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-- Pumpkin Spice Muffin recipe for infants

It's pumpkin week!

We made our annual pilgramage to my favorite pumpkin patch recently, and now I've got to use up the 2 quarts or so of pumpkin puree I have in the freezer to make room for this year's crop (it's a disease, I know...now leave me alone).  Well, not pumpkins, actually-- I find most pumpkins to be flavorless, whether from a can or from a fresh pie pumpkin. I'm a winter squash fanatic-- the big blue-grey Hubbard being my squash of choice.  The pulp of a Hubbard is dry and so sweet I can eat it freshly roasted with no seasoning whatsoever. Delicious. And it makes any recipe you use it in just that much more delicious, too.  (Of course, to get the dadgum thing open, you have to toss it off the front stoop and bust it open on the sidewalk. It's the safest way. Trust me.) (Yes, I said "dadgum". What of it?)

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, muffins. This is based on my favorite, favorite pumpkin bread recipe-- I've reduced it in size to make a manageable quantity of muffins, added in whole wheat pastry flour for a bit of nutrition and a tender crumb, reduced the sugar dramatically, left out the salt.  It's still delicious, but much less like a cupcake than the original recipe was. (Though if cupcakes are what you're wanting, you could hardly do better than trying the original recipe).

Awesomely autumnal muffin pan ("cakelet" pan, to be precise) thanks to Mae's Grammy, who always keeps us eating in style.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

1/2 c. sugar
1 c. oil
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 c. All Purpose flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease up your mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs, and pumpkin. In a smaller bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined, and fold in the walnuts if you're using them.  Fill your muffin tins 3/4 full, and bake for 12-15 minutes.

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.

Muffin Monday-- bran muffin recipe for baby-led weaning

Welcome to Muffin Monday! I've found that the muffin texture is perfect for Mae-- toast or bread sometimes gets gummy and makes a big wad that can cause gagging, but muffins break apart nicely. Unfortunately, most muffin recipes are on the sugary side. That's ok. I can fix that. First up, whole wheat bran muffins. These feature 100% whole wheat and bran, with molasses for sweetness (and a little extra iron!). I've kept them plain, as I'm not quite sure Mae is ready for dried fruit, but in a couple months I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes. These are delicious with a little apple butter on them. I'll be sneaking a few for myself. Probably more than a few, actually, since the recipe made about 4 dozen. Luckily they freeze just fine.

Whole Wheat Bran Muffins

1 1/2 c. wheat bran

2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbs cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. molasses (I used half sorghum and half blackstrap)

1 egg

1/4 c. vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350, grease a mini-muffin pan. Whisk together the first 6 ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, oil, and molasses. Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients and stir 'em up until just combined. (No huge lumps, but don't overbeat them either). Fill the cups of the mini muffin pan, bake for about 12 minutes, or until a knife stuck in one comes out without batter on it.

Baby-led weaning recipe for Whole Wheat Pancakes

These are the pancakes my mother always made for me, so they're my Platonic ideal of a pancake (which helps explain why I've never been a fan of the pancakes one gets at Pancake House type establishments). When I was little, I always used to get excited about helping to make them by dropping batter onto the skillet-- always in tiny kid-size drops. Now I make them tiny-kid-size for Mae-- about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Snip them in half and she has a perfect little hand-sized piece to hold. They freeze well, too-- I make a big batch and freeze, then reheat in the toaster oven. Smear with sugar-free apple butter, and there you go.

Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. All Purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. milk

2 eggs

1/4 c. canola oil

In a bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, milk, eggs, and oil. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients. Brush a griddle with a little extra oil, and heat over medium high heat. Drop spoonfuls of batter in, cook until bubbles begin to form in the middle, like this:

I use about a 1/4 cup of batter for adult-sized pancakes, and a teaspoon for baby-sized ones. Flip 'em and cook until nice and brown.

When I make these, I get about 8 adult-sized pancakes and 16 tiny ones.