Candied Pecans

I often get mid-afternoon snack cravings - especially if I’m working at my desk and not doing something more interactive. Although I feast on an occasional muffin or chocolate (or pie if it's Pi(e) day at work!), I try to keep these snacks on the healthier side. Nuts are perfect to curb these cravings - rich in protein and the fibre is filling. Raw or toasted nuts are probably the best, but it’s fun to have flavored nuts once in a while. However, the store bought ones typically use a lot of oil for roasting - be it sweet or savory. In addition, the savory ones can have a lot of sodium and the sweet candied ones can often be way too sweet. Not ideal for a workday snack unless you want to risk a sugar crash!

The solution - make your own candied nuts at home with reduced sugar, without any added fats (the nuts provide enough healthy fats), and at a much lower price. The best part is how quick and easy this is. You’d go from plain old pecans to super delicious candied pecans in 5 minutes flat!

Ingredients

1 cup pecan halves

¾ - 1 Tbsp dark brown sugar

1-2 tsp water (enough to dissolve the sugar and make a thick concoction)

A small pinch of salt (optional)

½ tsp vanilla essence (optional)

Mix the sugar, water, salt, vanilla in a small bowl. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

In a nonstick pan over medium heat, toast the nuts for ~3 minutes stirring continuously until you get a nice nutty aroma. 

Take the pan off the heat and add the liquid mixture. It will start to evaporate immediately, so stir quickly to coat the nuts. Put the pan back on the stove and keep stirring for another minute or so until the liquid has evaporated and the sugar just begins to crystalize.

Take the pan off the heat and spread the nuts on a plate/cookie tray. Let them cool down completely before storing in an airtight container.

 

 ~Gayatri

 

Find us on Facebook:

Low sugar candied pecans with no added fat..http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2016/03/candied-pecans.html
Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Monday, March 14, 2016

Peanut Butter Truffles

One more day until Valentine's Day, and you know what that means....sweets! Though, to be honest, it doesn't have to be a holiday to want sweets. I get cravings for sweets all the time. And when I say “all the time” I really mean ALL THE TIME. Thankfully, I can restrain myself so that my indulging-to-craving ratio is relatively low. In an effort to reduce the guilt that sometimes accompanies those indulgences, I’ll try making treats that are a little less unhealthy (like these blueberry banana muffins made with whole wheat flour) or have some benefit to balance the sweet (such as these protein-packed peanut butter oat balls).

This recipe is based on the peanut butter and oat balls. I was actually aiming for a cake-pop type treat - a chocolate covered peanut butter ball on a stick. But, the consistency of these didn’t like the sticks very much, so I turned them into truffles! They are a little bit like buckeyes, but not as sugary-sweet, and they have flaxseed for a little extra fiber.

Ingredients: (makes ~20 truffles)

1 cup oats (I used ½ cup quick oats and ½ cup old-fashioned oats)

½ cup all natural creamy peanut butter

¼ - ½ cup ground flaxseed

⅓ cup honey or maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

~½ cup dark chocolate chips for coating

~¼ cup crushed peanuts for topping

In a large bowl, combine oats, flaxseed, peanut butter, honey, and vanilla, and mix well. Refrigerate for about half an hour to let the mixture firm up. Form balls about 1 inch in diameter.

Heat the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl for about 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until all the chips are melted. Dip the balls in chocolate and place them on a plate covered with plastic wrap. Sprinkle with the chopped peanuts. Refrigerate the balls to let the chocolate coating set. Serve the balls in individual mini-cupcake liners for a festive flare. Happy indulging!

~Karla

Find us on Facebook

A sweet treat for Valentine's Day!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2016/02/peanut-butter-truffles.html
Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Saturday, February 13, 2016

Cardamom, Pistachio & Rose Scones

Our scone flavor exploration continues! We’ve modified the same base scone recipe to incorporate both sweet and savory flavors, and this recipe is for another delicious sweet one. I have to say, so far this one if my favorite - not only does it taste great, it smells and looks great too! It’s not too uncommon to find cardamom, rose and pistachios together in some of the Indian desserts, but I was a little unsure of baking all these flavors into scones - a pastry that’s generally not very sweet. I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The scones are quite good on their own, but with the glaze and pistachio, rose petal topping, they are just perfect!

 

Ingredients

Click here for base ingredients

Add ins

1.5-2 tsp rose water

2 Tbsp chopped pistachio

½-1 tsp ground cardamom

Sugar glaze (optional)

¼ cup confectioners sugar

Few drops of rose water (optional)

1-2 tsp milk

Topping (optional)

~1 tsp chopped pistachio

~½ tsp dry rose petals (food grade)

Preheat oven to 425 F. Roughly chop the butter and rub it into the self rising flour until crumbly. Mix in the sugar, chopped pistachios, ground cardamom. Mix rose water with the milk and add it to the flour mixture. Combine to form a dough.

Divide the dough in half and roll it out into a circle, about ¾” thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Spread out the pieces on a greased baking sheet. Generously brush the tops and sides with milk. Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Topping!

The topping can be definitely be skipped, but it is certainly recommended. It elevates the flavors greatly! To make the glaze mix the cardamom powder and rose water with the powdered sugar. Mix it all up, and slowly add only enough milk to form a thin paste. Be careful not to add too much milk at once.

Drizzle a little bit of the glaze on the scones. Quickly sprinkle chopped pistachios and rose petals, and drizzle a little more glaze to make sure the toppings stick.

Enjoy the fragrant delicious scones with a hot cup of tea or coffee.

~Gayatri

Like us on Facebook:

Uniquely flavored, mildly sweet cardamom-pistachio-rose scones - perfect for afternoon tea (or cocoa or coffee)!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/08/cardamom-pistachio-rose-scones.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Sunday, August 9, 2015

Blueberry Banana Muffins

I often find myself in the position of trying to make use of super ripe bananas in creative ways, such as banana chips, oatmeal, or rolled up and baked in a pie crust with walnuts and brown sugar, kind of like an empanada. Most often, though, I make some sort of banana bread treat - banana split bars, banana bread, banana bread with walnuts, banana muffins (with or without nuts and/or chocolate chips), chocolatey-banana muffins...lots of banana-bread-type stuff, many of which use the same basic recipe. Recently I made blueberry banana muffins, which got some pretty great reviews! Here’s my tried-and-true banana bread recipe with a blueberry twist.

Ingredients: (about 2 dozen muffins, or 2 loaves)

Basic recipe:

2 cups whole wheat flour

⅛ tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup butter/margarine (I used ¾ cup canola oil, ¼ cup applesauce)

2 cups sugar (I used half white and half loosely-packed brown sugar)

4 medium bananas, ripe

4 eggs, beaten (I used EggBeaters)

Optional add-ins:

~¾-1 cup blueberries (I used frozen - no need to defrost)

~¾-1 cup chopped walnuts

~¾-1 cup dark chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350F. In a small bowl, coarsely mash the bananas.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together butter/margarine and sugar until smooth. Stir in bananas and eggs and mix until well-blended.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Stir in your add-ins of choice (this time I only used blueberries for the add-in). 

Spoon the batter into a lined muffin pan, filling each cup about ⅔-¾ full. Bake 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

If you want to make bread loaves instead of muffins, divide batter into 2 greased 4"x8" loaf pans and bake 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Let cool before serving.

~Karla


Like us on Facebook:
 

Simple and versatile banana bread recipe in the form of delicious moist blueberry banana muffins!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/06/blueberry-banana-muffins.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Monday, June 29, 2015

Orange-glazed Cranberry Orange Bread

A Cooks of Cake and Kindness Culinary Experience Part III: To round out our 3-course dinner of Portabella mushroom caps and Spaghetti and No-Meat Balls, we finished off with a deliciously tangy citrus dessert - certainly a departure from our typical chocolate-based choices! Not only did we have our hungry dinner party to feed (who, by this time, had a high expectation for dessert!), but we also promised one of our coworkers some baked goods, so we ended up making 1.5x the original recipe, resulting in some of the odd ingredient quantities seen below.

 

Ingredients

2¼ cups all-purpose flour (we would typically do a partial substitution with whole wheat flour, but this was our first time making this bread so we didn't want to try anything too radical)

¾ tsp salt (more like just a pinch)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1.5 cups brown sugar

zest of 1-2 large oranges (we had clementines on hand, so we used the zest from 5 of them)

1⅛ cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own: 1 cup buttermilk = 1 cup milk + ~1 TBSP vinegar. Let it sit for a few minutes until the milk curdles)

¾ cup canola oil

3 large eggs, slightly beaten (we used egg-beaters)

1.5 TSBP orange juice

¾ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh cranberries (we used dried cranberries, soaked in warm water for about 30 minutes)

4 mini-loaf pans or 2 4x8 loaf pans (we made one larger and 2 mini loaves)

For orange glaze: ½-1 cup powdered sugar + 1-2 TBSP buttermilk + 1 tsp orange zest (or more if you want more orange flavor)

 

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease loaf pans and set them aside.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate small bowl, combine sugar and orange zest (rub them together with your fingers to better infuse the orange flavor), then add to the flour mixture.

In another bowl, mix buttermilk, oil, eggs, orange juice, and vanilla. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Drain the cranberries, then mix them into the batter. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pans, filling each pan until they are about ⅘ full.

Bake 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The larger loaves will take about 5-10 minutes longer than the small loaves. Once the bread is done baking, remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes.

While the bread is cooling, mix together the glaze. In a small bowl, start with 1 TBSP buttermilk and ½ cup powdered sugar and about 1 tsp orange zest. Whisk together until the glaze is smooth. Adjust the quantity of sugar and buttermilk as needed.

Drizzle the glaze over the bread. We did this in 2 steps: for the first, we drizzled enough to cover the top of the loaf, then waited about 10 minutes for this first layer of glaze to set. For the next application, we drizzled the glaze in a zig-zag or scribble pattern and let it set.

When you're ready for a sweet but tangy citrus dessert, slice and serve!

~Karla