Whole Wheat Honey Applesauce Muffins

We needed a snack for a group in a hurry today, these were quick and easy to put together, and delicious.

Whole Wheat Applesauce Spice Muffins
Yields: 12 Muffins 24 mini-muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp butter, melted
1 cup unsweetened applesauce


Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease muffin pan or place muffin liners. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a large bowl, set aside. Melt honey in a med bowl.  Whisk in eggs, honey, and applesauce until combined well.  Then fold in flour mixture until flour is just moistened. Divide batter among muffin cups. Bake until muffins are puffed and golden brown, about 18-20 minutes (13 for minis).  Adapted from this recipe.

Pancakes

We've tried a lot of different pancake recipes, but finally found one we really like.  It's a recipe for "Good Old Fashioned Pancakes," which sounds just about right.

Old Fashioned Pancake Recipe
 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar

1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix together just until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Flip when bubbles begin to pop around the edges and start to look dry. Cook until browned on second side. Serve hot.

Makes 12 pancakes.  

* * * This picture shows Jeremy's version with wheat flour--substituting whole wheat flour for 1/2 cup of the flour, and substituting brown sugar for white. 

Honey Wheat Zucchinni Muffins

I tried a recipe from Me and My Pink Mixer for honey wheat zucchini muffins.  I chose her recipe, though it looked almost exactly the same as another, because hers used 3/4 instead of a full cup of honey.  (I'm trying to wean us from the need for everything to be super sweet--a little sweet is enough)

This recipe is made with 100% whole wheat flour.  Because muffins use chemical leaveners to rise, instead of yeast and gluten, there's no reason to use anything but the wheat.

Honey Wheat Zucchini Muffins

3 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups shredded zucchini

1/2 cup butter, melted

3/4 cup honey

2 eggs

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and baking powder.  Stir and then add zucchini and toss together.  In a separate bowl, melt butter, stir in honey and eggs.  Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the wet, and mix just until moistened. Scoop dough into paper-lined muffin tins. Bake at 400 degrees for 16-20 minutes.

This recipe made 1 dozen muffins plus 1 dozen mini muffins.   We cooked the minis for 10 minutes and the regular for 16 min. 

Honey Whole Wheat and Flax Bread

With so much honey flowing into our kitchen, I've been experimenting more lately with replacing other sugars with honey, and trying to adapt favorite recipes along the way.



I've successfully adapted my recipe for bread to use honey rather than sugar. I've made it a few times, so I'm ready to share it.

In the summer it's always harder for me to work up the desire to turn my oven on--so I've been trying to bake a bunch of bread at once. (This picture shows four loaves of the honey whole wheat and flax seed bread, and the round loaf on the right is a leftover oatmeal bread loaf.)  

Honey Whole Wheat and Flax Seed Bread

1/2 cup honey
2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups warmed buttermilk*
2 Tbsp butter, melted, or oil
5 cups of whole wheat flour, divided
1/3 cup of ground flax seed meal**
1 Tbsp yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp honey***
2-3 cups unbleached AP or bread flour

In large mixer bowl, mix first 4 ingredients together. Add 3 cups of the whole wheat flour and 1/3 cup of ground flax seed meal to cooled mixture. Blend at low speed until moist; then beat at medium speed for three minutes to begin developing gluten. Mix yeast into water and honey and let proof.

Add last 2 cups of whole wheat flour to bowl, and add the yeast mixture--after it has started to rise. Mix all together well. Stir in 2-3 cups white flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, at least 7 minutes in mixer or 10-15 minutes by hand.

Place dough in greased bowl, flip the dough over so the oily side is on top, cover with a towel. Let rise in warm place until doubled--about an hour. Gently degas ("punch down") dough, divide into 2 loaves and form into loaf shapes. Place in greased bread pans and let rise again until dough is about 1 inch above pan edges.(About 30-45 minutes)

Slice 1/4 inch depth down the the center of each loaf.**** Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes--or until loaves sound hollow when lightly rapped.***** Remove from pans immediately. Cool and enjoy.

My personal notes:

*Sometimes I use buttermilk, sometimes I use milk with 1 Tbl lemon juice added, I've used reconstituted powdered milk with lemon juice added, and you could even use just water, but the bread would not be as rich.

**Fresh ground meal has more nutrients, but flax seeds are difficult to grind. I've tried unsuccessfully in a food processor, and my hand grain mill. What I do is store my flax seeds in the fridge, and when I need meal I mix it about half and half with the wheat berries (grains) and find that I can grind that pretty well through my hand grinder. You can try that if you want, realizing that it goes against the instructions of many grain mills, or you can use pre-ground meal, or simply replace it with more wheat flour.

***I measure out my 1/2 cup of honey into a 1 cup glass measuring cup. I pour it out into the mixing bowl and set aside. When it's time for my yeast, I take that measuring cup with the honey residue left in it, fill it with 1/2 cup of warm water and the yeast and mix them all up. I find there is enough honey left in the glass to get the yeast going nicely, and I don't have to stress about scraping every last bit of honey out back at the first step.

****It's my un-scientifically-proven beleif that splitting the top allows the dough to raise just a little bit more when being placed into the oven before the crust forms, allowing the bread to be just a little bit more airy, which for wheat bread is very appreciated.

*****Alternately I bake to an internal temperature of 190*F.

Leftover Oatmeal Bread

The ultimate definition of thrift is taking something unusable and resurrecting it into something of real great value.

No one likes rubbery leftover oatmeal. We've tried to save helpings leftover from breakfast and reheat them later--maybe adding a little bit of milk to brighten it up--but it's still not the same as a steaming pot of freshly-cooked oatmeal. So we've tried giving old oatmeal to the chickens, and --truth be told-- they love it, but I just still feel like throwing it out to the chickens was a bit of an extreme sentence for the crimes of the old oatmeal.



I knew there had to be a better option. Adding them to bread seemed like a perfect idea. I consulted Alton Brown, for his food savvy, and adjusted the recipe to our own food preferences (whole wheat and honey). Our oatmeal was steel cut oats and included a little bit of dairy and honey, but rolled oat oatmeal could be used as well.



Leftover Oatmeal Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups leftover, cooked oatmeal, at room temperature
1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for bowl and pan

1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup bread flour, plus 1/2 cup extra for kneading
1/4 cup toasted uncooked old fashioned rolled oats, plus 1 tablespoon extra for topping
1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

Directions:

Toast the raw oats if desired.

Combine the leftover cooked oatmeal, warm water, honey, and 1 tablespoon of oil in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Combine the yeast, bread flour, 1/4 cup toasted, uncooked oats, and the salt in a small mixing bowl.

Add the dry mixture to the cooked oatmeal mixture in 3 installments and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon after each addition.

Spread last 1/2 cup of bread flour on a counter. Turn the dough onto it and knead by hand for 10 minutes, adding more flour, if needed. Dough will still be a little sticky. Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl or container. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Punch down the dough, shape it into a loaf, and put it into a lightly oiled 9 by 5-inch loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the egg yolk and water in a small bowl. Lightly brush the top of the loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon toasted, uncooked oats. Bake about 55 minutes to 1 hour. Remove the loaf from the pan to a cooling rack for 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

Chocolate Chip Ghost Pancakes

 Happy Halloween!

 We had chocolate chip ghosts for breakfast.

 Whole wheat flour doesn't lend for a very ghostly appearance--but we'll take it anyway. 

 Then we started our day with a flannel board telling of The Chocolate Chip Ghost.  It's a silly story about some ghosts who disobey their mother and end up in a lot of trouble. 

We get it out every year for family home evening around Halloween time.  Here is a free printable version if you're interested.

We'll just be spending the rest of the day having spooky fun and trying to stay out of trouble.

Thin Wheat Crackers

I am a snack-y type person. There are times I'm just in the mood to snack on something. Preferably something light and crunchy.

I've always been curious about making my own crackers. It was one of those things I just thought I had to rely on the grocery store for. And I thought that if you were going to make homemade crackers then the only thing that would make the effort worth it would be to make a ton at once (making it take a long time). I was pleasantly surprised to find it was fast and easy to whip up a batch of these homemade crackers. It sounds a little nuts--but I highly suggest giving cracker-making a try sometime.

This is another example of a recipe that is trying to closely mimic a store brand. These tasted right on. Now I'm curious to see if I can adapt the recipe to make the sundried tomato and basil version I've had from the store as well-yumm!

Homemade Thin Wheat Crackers Recipe:

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 T. brown sugar
2 T sesame seeds optional

Add these to the ingredients in your bowl:
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 T. oil or melted butter

Stir together to make a soft dough. It will be very soft and sticky. It should be stirred just until the flour is all absorbed, but not kneaded. Once it’s all incorporated, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for about 10 minutes. This lets the whole wheat flour absorb all the liquid.

Divide the dough in half. Grease the bottom side of two sheet pans or use a silicon liner. Plop half of the dough on one sheet pan. Place a piece of saran wrap over the dough and begin rolling with a rolling pin. Roll to cover the sheet pan entirely.

Use a pizza cutter to score the dough into cracker squares. Then sprinkle the dough with a generous sprinkling of salt, and if desired, sprinkle it with some sesame seeds or garlic salt, onion salt, etc.

Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.