c dried fruit (I used a combination of cherries and cranberries)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, oatmeal, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar in a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Arrange by teaspoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets and bake until edges are brown - about 10 minutes.

Cornbread pan

One of my favorite things about meals at my grandmother's house is the guarantee of  fresh, homemade bread. And her cornbread sticks are legendary - crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.

My mom (I think) gave me a cast iron corn stick pan - despite repeated seasoning attempts (including reseasoning by my mom) it has never performed satisfactorily. The cornbread always sticks and it is difficult to clean so I don't often use it.

Recently my grandmother gifted me with a cast aluminum, teflon coated corn stick pan. I made a large batch of cornbread and had a chance to test the two pans. We have a winner!

Carrot Cake

Growing up in my family it was always a tradition that you got to ask for whatever birthday cake you wanted. My mom is an excellent baker, so usually these were homemade, but storebought was ok too. I remember several Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes in the past...

Since TD's birthday was this week, I wanted to keep that tradition alive. Choosing was easy for him, since he loves carrot cake. So carrot cake it was! Carrot cake is one of my favorite recipes to make because it is easy. I like cakes that don't require creaming sugar and butter if possible. This cake's fat comes from vegetable oil, so it is easy to mix by hand.

One thing that is a bit of a pain with this recipe is grating the carrots by hand. I try to keep a pretty minimal kitchen with limited plug in appliances [no food processor]. So that means I grate carrots by hand which can get a little messy/tiresome.

So I may have to be getting one of these in the future.

I don't have 9 inch round cake pans--and a layer cake is a bit over the top for 2 people, so I made an 8 x 8 cake and a smaller individual cake. Between the two of us we polished off the little guy with no problem.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

I try to always have homemade bread on hand. I am not always successful at this, but it is very little work with a stand mixer and dough hook, and I make 2 loaves at a time which lasts me about 2 weeks. I usually eat this for breakfast as toast with butter, jam or peanut butter. Its a great way to get whole grain and is very filling!

My favorite recipe is 100% whole wheat bread, though I do experiment with other flours (oatmeal and cornmeal are favorites). The secret to whole wheat bread that rises high and has a fine crumb is to let it have 3 rises. The first rise takes about 3 hours at 70 deg (you can do this overnight in the fridge), the second rise is about half that. Finally, you shape the bread, put it in a loaf pan and let it rise for another 45 minutes to 1 hour. I follow the bread making tips in The New Laurel's Kitchen a really great (super hippy dippy) cookbook from a Co-op in Berkeley.