When I was about 8 months pregnant with Graham, my oldest child, Randy and I did a Lamaze weekend out of town.  Most OB’s recommend you do some kind of class to prepare you for childbirth and the hospital where we ultimately delivered offered a six week course.  Randy had just started working at Microsoft and was spending a ridiculous number of hours there trying to get up to speed.  The thought of trying to get back across the lake in time for a class stressed him out, so we opted to cram all those classes into one weekend instead.

Sometimes things happen for a reason and I think we ended up going this Lamaze route so we could meet an incredible group of people.  There were 12 couples, all due within a few months of each other, and over the course of the weekend and talking about things like contractions and bed-rest and colostrum, we got to know each other.  We were all in this incredibly heady time in our lives – about to have our first baby.  Scared, excited, scared and um, scared.  The weekend ended and we drifted away from each other and back to our lives.

The first couple had their baby just days before we had Graham.  The husband emailed their news out to the group and, now that we were connected, all the rest of the couples followed suit.  Through this email connection, the women started bonding.  Once all of us had our babies, we began to get together with our brand new babies.

At the time I was in a PEPS group (Program for Early Parenthood Support), an organization I believe in and support.  I even lead a group myself when Graham was a year old.  But my particular group was a little funny.  Everyone was nice but there were some big overachievers in there and everyone seemed to have it together.  No one cried, everyone’s baby seemed to be sleeping, nursing was going well for all the moms – in short, no one was real.  I went to those meetings making sure I had showered, did not cry, bit my lip the whole time, and left feeling like a failure.  It was the weekly gathering of Lamaze ladies where I could be myself.  It was my lifeline.  Being able to walk out of the house unshowered, crying baby in tow, get to a friend’s house who was in a similar mental and emotional space as me, and be able to cry myself – out of exhaustion, frustration, fear, and hormones – is what saved me in those first few months.  One in our group gave us this quote: “You make friends for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.”  It seemed we had made lifelong friends.

Sadly, within a couple of years, 6 of the 12 couples moved away.  We all got busy with our lives, husbands, work, second children.  I have remained extremely close with two of the women – I consider them two of my closest friends.  I wish I saw everyone else more frequently but busy lives and distance makes it difficult.  Donna was one of our true gems and she had the nerve to North Carolina before we knew it.  Donna and I have been keeping in intermittent touch on Facebook and I will occasionally get a comment from her on this blog.  She emailed last week to say that she and the family were heading to town and could we gather?  Of course!

6 adults, 10 kids, 2 pizzas, 2 salads, and 1 cake makes for a rocking good time.  Graham was in heaven because all the six-year-olds were girls.  Spencer was in heaven because there were so many people to play with.  It was so nice seeing them all as such big kids and seeing how truly far we have come.  In true Lamaze group fashion, we shared some of the joys and some of the frustrations we are experiencing.  And we got to sing “Happy Birthday” to one of our group whose birthday is Friday.

I have been wanting to practice my layer cake technique ever since watching this incredibly helpful video.  A friend’s birthday is the perfect excuse for practice.  This is a Holly B’s recipe and it’s hard for me to believe I have never made it.  Holly mentions in her book that this is the standard birthday cake in her family and now I know why.  It’s a perfect chocolate cake.  The cake itself is moist, the frosting is to die for and the whole thing is incredibly easy and quick to make.  Yes, really.  My only quibble is that there was not enough frosting.  The cake is very crumbly so it needs a crumb coat, but there was not enough for me to do that.  No matter, sprinkles cover a lot of error.  But next time I will one and a half the frosting recipe to make sure there is enough to really cover the cake and for little fingers to dip into.

One Year Ago: Chile Cheese Gratin Sandwiches
Two Years Ago: Grilled Vegetable Quesadillas
Three Years Ago: Feta and Ricotta Cheese Pie (ignore the bad photo, this is a terrific recipe)

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake
With Love & Butter
Makes a 9-inch double layer cake

I‘m giving you the recipe as written in the book.  Remember, I would at least one and a half the frosting recipe – even double it and do a crumb coat.  To do so, spread a thin layer of frosting all over the cake and place it in the freezer for about 15 minutes.  Then frost the rest of the cake.  This will keep little crumbs from marring the smooth appearance of your masterpiece.

Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
½ cup boiling water
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 cups flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting
¾ cup sour cream
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup (2/3 stick) unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in the center position.  Butter and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.

Melt ¼ of the butter (½ of one stick) and combine with the cocoa powder and boiling water in a small bowl.  Stir until smooth and set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the remaining butter with the granulated and brown sugars and vanilla.  Add the eggs and beat until smooth.  Mix in the sour cream, then the reserved cocoa mixture.  Finally, dump in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix just until combined.  Divide the batter between the 2 pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake the layers for 10 minutes, rotate the pans and bake for 10 to 15 minutes more or until a toothpick just comes out clean.  Don’t overbake – moistness is your goal.  Cool the cakes on a rack.

Make the frosting
Put the sour cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of a mixer.  Whip to combine.  Stir the melted butter and cocoa together.  If the mixture begins to harden, dribble in a little more melted butter and beat until free of lumps.  Add to the sour cream mixture and beat until smooth.

Put one cake layer top-side-up on a serving plate and spread frosting generously to within ½-inch of the edge.  Place the second layer on top, bottom-side-up.  Smooth the remaining frosting over top and sides.

(DT: I made this cake a day ahead frosted and all.  I waited until the frosting had hardened slightly and loosely covered the whole thing with foil.  I think it improved both the flavor and texture of the cake so don’t hesitate to do the same.  You could probably even make it two days ahead, but then I would refrigerate it, covered, and bring it to room temp before serving.)

Some people love breakfast.  Other people only eat breakfast because they know they are supposed to and they know that if they don’t, they will inhale an entire table’s worth of food for lunch.  I put myself in the second category.  I never feel hungry in the morning and, consequently, I eat one of the same three things every single day.  Having a rotation of three things is actually fairly recent.  Up until this year, I ate a Luna bar every day for nine years.  Nine years.  Now I alternate with thrilling things like yogurt and cereal.

Sweet scones are all well and good but how about a savory scone?  I made these with a combination of dill and aged Cheddar but there are many other combos that would work.  Roasted red pepper and feta, scallion and chèvre, thyme and Gruyère all sound good to me.  I like the idea of serving these with some soup on a fall day in addition to offering them to friends for breakfast.

For this basic recipe, you use a (homemade) scone mix.  After I made the blueberry ones, I had just enough left over for another batch.  I kept the mix in the refrigerator and was so happy to have some on hand so I could make treats for my guests.

Scones previously on Dana Treat: Almond Praline Scones, Classic Currant Scones|
One Year Ago: Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes
Two Years Ago: Fresh Summer Rolls with Tofu

Savory Scones
Adapted from With Love & Butter
Makes 12 scones

For this recipe, you will need approximately half the Scone Mix.  Or if you want, you can double the Savory Scones and freeze half of them.  Lots of options.

4½ cups Scone Mix
½ cup coarsely grated Cheddar cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh dill
1 large shallot, chopped
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup cottage cheese

Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in center position.  In a medium bowl, toss together the Scone Mix, cheese, dill, shallot, and pepper.  Drizzle the buttermilk over the surface and blob in the cottage cheese.  (DT: “Blob” is Holly’s word!)  Stir until mixed.  If the dough is too dry to stick together when pressed, add a bit more buttermilk.  You want to be able to make a nice firm shape.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into two disks about 1½-inches thick.  Cut each disk into 6 wedges and arrange 1-inch apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake in two batches if they don’t fit on one sheet.  Bake 15 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until the scones are light brown on top and darker on the bottom, and no longer soft and doughy in the center.  When judging doneness, don’t rely on the color of the tops alone.  The tops can look quite light and undone while the bottoms are getting quite brown.

Scone Mix
4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1½ tbsp. baking powder
1¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
2¾ sticks cold butter, sliced

Place all the ingredients except the butter in a large bowl and mix.

Fit your food processor with the steel knife blade.  Put half the butter in the bowl and top with half the dry ingredients.  Pulse until the butter is reduced to pearl-sized bits.  Don’t over process or it will turn into a dough, you want a dry mix.  Pour the processed mixture into another large empty bowl.  Repeat this process with the remaining dry ingredients and butter.  Be sure to break up any large lumps of butter and, when through, toss thoroughly with your fingers.

Transfer the scone mix to an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for up to 2 months, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

We have an interesting phenomenon in our house.  If you are a parent, perhaps you are familiar with this one.  It’s the “whenever I don’t have much of something the kids want tons of it, but when I buy tons of it, the kids want nothing to do with it” phenomenon.  There is an additional part to it which is the “whatever the kids love and adore at their friends’ houses, they will not eat at home”.

Blueberries.

Last Friday, I brought the boys to a favorite farmers market and I needed some berries for a dessert for the next day.  I bought a half flat – three boxes of blueberries, two of raspberries, and one of strawberries.  The boys were literally eating the blueberries by the handful, shoveling them in their mouths like I had never given them fruit before.  But I had to cut them off because I needed some of those blueberries and they acted like I had just taken ice cream cones away from them.

So on our way home from a family birthday celebration on Lopez Island, as we passed farm stand after farm stand full of berries, we pulled off and I bought a full half flat of blueberries.  They had a few and now are over it.  Which leaves me with precisely almost a full half flat of blueberries.  Only one thing to do with them.

Actually, there are lots of things I could do with them and considering I still have lots left over, I will be doing something else.  (Suggestions?)  The reason I went right to scones is because of good old Holly B.  We left for Lopez on Sunday and my sister-in-law Amy, who was leaving the island just as we were arriving, was kind enough to text me that Holly B’s would be closed on Monday, my birthday, for an “over-the-hump” day.  WHAT?? The nerve!  So we made sure to stop off on the way to the house.  Usually, when we go for the weekend, I have at least two visits to the bakery.  This time there was only one and if you can only go once, you have to get a cinnamon roll.  At least if you are me.  Oh yes, I could have gotten multiple things but there is such a thing as OD’ing on baked goods (oh yes there is!) and I’d rather than have a little than too much.  So I baked scones instead of buying them at the bakery.

Truth be told, I’m not a big scone girl.  Or muffin or pancake girl.  I like my breakfasts on the savory side and if I am going to eat something with loads of butter, I would rather have a brownie.  But when fruit is calling you and you have just seen gorgeous scones in a favorite bakery that you didn’t get a chance to sample, it’s time to make scones.

Now I have to tell you about my new favorite flour.  Over the past couple of months, I have gotten numerous emails from companies offering me free things with the idea that I will blog about them.  Many of the products are things I would never use but occasionally something catches my attention.  One of the first offers I got was for some flour from a company called Stone-Buhr.  Stone-Buhr works with wheat farmers in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho and has a web site (www.findyourfarmer.com) where you can find out where your bag’s wheat came from.  Cool, huh?  I’ve been a loyal King Arthur flour user for years but I love the idea of supporting local farmers and I have now officially made the switch.  After using up my free bag in a hurry (I go through a lot of flour), I was thrilled to find Stone-Buhr in my local grocery store.

Back to the scones.  I really liked these because they are not too sweet so that the fruit can shine through.  There are all kinds of combinations you could use here and just about everything would be good.  Holly’s original recipe has you make a giant amount of scone mix which, although it keeps well, is not something I feel like storing in my refrigerator.  I cut it in half which is why some of the measurements might sound a little odd.  You will still have enough for two batches of scones.

One Year Ago: Indian Spiced Chickpea Salad
Two Years Ago: Raspberry Cake with Marsala

Holly B’s Fruit Scones
Adapted from With Love & Butter
Makes 8 large scones

Scone Mix
4½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1½ tbsp. baking powder
1¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
2¾ sticks cold butter, sliced

Place all the ingredients except the butter in a large bowl and mix.

Fit your food processor with the steel knife blade.  Put half the butter in the bowl and top with half the dry ingredients.  Pulse until the butter is reduced to pearl-sized bits.  Don’t over process or it will turn into a dough, you want a dry mix.  Pour the processed mixture into another large empty bowl.  Repeat this process with the remaining dry ingredients and butter.  Be sure to break up any large lumps of butter and, when through, toss thoroughly with your fingers.

Transfer the scone mix to an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for up to 2 months, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Fruit Scones
3¼ cups scone mix
¼ cup sugar
1 cup fresh or frozen fruit, berries left whole, other fruit cut into ½-inch cubes
¾ cup buttermilk
Sugar for topping the scones

Preheat the oven to 375ºF with the rack in the center position.

In a medium bowl, toss the Scone Mix and sugar together with your fingers.  Add the fruit and toss again until just-mixed.  Frozen fruit will begin to melt and bleed at bit – this is OK.  Drizzle the buttermilk over the mixture and stir gently.  The mixture should be just wet enough to make a ball when pressed together.  If too dry, drizzle on more buttermilk.  Dryer is better than wetter.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a disk 1½ inches thick.  Sprinkle generously with sugar.  Cut the circle into 8 wedges.  Place the scones at least 1 inch apart on a baking sheet.

Bake 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake 5 to 10 minutes more or until the scones are brown on the bottom (check with a spatula) and slightly brown on top.  The baking time maybe shorter if you are using fresh fruit.  Cool, or serve warm.

(DT: These get a bit soggy after a day or so, but still taste delicious.  You can always freeze them.)

Recently, I taught a cooking class to a fun and engaging group of women.  I decided to focus on spring produce since it is finally showing its face in our wet climate.  Normally I don’t tackle desserts in my classes (simply because of time), but I thought it made sense to make something with rhubarb.  I had planned to make this cake but in flipping through that much-beloved book, I found something even easier.

There are people who love rhubarb.  My husband is one of them.  Me – I don’t really get it.  It’s sour.  Why do I want a dessert that has something sour in it?  But, after making this dessert twice in a week, it’s kind of growing on me.

This recipe is so simple and it tastes so good, especially if you are in the rhubarb-loving camp.  Even if you think you can’t bake, you can make this.

One Year Ago:  Rosemary Raisin Pecan Crisps (I’ve made these countless times since)
Two Years Ago:  Roasted Potatoes with Onions and Wilted Greens (and the story of how I went veg)

Rhubarb Bette
With Love & Butter
8 servings

Approximately 5 cups sliced rhubarb (1/2-inch thick slices)
¾ cup plus 1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp. mild tasting oil
1 egg
1 cup flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Adjust the rack to the center position.  Butter a 9-inch glass pie plate.

Tumble the sliced rhubarb into the pie pan.  The rhubarb should come to within ½-inch of the rim.  Sprinkle the ¾ cup sugar on top and set aside.

In a big bowl, mix the remaining 1/3 cup sugar with the oil and egg.  Add the flour,  baking powder, salt, milk, and vanilla and combine into a smooth batter.  Now dumb the rhubarb from the pie dish into the batter.  Stir gently to incorporate the rhubarb, then pour the whole works back into the buttery-sugary pie dish.  Spread evenly in the dish, but leave the surface lumpy and interesting-looking.  Sprinkle with a little more sugar and bake 40 to 50 minutes, until caramel-colored on top and bottom.  Serve warm, in bowls, with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

Friends, the clock is ticking.  I am just about 3½ months away from a big birthday.  Big as in huge.  40.

Last July, when I turned 39, I set some goals for myself.  Since I still have a few months to go, I will wait to fill you in on whether all the goals are met.  (Here is a hint – yoga, yay!  Croissants – not so much!).  But now I can cross a big one off my list.

Every single time I go into Holly B’s Bakery I either get a cinnamon roll, or I regret not having gotten a cinnamon roll in addition to whatever delicious item I did get.  If I did one of those free association exercises and you said, “Holly B”, I would no doubt say, “Cinnamon roll”.  You get where I am going with this.  Holly B = cinnamon roll.  And yet, in all years I have owned her cookbook, I have never made them.  I can partly blame it on the fear of finding myself in the house with a dozen or so cinnamon rolls and partly blame it on timing.  You see, this recipe ends with the dreaded words, “Serve still warm from the oven”.  How do you time that?

Now that I have made them, I kick myself for not just diving in sooner.  It is not complicated.  First you make a bread dough which needs to rise for an hour or so.  Then you roll the dough out, do the brushing and sprinkling and the rolling back up.  Then you slice and place on a baking sheet where they rise again for about 30 minutes.  They bake for about 30 and then you eat them.  Why did this sound so daunting?  I wanted to bring these rolls over to a friend’s house for a post egg-hunting brunch.  I made the dough and let it rise about and hour and a half before we left.  I formed the rolls just before we walked out the door and let them finish their rise in her warm kitchen and bake in her oven.  Then we feasted.

Back to that free associate exercise.  If I say “cinnamon roll” and you think “Cinnabon” then I would not advise making these rolls.  They have very little in common with those shopping mall monsters (sorry, I am biased).  Remember, this is a bread recipe (that has a whole cup of whole wheat flour in it) which is rolled out, brushed with butter, sprinkled with two kinds of sugar, a full tablespoon of cinnamon, raisins, and sliced almonds.  There is no icing and I wouldn’t want there to be.  Because the roll itself actually tastes like something other than air, you actually want to taste that part.  The roll is delightfully nutty from the whole wheat flour and the sugars caramelize just so.  I always tell you how I don’t like nuts in my baked goods but I wouldn’t think of leaving those sliced almonds out.  They are delicate and add a wonderful crunch and very subtle flavor.

I wanted to get a picture of me with both boys but the Easter egg hunting was a little too exciting for them to both stand still at the same time.  Separate was the best I got.

One Year Ago:  Marinated Chickpea Salad with Radishes and Cucumber

Holly B’s Cinnamon Rolls
Adapted from With Love & Butter
Makes approximately 12 rolls

For the dough:
2 cups warm water
2 tbsp. honey
1 package (2¼ tsp.) quick-rise yeast
2 tbsp. mild tasting oil (DT: I used canola oil)
Scant 4 cups flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tbsp. milk powder
1¾ tsp. salt

For the Rolls:
Flour for dusting work surface
¼ cup (½ a stick) butter, melted
¾ cup raisins
¾ cup sliced almonds
¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon

Make the dough:
Swish together the water, honey, yeast, and oil in a roomy bowl.  Now dump in the flours and lastly the milk powder and the salt.  Mix these dry ingredients gently with your fingers without breaking through to the liquid below.

Now grab a wooden spoon and mix the dough vigorously until it’s just too stiff to continue.  Either knead the dough with floured hands on a lightly floured surface or use a dough hook with a stand mixer.  If the dough feels too wet, add a little more flour.  If it feels too stiff, sprinkle with warm water.  You will want a nice smooth dough – 2-5 minutes of kneading should be fine.  Dust the ball of dough with a little flour.  Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough inside.  Drape with a dishtowel and let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size.  (This takes about an hour.)

Lay a sheet of parchment paper down on a 10×15-inch baking sheet.

Make the rolls:
Do not punch down the dough, but gently turn it onto a floured surface.  Sprinkle the dough with flour and roll into a rectangle ¼-inch thick and approximately 10 by 25 inches with the short sides top and bottom.  Check the underside of the dough frequently.  Loosen any stuck spots and sprinkle on a little more flour.  Brush the dough with the melted butter, coating well but not leaving puddles.

Combine the raisins, almonds, sugars, and cinnamon.  Distribute the mixture evenly over the buttered surface, pressing down on the edges so the filling won’t fall off when you roll up the dough.

Starting at the short edge nearest you, roll up the dough, tugging gently to achieve a nice, snug long and keeping the edges even.  Turn the log seam downward and use a serrated knife to slice the dough into 10-12 rolls.  Place the rolls snugly in the pan.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until puffy and doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Before the rolls finish rising, preheat the oven to 375°F with the rack in the center position.  Bake the Cinnamon Rolls for 15 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for another 15 minutes more.  The rolls should be light gold and no longer doughy inside.  (DT: I think it’s best to check on the insides – mine looked done but were a little doughy.)  Serve still warm from the oven.

So what do you serve with chili?  Kind of silly, right?  Kind of like asking, “What do you serve with peanut butter on bread?”  In case you are not catching my drift – cornbread is what you serve with chili.  Oh and beer.  Duh.

The question becomes, which cornbread?  I already have two favorites but I thought it was time to try a third recipe.  If you want very full-flavored cornbread with lots going on, I can whole-heartedly recommend Ina’s version.  It is the one to make for a crowd since you will end up with a ton of it.  But if your appetite is more on the delicate side, I wouldn’t use that recipe.  It’s a meal in and of itself.

I thought I would try Holly B’s recipe and jazz it up by doing the Pesto Parmesan option listed in the book.  The nice thing is that the pesto stays in a small area so I could taste the bread on its own as well to truly asses where it stands in my cornbread book.  The verdict?  Very delicate and cakey.  So much so that as Randy went to take a bite, it basically crumbled right into his chili, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I liked baking it in a pie dish and that each wedge had a little dollop of pesto at its end.  I also liked the Parmesan sprinkled over top.  Maybe I’ll try that with my other favorite version which comes from The Joy of Cooking.  Recipe coming some time soon.

One Year Ago: Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Holly’s Favorite Corn Bread
With Love & Butter
Makes 8 wedges

¾ cup stone ground cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. honey
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
8 tsp. pesto
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375°F with the rack in the middle of the oven.  Butter a 9- to 10-inch glass pie plate.

Place all the ingredients except the pesto and cheese in a medium bowl and mix, by machine or by hand, until just combined.  Scrape down the bowl once or twice.  Smooth the batter into the pie dish.  Evenly blob 8 teaspoons of pesto around the edge of the batter, so that each wedge of cornbread will show a bit of green at the base.  Scatter the whole dish with the Parmesan.  Bake 15 minutes, rotate the dish, and bake for 5 to 10 minutes more or until the top is light brown and a toothpick comes out easily.  Cut into 8 wedges and serve.

One thing I really hate about winter is the light.  Last year at this time, I was still cooking for my families so if I raced, I could catch a bit of afternoon light and take a decent photo.  These days, I’m never done with cooking dinner until dinnertime at which point it has been dark for hours.  I’ve had to rely on my special light to make photography possible and I sure am tired of the photos all having the same look.  Hence this somewhat different composition today.

Now wait.  Don’t call me a hypocrite.  I know I wrote a post talking about low fat cooking yesterday.  Did you also read that I only do high fat baking?    And boy, this is high fat.  So much so that in the introduction for the recipe, Holly wrote, “This would be a good treat for someone wanting to gain weight.”  Ahem, not really my problem but it’s a nice thought.

As if it wasn’t enough to have a shortbread base with nuts and chocolate chips strewn over the top, a combination of honey and cream is poured over the whole pan which is then baked until golden brown.  The result is similar to an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie but denser and, thanks to the honey, sweeter.  I love honey, so for me the flavor was welcome here.

One Year Ago: Milk Chocolate Layer Cake

Oatmeal Carmelitas
With Love & Butter
18 big bars

1½ cups (3 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 cups flour
2 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned)
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1½ cups chocolate chips
½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts (DT: I used pecans)
1 cup honey
½ cup half-and-half (DT: I used cream)

Preheat oven to 375° with the rack in the center position.  Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan.

Cream the butter and brown sugar together with an electric mixer.  Add the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt and combine.  Reserve 1/3 of the dough.  Press the remaining dough evenly into the buttered baking pan.  Bake for 5 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake 5 to 10 minutes longer.  The crust should be barely brown.  Leave the oven on.

Scatter the chocolate chips and walnuts over the hot crust.  Now blob the reserved dough as evenly as you can on top of the chocolate and nuts.

Combine the honey and half-and-half.  Heat in the microwave or on the stove until hot but not boiling.  Pour the honey cream sauce over the dough and bake 15 to 20 minutes.  The bars will be done when they turn a uniformly rich golden color.  Cool and cut.

Top three favorite smells coming out of my kitchen.  1) Any kind of brownies.  2) This granola.  3) Onions caramelizing.  And if I can extend the list to four, I would have to include this rugelach.  Jam, cinnamon, nuts, and cream cheese dough all doing magical things in the oven.

Up until today, I had never made a sweet rugelach before.  I have made savory ones as an appetizer (where is that recipe? ) but never the traditional kind.  UPDATE 2010:  I found that recipe and made it again.  Check it out here.

Shauna shared some amazing gluten-free rugelach with me last week and hers were filled with quince paste and bittersweet chocolate.  Hello yum.  Because this was my first time making this recipe, I needed to stick closer to the rules.  Holly calls these Raspberry Rugelach but I did have to bend the rules a bit and make Blackberry Rugelah because blackberry jam is all I have in my house.  A woman named Linda who lives on Lopez Island makes positively transcendent jam so we always stock up every summer.  The fact that Lopez jam lives in these Lopez cookies seems just right.

These little cookies are not the most beautiful things I have ever made but the smell matches the taste.  Delicious.  Buttery, flaky, sweet and spicy.  They are also really fun to make. If you are a person who is afraid of working with dough, this is a great one to start with.  It is very forgiving and does just what you want it to.

You can buy Holly B’s wonderful cookbook by visiting this site.

Raspberry or Blackberry Rugelach
With Love & Butter
Makes 18 small pastries

Definitely keep these little treasures on the small side – they look much better that way.  I have large cookie sheets so I crammed them all onto one pan.  A lot of jam leaked out and I just transferred them immediately to a wire rack to cool.  I didn’t bother with the two fork option described below.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
7 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/3 cup raspberry or blackberry jam
6 tbsp. raisins
6 tbsp. sliced almonds
6 tbsp. brown sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Cream the butter with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add the cream cheese and combine until smooth.  Mix in 1 tablespoon of the granulated sugar and the vanilla.  Gradually stir in the flour, blending until just combined.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap loosely.  Shape the dough into a disk about 6 inches across and 1-inch thick and refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.  (DT: I refrigerated mine overnight.)

Preheat the oven to 375°F with the rack in the center position.  Line 1 large or two small baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unwrap the dough and place on a lightly floured surface.  Begin rolling the dough into a circle, keeping both sides lightly floured and free from sticking to th rolling pin and work surface.  Continue rolling the dough into a circle about 18 inches across and 1/8-inch thick.  (DT: Because I seemingly incapable of rolling dough into a circle, I just did the best I could and trimmed the edges to make it circular.)  Brush off the excess flour on both sides of the pastry.  Smear the jam over the dough, right up to the edges of the circle.

Combine the raisins, almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon, and remaining 6 tablespoons granulated sugar in a small bowl.  Distribute this mixture evenly over the jam.  Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, gently cut the wheel of dough into 18 wedges.

Starting at the wide base of each wedge, roll the dough into a little tube.  It will look like a tiny croissant without the curve.  Place the pastries 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet(s).  One pan at a time, bake 10 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake 5 to 10 minutes more.  The Rugelach will be done with light golden in color.  Remove the pan from the oven and use 2 forks to relocated each pastry to a clean place on the parchment for cooling.

Cool thoroughly, then dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired.  Store at room temperature for up to 2 days.  Rugelach dough can be frozen for up to 1 month without any adverse effects.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you may wonder what happened to Holly B’s Tuesdays.  I took a self-imposed hiatus for the craziness of the last two weeks.  I just didn’t think I could pile another cooking or baking responsibility on top of everything else I had going on.  But I am back on track with a new recipe, albeit one I have not tasted.

The wonderful bakery that is Holly B’s is not open during the winter.  Holly packs her family up and they head to the mountains sometime around the end of October and return to Lopez Island and the bakery sometime in the spring.  So I have never tasted her Christmas Stollen or her Gingerbread Men which will be featured here next week.  I have no doubts that they, along with just about everything else she makes, are delicious.  That is why I don’t hesitate to post this recipe even though I have never tasted it or tried to make it before.  I love things that can be kept in the freezer and Holly herself says that she bakes 25 each season and sends them to loved ones.  What else do we need to say?

One Year Ago:  Breton Apple Pie

Stollen
With Love & Butter
Makes 1 large loaf

It is hard to tell from the photo, but the loaf is about the size and shape of an American football.  Holly says that on Christmas morning she slices the Stollen, wraps it in foil, and heats it in a 325°F oven for 35 minutes.  Do not be intimidated by this recipe.  I put it together and got it in the oven while I was waiting for my 2.75 year old to finish his snack.

3/4 cup whole natural almonds
2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for kneading and shaping the dough
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cardamom
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
2 tbsp. rum
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
Grated zest of 1 lemon

Topping
2 tbsp. butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F with the rack in the center position.  Line a cookie sheet with baking parchment or grease lightly.

Place the almonds in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and pulse until finely chopped.  Set aside.  Replace the food processor bowl without washing.

Dump the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and butter into the food processor bowl.  Pulse until the butter is ut into the flour and reduced to pea-sized bits.  Transfer to a large mixing bowl.  Sit in the finely chopped almonds, currants, and raisins.

Again replace the food processor bowl without washing.  Add the cottage cheese.  Process until pureed, then add the egg, rum, vanilla, and almond extracts, and lemon zest.  Process until smooth.  Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and combine well.  Turn the dough onto a floured surface, scraping the bowl to get out any remaining bits.

Flour your hands and the dough.  Gently knead the dough into a round mound, then flatten int ot disk about 8 inches across and 1 inch thick.  Fold the dough into a taco shape, but with one ege not quite meeting the other.  Place on the prepared cookie sheet.

Bake the Stollen 20 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake another 20 to 30 minutes until a paring knife inserted between the “taco” edges comes out clean of gooey batter.  The top should be golden and bottom butterscotch brown.  Brush the hot Stollen with the melted butter and sprinkle the sugar on to coat (this seals the loaf for storage).  Remove to a rack.  When completely cool, wrap in 2 layers of plastic wrap and store, freeze, or package for shipping.

So here is something I have not told you all yet.  I have stopped cooking for my clients.  I no longer describe myself as a personal chef.  It started this past summer when our schedules were not aligning well and I decided it made sense to take a break until the fall.  Truthfully, I was glad to have the break.  I started my business when Graham was 18 months old and I cooked for my clients through my second pregnancy, nursing, and sleepless nights.  I cooked reliably and without a break (except for vacation) through the three most exhausting and challenging years of my life.

I loved having my business.  I loved the creativity and loved feeding people.  I know there are many of you out there who dream of being able to do what I did and I have gotten emails telling me so.  I know I was very fortunate to be able to follow my passion in the way that I did.  I just got burnt out.  It wasn’t the cooking or the feeding people, it was the menu planning, shopping, and stressing about finding the time to cook to the standard that I held myself.  My boys have always napped reliably and I have spent almost every single nap of their lives rushing around my kitchen like a mad woman.

Not that much has changed.  There is always something I am cooking for.  My visions of sitting on the couch eating bon bons while reading War and Peace are just that – visions.  I figure I’ll spend another year attempting to relax and then will probably dive back into the world of personal cheffing when my big boy goes to kindergarten next fall.

Randy would tell you the downside to me not being a personal chef anymore is the lack of cookies in our house.  Once a week, when I brought my clients dinner, I would also bring them a treat (hence the name of this blog).  Often those treats were cookies and we always had the leftovers in our cookie jar.  I am still baking plenty but not as many cookies.  Randy complains regularly about this fact.  So, I chose to make one of his favorite kinds – this time from Holly B.

I find Gingersnaps and all the other cookies that fall into the spicy molasses world to be a bit elusive.  I want the perfect one and I have never found it.  Chewy but not gooey.  Crisp around the edges, soft in the middle.  Really spicy and not too sweet.  Rich molasses flavor but not bitter.  Does that cookie exist?

This cookie is pretty close.  Flavor-wise it’s exactly what I want.  Just the right amount of spice with a strong molasses tang coming through.  For me, the texture is a little off, maybe just a bit too cakey and with too much puff.  Still, it’s a good recipe until I find my dream one.  Do you have a perfect gingersnap?  Care to share?

You can buy Holly’s cookbook by visiting this site.

One Year Ago:  Miso Carrot Sauce

Gingersnap Cookies
With Love & Butter
Makes a lot of cookies

3/4 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 stick margarine, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar, plus more for coating
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. molasses
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
5 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. allspice

Preheat the oven to 375 F with the rack in the top position.  Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease lightly.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the  butter, margarine, sugars, and molasses.  Add the eggs and egg yolk, mixing well.  Now add the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices and combine thoroughly, scraping the sides of the bowl several times with a rubber spatula.

Plop mounded teaspoonfuls of dough into a shallow bowl filled with about 1 cup of granulated sugar.  (DT: I made my cookies bigger and used a medium sized ice cream scoop.)  Roll the dough in the sugar until totally coated and shaped into a ball.  Space the balls 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheets, flattening the top of each cookie slightly with your fingers.

One pan at a time, bake the cookies for 5 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for 5 to 9 minutes.  The cookies will be done when they settle after puffing up.  If you like your gingersnaps extra crisp, bake a little longer.  Cool, then store in a container with a tight-fitting lid.