Sourdough Surprises: Graham-Crusted Brownies

There is one thing I absolutely don't like about May anymore: All I do is eat. Somehow I managed to have my birthday right about the same time as Mother's Day – and who created this “Eat What You Want” day that my friends have to remind me of, on May 11^th, right when I'm trying to behave myself?

Instead, once the local bakery Red Velvet Cupcakes were gone from my birthday, I used this month's Sourdough Surprises challenge to do my Mother's Day baking in one swoop.

I found a different recipe this month, as I didn't want a 13”x9” pan of brownies lying around this time of year. I looked around for how I could jazz it up, and found a nearly empty box of graham cracker crumbs in the pantry. Reminded of a few variations of s'mores brownies that I've read about, I decided to top my brownies with the crumbs. I did realize (right after coming home from the store) that the recipe called for cake flour, so I had to make another adjustment.

My version of the recipe:

Graham-Crusted Brownies

Adapted from grouprecipes.com

Ingredients

• 2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
  
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ cup ripe sourdough starter
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

• Preheat oven to 375F, and grease a 9" pan.
• Microwave chocolate and oil in 10 second increments, stirring in between, until melted.
• In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
• Beat together brown sugar, egg, sourdough starter and vanilla, then stir in cooled chocolate mixture.
• Stir in flour mixture until just blended.
• Spread in prepared pan. Top with graham cracker crumbs
• Bake 25-30 minutes, or until edge begins to pull away from pan.
• Cool completely before cutting and serving.

They didn't need quite the 30-35 minutes in the oven that the recipe called for. My only complaint is that they turned out a bit more like cake than brownies:

Still, by using unsweetened chocolate, they had a very rich and satisfying chocolate taste. I do plan on making more of a graham streusel if I do this again, and probably omitting the baking soda so that they don't come out so cakey.

Yes, I will be saving this recipe. They're pretty darn good. And all things considered, they're not that bad for you – 1/12 of the recipe is only about 160 calories.

So even though it's May, I can still have my cake and my brownies too. And then I can go back to my regularly scheduled baking.

Check out our other delicious brownies!
 

Shine Supper Club: Cooked Carrots

When I was little, my mother would always ask what vegetable I wanted with dinner. Like she needed to ask - “cooked carrots” was always my response. Plain cooked carrots. Not that I minded glazed carrots (although, to this day, I'm not fond of raw carrots), but just boiled carrots with a little bit of salt. It's the simple things in life that keeps kids happy.

I'm all grown up now, and although I do still live at home, I do most of the cooking now (when I'm not working much, at least). When I found out the Shine Supper Club was doing childhood dishes for the month of May (my birthday month even!), I knew I had to do a grown up version of my favorite side dish growing up.

Lemon Pepper Boiled Carrots

Serves 4

1lb baby carrots

1tsp salt

Enough water to cover carrots

2 tblsp butter

2 tsp lemon pepper seasoning or to taste (or lemon zest and black pepper to taste)

1. Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add carrots and boil 10-15 minutes, to desired doneness. Drain and return pot to heat.
2. Melt butter in pot with lemon pepper seasoning. Toss to coat and serve.

I served this with some white rice and Spicy Maple Mustard glazed chicken (so good I had to scrape off a little of the extra!). The glaze, if interested...

Spicy Maple Mustard Sauce

Adapted from EatingWell.com

Makes 1/4 cup

1 tblsp Maple Syrup

3 tblsp Horseradish Mustard

1/2 tsp paprika

Simply mix in a small bowl. Makes a great dip as well as a sauce for all kinds of meat!

Of course, this wasn't how I ate my carrots growing up – as I've said before, my mom is a lazy cook, and only after telling her what I'd added to the carrots did she find out about the lemon pepper seasoning I had in the pantry. Still, it was a tasty reminder of the way things were back then – and Mom even loved them too.

The simple things in life keep adults happy too.

Chocolate Cinnamon Brownie Cookies

Let's be honest folks: I watch what I eat carefully. I log everything, even if I'm going crazy overboard (Yes, I ate 4 donuts yesterday. They tasted good). But I have the world's biggest sweet tooth. Combine that with the fact that I live with two people who could care less what they eat, it makes staying on track tough.

An online friend mentioned a blog called Chocolate Covered Katie a while back. It's a healthy desert blog. I don't necessarily even have easy access to some of her ingredients unless I order online or go to a certain grocery store that I always end up buying way more than I came in for (and unlike the blogger, I am not vegan), but they are still lower in sugar and she provides all kinds of substitution options. My first recipe was her Sweet Potato Chili, which I would have blogged about – except my mother and I finished it before I could think to snap pictures (I've already been told that I have to make it every time my father is out of town now). Having the house to myself today, I decided to try one of her wonderful sounding desert recipes – with my own spin.

While I know the dangers of experimenting with recipes I've never made before, I have been craving spiced chocolate lately. So I ended up playing with these Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies a little more. My version of the recipe:

Chocolate Cinnamon Brownie Cookies

Adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

Makes 1-1/2-2 dozen

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

Scant 1/4 tsp salt

Rounded1/4 baking soda

1/4 cup plus 1 tblsp sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup oil

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1. In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients and stir very well. In a separate bowl, mix all liquid ingredients. Now pour wet into dry and mix, kneading by hand until fully combined.

2. Roll into roughly 3/4” balls and place on a greased cookie sheet. Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

3. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Let cool on pan for at least 10 minutes before moving. Store in an airtight container.

Now, perhaps it was the extra oil and the sugar, but the nutrition info she gives is a little off from my recipe calculator. For the 21 cookies it made, they are 87 calories a piece – on par with most other cookies. Still, I definitely like the fact it only makes 21 cookies. It makes it much easier to finish them off and move on to the next recipe.

Being eggless, they are a tad bit crumbly, and they are a little small (I think I made them slightly smaller than the original recipe intended). But for two bites, you get a rich chocolate taste with a hint of cinnamon. It's kind of hard to not plow through several...or the whole recipe worth.

So...healthy or not, I call these little cookies a two-thumbs up success.

Sourdough Surprises: Rustic Fettucini

When I accidentally came across Sourdough Surprises looking for recipes, I was intrigued by the sourdough pasta that started it all. Intrigued enough, in fact, I found myself actually looking at a pasta maker that happened to be on the clearance table, and wondering if I'd make sourdough pasta often enough to justify spending $50 on it.

Of course, for its first anniversary, the girls of Sourdough Surprises have chosen to make sourdough pasta again. Of course, I also didn't buy that pasta maker. So my choices were either sit out this month, or hand roll it. Because I love a challenge, I decided to hand roll it.

There's not a lot in the way of pasta recipes – fortunately, the basic recipe doesn't vary much, so I went ahead and used the suggested recipe – although now that we are finally getting hot and humid weather, I did have to add another quarter cup of flour. I also used the dough hooks on my hand mixer, lacking a stand mixer. I rolled them out and used a pizza roller to cut into fettucini:

Trying to highlight the pasta, and having just made spaghetti with marinara last week, I chose another tried and true (though admittedly, highly processed) sauce: Philadelphia Creamy Pesto Cooking Cream. Some cubed chicken, a tomato, and a green pepper...

Yum. And I mean that, and not just my beloved cooking cream. I was having a hard time not eating multiple noodles to “test” them – no butter, no sauce, just plain noodles. They remind me of the noodles in a good bowl of chicken noodle soup crossed with the dough part of a perogi.

Was it worth the effort? While I enjoyed it, I'm not sure I can make a regular habit of it. But for a special occasion (we do have lasagna as our “traditional” Christmas dinner), I probably will make it again.

Or maybe I'll just end up buying that pasta maker.

Check out our other delicious pastas!

Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut Biscuits

To my mother, holidays are all day eating events. She doesn't normally eat breakfast or a proper lunch, but for any holiday, it seems she ends up buying a tube of cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon rolls are okay – but quite frankly, I like my chocolate better. And sure, they even have prepared chocolate glazed cinnamon rolls now, but I decided that for this Easter, I would break tradition. I've been itching to do more with the Jif Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut spread. I've already used it in place of Nutella once. I had saved FabioViviani's Nutella Biscuits recipe a while back. It seemed like a good fit.

It's an incredibly simple recipe:

Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut Biscuits

Adapted from Fabio Viviani

Makes about 8-3” biscuits

• 2 cups flour
• 2 Tsp baking powder
• 1 Tsp salt
• 3 Tsp butter at room temperature
• 4 Tbsp Jif Mocha Cappuccino Hazelnut spread
• ¾ cup milk
  

Start by combining all the dry ingredients. Cut in butter and spread. Then add milk.

Mix and place the dough on top of a floured board and knead few times. Pat to 1-inch thickness and cut with biscuit cutter. Place them in a oven tray. Bake at 450 for about 15 minutes.

They were easier to mix than my lastattempt at making biscuits, but the small quanity did make them a little difficult to cut. Still, how food tastes is just as important to me as how it looks. I had two for breakfast this morning – one plain (to judge taste) and one with some caramel sauce.

The mocha flavor is subtle, at best. They are also not that sweet, if you're looking for more of a shortcake. Still, they were soft, chewy and otherwise perfect. Plus, they're not cinnamon rolls.

Have I started a new holiday tradition? Maybe, maybe not. But right now, I'm more looking forward to what's next. I have a brand new jar waiting...

Sourdough Surprises: Red Velvet Cake

If there's one thing I like baking more than anything, it's cake.

Cake is such an integral part of my family's food habits that it was one of my niece's first words. When I made my first foray in sourdough baking outside Amish Friendship Bread, it was the Sourdough Mocha Cake. Now I've made a coffee cake and a couple of mini sourdough chocolate cakes in the microwave.

One thing that has eluded me was Red Velvet Cake. Anyone who knows me well knows I can always make an exception to my attempt-to-eat-healthier habits for a taste of rich red chocolatey goodness with cream cheese frosting. It's been my birthday cake for as long as I can remember. It's made with buttermilk, so I figured I could make a sourdough version. My only attempt at it was using my grandmother's Red Waldorf Cake recipe, in my early days of sourdough baking. But while it tasted good, the texture wasn't red velvet, and with recipes catching my eye left and right, another attempt was on the back burner. Then SourdoughSurprises came out with the cake challenge for March – and I knew it was time.

Back when I made my first attempt, I looked up all the possible solutions for the coarser crumb problem. I came up with using cake flour instead, or baking it at a lower temperature for a longer time. Then I found this recipe, which in the accompanying post mentions the use of acid creating a too-coarse crumb. My grandmother's recipe used vinegar, so I decided for my next attempt I would use this recipe, as it was (only swapping out the buttermilk for the sourdough starter).

The recipe:

Sourdough Red Velvet Cake

Adapted from Veronica's Cornucopia

3 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 (1 lb) box light brown sugar (about 2 ¼ cups)
3 tablespoons red food coloring
2 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 ¾ cups ripe sourdough starter

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 9” cake pans with baking spray and set aside. Sift flour with the cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.
2. Cream butter, brown sugar, food coloring and vanilla together. Beat until well aerated and pale. Alternately add dry ingredients and sourdough starter, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, mixing until combined after each addition.
3. Scoop into prepared cake pans and spread as evenly as possible. Bake for 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Frost with cream cheese frosting.

The first thing I noticed was just how high these babies rose:

I keep meaning to get into cake decorating – it's a natural progression for a cake baker – but slightly pressed for time, I opted for packaged cream cheese frosting and the more traditional crumb decoration. I didn't have quite enough frosting to finish the sides and at least swipe my decorator come. Plus, they baked up so high that I had way, way too many crumbs after trimming to use them as a cake to top them with. (I ended up making a kind of “cake pop pudding” with them, mixing them with vanilla yogurt. It was quite yummy that way).

As soon as I cut into the cake, I didn't even have to taste it. I knew I had it. It was slightly overbaked, but the texture was fine and velvety. And it still had that familiar red velvet flavor.

It eluded me for a long time. Now I not only have my red velvet cake, but a homemade sourdough version. It's probably my proudest baking success yet.

Now if I can just work on my decorating skills...

Check out our other awesome cakes!

Shine Supper Club: Microwave Peanut Butter Egg Pancake

Welcome to my world over the winter.

Working for a sports team means I usually work at night, when I don't get as many opportunities to cook for my family. When I do, I stick to old standbys like Baked Chicken. For dinner, I'm either scrounging leftovers, preparing some overly processed food from the freezer, or making something simple.

But simple doesn't always mean not creative. Someone recently posted her recipe for Nut Butter pancakes in a healthy living chat room. It couldn't have been more simple – a tablespoon of any nut or seed butter, one egg, and an eighth of a teaspoon of baking powder. A simple, egg-based pancake. It was the perfect meal for me – easy enough that I could whip it up when I get home at 11:30pm or after a workout when I'm exhausted and need food fast. Of course, being me, I played with the recipe. I got lazy and started cooking it in the microwave, like I might scramble my eggs. And with the Shine Supper Club doing egg dishes this month, I saw a perfect opportunity to share my even-easier – and in my opinion, tastier – version.

Microwave Peanut Butter Egg Pancake

(My apologies, as I forget which of my friends posted the recipe its adapted from!)

For each pancake, you will need:

1 large egg

1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon honey

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cooking spray

Topping of choice (in this case, spreadable honey, but maple syrup, bananas, yogurt, and applesauce would all also be tasty ideas).

In a small bowl, whip egg with honey, baking powder and cinnamon until well combined. Add peanut butter and mix well.

Spray a dinner-sized plate with cooking spray. Pour batter onto plate. Microwave for about 1 minute, until it appears just moist.

[Blogger's note: I do apologize for my photography. The reason I don't do too many step by step photos is that you are typically seeing pictures minutes after the food is made and often minutes before I am about to devour it. This is especially true with lunch meals, like this or my Mocha Oatmeal. I love to cook and eat and it's tough when things get between the two!]

Of course, this can be done in a skillet (the original was). You can sub any nut or seed butter you wish. Or whatever sweetener you wish. That's why I love recipes like this: They're easy to tweak and make your own, or so you don't get bored with the “same ole, same ole.”

It's also perfect for many other occasions. Family doesn't all get up at once? It only takes a few minutes to whip up a single serving as they come down for breakfast. Since it's only one serving, it's also good for single cooks like me. Or perhaps for modifying it for an individual family member's tastes. It's quick, it's high-protein, reasonably healthy, and delicious.

Now what's next? Perhaps an Asian Savory Egg Pancake? Fluffernutter?

With me, one never knows...