Peanut butter shortbread recipe

Easter was a bit of a challenge. I have fond memories of hunting for eggs and a basket full of goodies-- I'm partial to the Reeses' Peanut Butter Egg-- but wanted to keep the sweet factor to a minimum. So I came up with a couple of things that were bite-sized, tasty, and small enough to be stashd in a plastic egg, yet not too extravagant in the sugar department. For this shortbread I use mostly whole wheat pastry flour, and natural peanut butter (I recently discovered how easy it is to make nut butters at home if you have a food processor: 1) roast nuts, 2) process. Add a little oil if you need to to get them to the right consistency. Voila!).

Peanut Butter Shortbread

1 stick (4 oz) butter, room temperature.
1/3 c. natural peanut butter (no added salt or sugar)
2 Tbs. sugar (possibly optional, but I haven't tried leaving it out completely yet)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 c. All Purpose flour
pinch of salt (optional)

Cream together the butter and peanut butter. Add in sugar, salt (if you decide to use it), and vanilla. Stir in the flours. Refrigerate 30 minutes or so until it's not totally squishy. On a floured surface (Silpat!), roll half the dough out to between 1/8-1/4 inch thick, and cut out your shapes with your cutters. They don't puff up much, so you can space them fairly close together on your pan. Bake at 350 just until bottom is beginning to turn golden, 7-9 minutes. You could also pat it into the bottom of your trusty cast iron skillet and bake the whole thing for quite a bit longer (30 minutes?), and cut it into wedges when it's done.

Gonna try it with cashew or almond butter next. Or maybe pistachio!

Cuminseed, Poppy, and Coriander Pumpkin Crackers

 Now 9 months old, Mae is getting much better at eating crackers! It's funny, she's been eating solid foods for three months now, so I shouldn't be surprised that she's making progress-- but since she doesn't have any teeth, I guess I wasn't expecting a huge change in how well she eats certain foods until she sprouted some more chompers. But she still just has the two, and yet is getting better at eating.  She now has the technique down for sucking on these crispy crackers until they are moist enough to break up and swallow.  It takes her a little while, but she perseveres (and it keeps her out of trouble for a few minutes).

These pumpkin crackers don't taste all that pumpkiny-- just a little.  I used banana squash puree; perhaps canned pumpkin puree would give a stronger flavor. In any case, they're a good backdrop for a number of flavors, from sweet pumpkin spices to more the savory.  I chose to go with the savory-- coriander, poppyseed, and cuminseed. Their lovely golden color is a bonus-- I think I know what I'll use when it's time to finally unleash my faux-Goldfish crackers.

Pumpkin Crackers

2 c. whole wheat pastry flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 c. butter

1 c. winter squash or pumpkin puree

cumin seeds

poppy seeds

ground coriander

Preheat oven to 375.  In a bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder.  Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or with your fingers-- you want small pieces, no larger than peas.  Mix in the pumpkin.  Start the process with a spoon, but finish by kneading it in gently with your hands, as the pumpkin needs to get squooshed around to mix in properly-- don't overwork the dough!  Mix until just combined-- it'll be the consistency of a medium-stiff cookie dough. (Note: I used fresh squash puree, so it was a bit wetter than canned pumpkin. Add a little milk if you have difficulty incorporating all of the flour into the dough).  Divide in half, and form each half into a flattened disk.  If you're confident that you didn't overmix, you can roll it out right away-- otherwise, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least a half hour just to be on the safe side.  Generously flour a baking parchment or a silpat, and roll out one of the disks as thinly as you can-- 1/16th of an inch of possible, and no more than 1/8 of an inch. Sprinkle the dough with ground coriander, poppyseeds, and cumin seeds-- roll over them gently with the rolling pin to get them to stick. Cut the dough into rectangles using a pizza cutter or, if you're feeling fancy, deploy thematically appropriate cookie cutters (I wouldn't try removing the extra dough from around the shapes, as it's a bit delicate-- leave them in situ and pop them out once they're baked).

                                                                        Just before baking.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.  The trickiest part of this is getting them done just right-- underdone and they're a bit chewey and relatively tough; overdone and they're, well, burnt. I usually take them out at 12 minutes, remove the crackers from the edges that are starting to brown, and return the rest to the oven for 2 minutes, let them brown a bit, repeat the procedure until all of the ones in the center are done properly.  Break them apart once they're cool.  Repeat the procedure with the second disk of dough. Devour.

                                               

Variation: Instead of the seeds, add 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp ginger into the flour mixture. 

Rubbed sage or curry might also be nice mixed into the dough, but I haven't tried them yet. If you do it, let me know how it turns out!

Muffin Monday-- Recipe for Apple-Peanut Butter Muffins

My craving for satisfying apple muffins was left unrequited with last week's muffin, so I decided to have another go this week.  I've got a new recipe for you, with a bit of a twist-- peanut butter! Apples and peanut butter being one of my go-to snacks throughout the fall and winter.  My appreciation for the combo has been enhanced by my finally buying-- and devouring in record time-- natural peanut butter. It actually tastes like peanuts! Who knew?

We introduced peanut butter to Mae several weeks ago, and she appears to take it just fine-- no allergies here, thank goodness.  So this muffin is a good way for her to enjoy this flavor combo, too (since I'm still pretty nervous about chunks of raw apple).

The recipe is based on these muffins, with a few changes to make up for the fact that I omitted most (but not all) of the sugar.  I added the apples, spices, and the peanut butter. The result is light, fluffy, and moist, which is exactly what I was going for. Win! This time I also remembered to add salt to the second half of the batter for some adult-friendly muffins. The salt-free ones were not bad, but they still benefitted some from the inclusion of salt. Just take care not to overstir the batter when you add the it, or the muffins will end up with the texture of little rubber lumps.

Apple-Peanut Butter Muffins

1 c. AP flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 c. canola oil
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. sour cream
1 egg 1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1 c. cinnamon stewed apples, peeled and lightly mashed
natural peanut butter (no sugar or salt added)

Preheat your oven to 350, and prep your mini-muffin tins.
In a large bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, sour cream, egg, and vanilla. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then fold in the mashed apples.

Fill your muffin tins, then with a fingertip dipped in flour to prevent sticking, make little indentations in the center of each proto-muffin.  Add a 1/2 tsp or so dollop of the peanut butter.  (If that's too fussy, just spread peanut butter on 'em when it's time to eat 'em. That'll work, too.)

Bake for 12-15 minutes each. Makes 3 dozen mini-muffins.

Muffin Monday-- "Hello, My Name is ______" Muffins recipe

Just realized I can use Helvetica here. Awesome!

Anyhow, we're traveling, visiting Mae's Grammy and Grandpa, so no pictures this time. 

Bit of a muffin fail, too. Somewhat.  I have this basic, utterly plain muffin recipe, to which you add stuff of your choosing to render them yummy. The basic recipe was a success, but my particular variation this time did not exactly open up new vistas of muffiny goodness. I have an idea of what went wrong. I'll go into that below, but here's the fill-in-the-blank muffin recipe:

"Hello, My Name Is _____" Muffins

2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 c. melted butter
3/4 c. milk
1/2 tsp salt (optional)

Preheat your oven to 375. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, fold in your additional custom ingredients (see below), and bake for 12-15 minutes.

I used 1/2 c. whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour. To this, I added: 1 c. oats, 1/3 c. apple butter, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and 1 diced apple. I stirred the oats and spices into the flour mixture, and the apple butter into the egg/milk mixture. Added the diced apple at the end. The oats were a success, and the apple chunks were nice, but you couldn't really taste the apple butter or spices. The result was a bit bland. More than a bit. Quite. Quite bland. Very, I would go so far as to say. I should have added at least a half teaspoon of the spices, probably more. Plus, this really needs salt. I should have baked Mae's dozen and then folded in some salt to make the remainder adult-friendly. But I didn't, and they taste flat. Salted butter helps, but does not redeem. 

The muffin substrate was good, though, texturally speaking, and I'll definitely be having another go at these. You can stir in cheese, herbs, dried fruit, fresh fruit, use a mixture of flours and grains, etc. etc. Lots of ways to change these up.

Mae thought it was pretty good, even if I was not impressed with my additions. Meanwhile, my quest for perfect apple muffins continues. Stay tuned.

Whole wheat crackers recipe-- baby finger food

I wanted to try making crackers because, by the time Mae is entering what is normally the Goldfish cracker-or Cheerio- munching stage, I want to have come up with and mastered the production of a healthier, tastier version lighter in sodium and preservatives. And somehow get her so thoroughly hooked on them that she has no interest in Goldfish. Oh, I don't really know if it can be done (or if I would even want that result if I truly understood the rate of cracker production I'd have to keep up to meet the demand), but it's worth a try.

Turns out, crackers aren't that hard. They're like a cross between pie crust and biscuit. I am a past master of both the pie crust and the biscuit, so they should be entirely within the scope of my abilities.  There are a few different types out there-- you've got the kind with yeast, the kind with baking powder or soda, and the kind with no leavening at all. This one is in the baking soda camp. Rest assured I'll be trying others (cf my obsession with exploring every variation on a theme), and will let you know which is the best.

This particular recipe has a lovely, nutty flavor from the whole wheat pastry flour. I was a bit unsure how Mae would do with these (lack of teeth not making crackers an obviously good choice), but she did very well-- the zucchini hummus moistened it a bit, and she gummed them until they were swallowable. Probably I'll wait until she's a bit older before giving them to her on a regular basis, though.

Whole Wheat Crackers

2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 c. butter, cold
1/2 c. milk

Mix together the flour and baking powder; cut in the butter like you would if you were making pie crust or biscuits (using a pastry blender, two butterknives, or your fingers, cut it into tiny little pieces until it's well-distributed in the flour).  Gently stir in the milk just until it'll form a ball; divide the dough in half, flatten the balls into disks, wrap them in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or as long as a day.  When you're ready to bake, roll out one of the balls on a floured Silpat (or parchment paper).  Roll it as thinly and evenly as you can. Lots of people use a pasta machine for this-- that's a great idea if you happen to have one. If like me, you don't, just do your best-- you want as close to 1/16th of an inch as you can get, as evenly across the surface as you can manage.  Transfer the Silpat to a baking sheet, and cut the dough into shapes-- you can use a pizza cutter, or if you're feeling fancy and have a bit of time on your hands, use a cookie cutter. Bake at 375 degrees, 10-12 minutes. Start checking at 10-- if they're getting brown around the edges, pull it out and remove the browning ones from the pan. Pop the rest back in until they're starting to brown too. If you leave them all in there until the center is brown, the edges will be burnt for sure.  Be careful! Let cool, then devour.

Roasted zucchini 'hummus' recipe for baby-led weaning

'Hummus' in quotes because I'm not sure what the necessary and sufficient conditions for being hummus are, but probably this doesn't really meet them. It's more of a family-resemblance sort of relationship. It's got garlic, it's got tahini, and you can dip it or spread it.  I just thought it might be good, and I was right. Mae agrees.  That cracker it's sitting on? Easier than you might think. Recipe for those tomorrow.

Roasted zucchini 'hummus'

4 medium zucchini (~6 inches)
4 cloves garlic
2 Tbs olive oil+ additional if desired
black pepper
1 Tbs tahini
1/2 tsp sesame oil
juice of 1/2 a lemon

Heat your oven to 400. Quarter the zucchini lengthwise, and then cut into 1/2 inch pieces. In a bowl, toss them with the olive oil and garlic cloves, grind black pepper over them, and then turn 'em out onto a sheet pan (or trust iron skillet!). Roast them for 30 minutes, turning halfway through. When they're nice and soft and browned, they're ready. Let them cool a bit, then dump them in a blender with the remaining ingredients. Blend until reasonably smooth.  Mine still had bits of skin visible, and I thought that was fine; you do what you like.  Spread it on crackers, pita, toast, rice cakes, eat it with a spoon or, if it comes down to it (and it well may!) with your fingers.

Muffin Monday: Browned butter orange oat muffins with banana-orange cream-cheese filling

This past spring, I finally discovered the joy that is browned butter when I made Mae's dad a batch of Nigella Lawson's burnt butter cupcakes for his birthday. I vowed that I would make a batch of browned butter to keep in a vat in the fridge and use in everything. I haven't actually done that (yet), and it's probably for the best. But how could I resist working it into a muffin? These are toasty goodness- the browned butter, toasted oatmeal, and toasted pecans in the filling. Enjoy!

Banana-orange cream cheese filling/spread

2 small ripe bananas
1/2 c. orange juice
2 whole cloves
4 oz. cream cheese, cut into pieces
1/4 c. finely chopped toasted pecans (optional)

Chop or break the bananas into a few large chunks and put them together with the orange juice into a small skillet. Add the cloves. Turn up heat to medium high. As the bananas soften with cooking, mush them up, and cook until the mixture is reduced and thickened. Turn off the heat, remove the cloves, and stir in the cream cheese, then the pecans. Remove from heat and let cool. This can be made a day or two in advance.  It actually makes about twice as much as you need for the muffins, but it's so good you'll want extra (for spreading on the muffins, or toast, or pancakes, or....).

Browned butter orange oat muffins

1 stick butter
1 c. buttermilk
1 egg
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1 c. rolled oats
1 c. All Purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
 1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease up your mini-muffin tins.

First, brown your butter. In a small pan (8 inches wide and at least an inch deep, because it'll foam a lot), melt the butter over medium heat. Let it continue to heat-- it'll foam at first, then gradually begin to darken. Let it go until it's so dark you think, "Oh no, it's ruined!", then carefully strain it into a heatproof receptacle (pyrex is good). I assure you that unless it actually bursts into flames, you won't have ruined it (unless you forget to strain it, in which case you'll have nasty burnt sludge in your muffins, and you don't want that). Let it cool.  There won't be quite a 1/2 cup anymore, but that's fine.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cooled butter, the buttermilk, egg, and orange zest.

Next, toast your oats.  Go ahead and use the same pan you browned the butter in (after it's cooled a bit so you don't instantly burn your oats). Heat them over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they're beginning to turn golden. Take them off the heat and let them cool for a few minutes, then whisk them into the liquid mixture.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.  Fill the muffin tins halfway; add a 1/2 tsp of the filling mixture in the center of the batter, then cover with a little more of the batter. Bake 10-12 minutes. (If you don't want to be bothered with filling them, you can spread it on just like frosting on a cupcake. That would be stylish!)

Muffin Monday-- Pesto Muffins-- Savory muffin recipe for infants

Deconstructed pesto, in muffin form.  These are nice and moist on the inside, slightly crisp on the outside.  If you happen to have some roasted garlic (you know, the thing where you wrap a head of garlic in foil and roast it in the oven till it's caramelized and spreadable), that would be the thing to put on them, in my opinion.

Mae's dad took some of these in to distribute to his workplace (because if I make 3 dozen muffins every week for Muffin Monday and we don't give some away, we'll soon have no room left for anything else in the freezer). He was wearing Mae in the BabyBjorn, and when he opened the container she somehow managed to scoop up a muffin, took a bite out of it, and then reached down with the other hand and snagged another one. I am not making that up. She liked the bran muffins fine, but she loves these.

Pesto Muffins

3/4 c. spelt flour

1 1/2 c. All Purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs

3/4 c. olive oil

3/4 c. whole milk

4 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c. basil, minced

3/4 c. grated parmesan cheese

1/2 c. pine nuts, toasted for about 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven and then chopped

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your mini-muffin (fairy cake) pan with a quick greasing or spraying of Pam.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flours and baking powder. In another bowl, lightly beat your eggs, then whisk in the olive oil and milk. Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients until just combined, then fold in the garlic, pine nuts, cheese, and basil. Fill your mini-muffin tins about 3/4 full, and bake for 12-15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

Stewed cinnamon apples recipe for baby led weaning

Fruit was one of the first things Mae went for when she started eating solids. Peaches and nectarines are her true loves (the first time she had a peach, she cried when it was all gone), and she's fairly enthusiastic about plums, bananas, and mango as well. Apples are a little bit more of a challenge for someone with no teeth-- left raw, they're a choking hazard. Stew 'em up in a pan with a little cinnamon, though, and you've got a winner-- nice and soft, easily grasped by little hands, and portable as well. I make up a batch and keep the slices in the fridge in a little container, ready to grab when we're going out to dinner or for a quick snack or breakfast.  She started eating these at 6 months old.

Stewed cinnamon apples

1 apple

sprinkle of cinnamon

 Cut the apple into 12 wedges. Remove core. You can peel it before cooking or if you're lazy like me, cook with the peel on and just pull the peel off before you give it to the baby.  (I find that if I leave the peel on, she can't chew it up and gags on it, so I do recommend removing it at some point). Put the apple wedges in a 12 inch pan (I like cast iron) with about 1/2 cup of water. Sprinkle each slice with cinnamon. (Ginger or cardamom would also be good!) Cook apples over medium-low heat, turning once or twice, until the water has evaporated and they're soft and cooked completely through.  If you wander off and forget about them, they'll get nice and caramelized. Even yummier!