Date Walnut Granola Bars

 I'm a little behind with my blogging these days. Working 10 hour days leaves little time for writing and even less for baking, but fear not, I've managed to squeeze in a little time in the kitchen over the past few weeks! Being constantly on the go has left me in need of quick snacks that travel easily and not being a fan of things like prepackaged bars I had been hoping to make some healthy granola bars myself. I'd been on the hunt for awhile looking for one that called for ingredients I already had (we're on a budget here!) that wasn't just some sad combination of peanut butter and oats mushed together and refrigerated. In swoops Mama Bear with a recipe from her Looneyspoons Collection cookbook!

 

This recipe calls for oats, whole wheat flour, honey, pumpkin and just a smidge of butter among other things. I adapted the recommended fruits and nuts to suit my tastes and came up with two variations: Date-Walnut, and Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond. Personally, I have to say I prefer the Date-Walnut as the dark chocolate seems to overwhelm the subtle cinnamon flavour, but both are delicious and have received the Non Healthy Eater Seal of Deliciousness from my coworkers.

DATE WALNUT GRANOLA BARS

(For chocolate cherry simply sub 1/2 cup each of mini chocolate chips, chopped almonds and dried cherries for dates and walnuts)

Dry ingredients: date-walnut in the front.

2 ½ cups quick-cooking oats (not instant)

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

¾ cup chopped walnuts

¾ cup chopped dates

⅓ cup + 2 tbsp whole wheat flour

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

¾ cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling!!)

½ cup liquid honey

¼ cup butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla 

Preheat your oven to 350°F (180ºC). Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper, letting the paper overhang on two opposite sides. 

Right out of the oven!

Combine the first 9 ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, honey, butter and vanilla and pour over dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon mix thoroughly until dry ingredients are coated with pumpkin mixture. Make sure there aren’t any dry oats in the bottom of the bowl! 

Pour the wet granola mixture into the prepared pan and spread it evenly to the edges. Using your hand, press down firmly on the granola so that it’s tightly packed in the pan.

Bake on the middle rack of your oven for about 25 minutes, until top turns a light golden brown and feels dry to touch. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack. Lift cooled slab of granola from pan by holding on to parchment paper and transfer to a cutting board. Using a large, sharp knife, cut the granola into 16 bars, about 1½ x 4 inches each.

Original recipe can be found here. 

Happy Snacking! 

-Holly            

                                                                             

This Bread is Bananas

I have discovered the mother of all banana breads which is very poetical as the plethora of bananas I used to make it came from my mother. At the end of her visit in London she found herself loaded with very ripe bananas destined for the bin. Not one to waste anything and being an avid baker herself she bestowed them upon me to freeze and use for later baking endeavours. As my time in this particular flat in London is coming to an end I needed to use them up stat. I'm having trouble as it is finding storage for the things I'm not willing to lug back and forth without adding a small corner of the freezer for five overly ripe bananas to the list of requests. I searched my beloved Pinterest for banana bread recipes and was, of course, drawn to the one with cinnamon and sugar. Also I was too cheap to go buy chocolate chips. 

It turned out so moist, and delicious that I ended up using the remaining bananas originally allocated to try a different recipe to make a second batch weeks later. It was a huge hit with all who tried it. One friend even exclaimed that it was so good she felt she should've paid £5 for it. I informed her she was welcome to, but sadly it never came to be. 

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread
Original Recipe courtesy of Shari Blogs

3 medium or 2 large overripe bananas, smashed

(if you freeze and thaw them before smashing it makes the bread nice and moist)

1/3 cup melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg, beaten

2 tsp milk or almond milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

dash of salt

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 cup bread flour

CINNAMON SUGAR

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC)
2. Line a 9x5 inch loaf pan with grease proof (parchment) paper
3. Melt the butter and let stand while you mix the bananas, egg, sugar, milk and vanilla. Mix in melted butter.
4. Gently stir in baking soda, salt and flour just until combined. If you over mix it will lose it's fluffiness. 
5. In a separate dish combine cinnamon and sugar.
6. Pour half the banana batter into your loaf pan and sprinkle it with half your cinnamon mix.
7. Add the remaining banana batter topping with the rest of the cinnamon sugar.
8. Bake for 40-50 minutes depending on your oven. It should be just to the point where a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean for optimal texture. 

-Holly

Wherefore art thou, Sconeo?

  A couple of weeks ago I got a hankering for a cinnamon raisin scone. Such cravings are not strange for me, but the thing about my cravings is that they are very specific and the standard for satisfying them is very high. Thus, I spent weeks searching high and low for the perfect cinnamon raisin scone to pacify me. Being in London, I thought I'd have no trouble, but alas, a grocery store scone was not going to cut it, and I couldn't find a bakery that carried them. I even went to afternoon tea at a hotel hoping they would be there, but alas, it was not to be. I soon realized that if I was going to find the scone of my dreams, I was going to have to get over my anxiety of baking in my unfamiliar London kitchen, buy some ingredients and do it myself.

   I didn't have a recipe in mind so I did what all Martha's in the making do and turned to Pinterest. My criteria were simple; fewest number of ingredients I had to purchase, ease of execution. I managed to save a few pounds, and storage space by turning a roasting pan upside down instead of purchasing a baking tray. Necessity is the mother of invention, as is being cheap. I found the one and after enjoying the fruits of my long labour I am convinced that it is, in fact, The One. The results were everything I had hoped for, crumbly, warm, delicious cinnamony goodness. So good, I ate three and had to immediately bag up the rest and pop them in the freezer or else I would've been going back to them every hour on the hour until they were finished!

   You can find the recipe below, I followed it pretty much to the letter with the exception of substituting soy milk for milk (I can only handle so much dairy). I also added an extra 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and skipped the chocolate chips. I'm a big believer in keeping things simple and classic and adding anything to the already delectable combination of cinnamon and raisin seems unnecessary to me, but hey, that's just me, you do you.

The recipe:

http://www.crunchycreamysweet.com/2013/10/08/brown-sugar-cinnamon-raisin-scones-recipe/

-Holly