Oaty Crunch Cereal

I don't know about you, but I love my porridge, especially on these cold, damp, windy, dark winter mornings....so it also goes that I like oats. And usually cereals, but not the cardboardy kind that taste as bad as the box they are in likely tastes.

A few days ago, I had a memory of eating something crunchy, sweet and oaty for breakfast - that wasn't muesli. It was a roasted oat cereal that was really nice for a change from the usual fare and ever so ever simple to make.

I set about working on a recipe to call my own and having a few taste testing mornings (and evenings!) with everyone. The following recipe is the one we all loved - it wasn't overly sweet, or too oaty or not filling enough - it was just right.

To make this cereal:

3 cups oats

1 cup chopped pecans

6 tablespoons goat's melted butter 

6 tablespoons maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch salt

Preheat your oven to about 150C and prepare a large baking tray by covering it with a sheet of parchment paper. 

Mix all of your ingredients together in a deep bowl taking care to make sure all the oats are well coated with the butter and maple syrup. It should not be overly wet.

Then spread out the mixture evenly over the baking sheet and place in the hot oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. After 15 minutes or so, give it a little stir to ensure browning throughout. Then leave in the oven until it takes on a golden colour. 

I turned off the oven after 30 minutes and left the cereal to cool on the tray. Once cool I broke it up into clumps and stored in an air tight jar until we were ready to use it. This is lovely with goat's milk, a few fresh berries or chopped apple and of course on it's own.

It will keep for a couple of weeks like this - but it doesn't last long as it tastes so good!

April

Oaty Crunch Cereal

An Imperfect Cookie - Bliss

Right now I am eating (another) an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie - it is so tasty, I am even overlooking the fact that it's a little crumbly. How are cookies supposed to be anyway - I mean what are we comparing them to? 

Perhaps our 'ideal' for nearly any foods these days is to compare it to something perfectly round, flat, held together and uniform in every other way from a factory machine. Of course along with that perfect cookie comes the extra ingredients that are put in to get the desired effect.

Nothing like that with homemade foods - this cookie I am munching on right now is not uniform in any way - each one looks different. They are slightly crumbly from the use of only oat flour and oats and I probably put in way too many raisins. 

I like them that way.

Of course, you can't compare a homemade anything with a factory made something else - because the energy of the food is so very different. Whenever someone asks me what my secret ingredient is for my lovely cakes and cookies - I always say it is butter and love. 

So, with that in mind here is my recipe for these Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (as it stands right now).

3/4 cup butter

1 duck egg

2 cups oat flour

1 1/2 cups oats

3/4 cup raisins

1/3 cup honey or Maple Syrup

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon or all spice

1/2 tsp baking powder

salt (pinch)

2/3 cup nuts (optional)

Place all dry ingredients into a deep bowl and sift together to mix well. In the meantime melt the butter over low heat in a small sauce pan, put the honey in with it and mix. Beat the egg into submission in a separate bowl.

Once the flour is mixed, add the butter and egg - keep mixing until well coated. Then add in raisins and nuts if desired. This mixture should be thick and not runny - because each flour absorbs liquid differently, adjust quantities if needed. 

Spoon out large spoonfuls of the dough onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper and bake at 175C for about 12-14 minutes or so. Don't leave too long as they will be too dry and don't take out too soon as they will be doughy in the middle. 

These are fabulous with a cup of dandelion coffee! And you will have made them yourself...bypassing the food processing, perfect cookie route to enjoy imperfection at it's finest!

April 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie 

Cinnamon Cake - Loved it!

A few posts ago, I mentioned how I was having a cake week - it was during my last Master Cleanse, I made a few cakes and put them in the freezer because I was in the mood for baking that week. Well, last Sunday I took out a piece of the cinnamon cake I had made and it was one of the nicest cakes I have ever tasted....

We all enjoyed it - I even kept wondering if it had improved with the freezing process (not likely) but it was so moist, tasty and light.  Well, because of all that - I wanted to recreate it and of course see if I could improve on it. 

You know, make it even better, if that was possible. 

It is a challenge to make these things when I don't use sugar, wheat flour and anything processed - we have become so accustomed to those flavours, we often feel at a loss when trying to find ingredients to use in place of this. 

And for me, it has been over 8 years since I ate sugar, wheat, cows milk, caffeine or many other of these foods - and I still have to stop and think about replacement ingredients for certain foods I want to make. Yet, I know that is also part of the process here, find the old ways some of these recipes were made or come up with new ones.

I am never one to back down from a challenge, so in wanting to improve on an already great recipe for the cinnamon cake I decided what it needed was something like a coffee cake crumble over the top. Only it would be without the sugar....

I went back to the drawing board here and made my cake with the standard fare - 2 duck eggs, 1 cup milk, 3 cups spelt flour, 1/2 cup butter, baking soda etc. But then I added in 1 cup of ground almonds, 1 cup apple butter and extra cinnamon with some of our own honey.

These ingredients were all mixed in a deep bowl to form the cake batter which I then poured into a bundt pan. For the topping, I mixed up 3/4 cup oats, butter, milk, cinnamon and maple syrup in a small bowl. It did not look like quite enough, I could have done with more, but I thought it would give me an idea of how this would taste.

I crumbled the topping mixture over top of the batter and then placed it in a hot oven for about 40 minutes or so. Once it was cool I could not wait to taste how this one turned out - I tried to stick to my original recipe (thank goddess I keep notes!) so I hoped it would be as nice as the last one.

It was better! I loved it. Tonight I made a little icing (didn't need it but what the hell!) from creamed goats cheese and maple syrup to drizzle over each slice. It was delicious - my new favorite recipe, for today anyway!! LOL

April

Cinnamon cake with crumble topping

From Leftover Apples to Apple Crumble

You know how I don't like to see old fruit sitting in the bowl going off - it is just begging to have something done with it because I am reluctant to put it in the compost. So, my week has been one of learning to trust myself even more in the kitchen.

I had these very large sweet apples - 5 of them and wondered for a couple of days what to make. We have lots of apple sauce and apple butter so it was decided to make an apple cobbler. But I wasn't exactly sure what the end result would be, so I just started in and where I ended up was a complete surprise!

The apples were cooked with cinnamon, a little lemon juice, maple syrup with a sprinkle of corn starch and vanilla essence in at the last minute. I let them bubble away for about 10 minutes until they were just soft and the liquid had thickened somewhat.

In the meantime I had the oven preheated to about 175 degrees C and a baking dish coated with butter. I spooned with a large ladle the apple mixture into this baking dish, smoothing it out on top. 

Using a deep bowl, I wanted to make some kind of a topping for this cobbler - I ended up with 3/4 cup of spelt flour, 1/2 cup of oats, 3 tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup of maple syrup - all mixed and formed into a little ball.

I wanted to cover as much of the top of the apples as possible, so I flattened this dough out and starting at the middle of the dish, I spread out the oat mixture covering the apples until only the edge was left open.

Next, this went into the hot oven for about 20 minutes or so. When I took it out, the apples were were bubbling and golden brown on top. The smell was incredible and the apple sauce had thickened up a little more.

Apple Cobbler or something similar! 

I served it as it was, hot with a cup of dandelion coffee. It was the most delicious tasting dessert I have had in a very long time! Delightful when things turn out well.

Perhaps I should do a little more experimenting...

Have a tasty day,

April

Making Crackers...

If you have never made your own crackers, you don't know what you are missing! Anything else that you might buy from a shop is tasteless and bland by comparison. Homemade crackers are a delightful treat and so easy to make.

This is the number one item on my list (well, next to bread) when I ask myself, where has it all gone wrong for us to believe that we should be buying these foods? Something as simple as a cracker actually has flavour, taste, texture and life in it when it is made by hand and not by some machine. 

This morning I wanted to make a few for our lunch and set to work with a plan to make some spelt and oat crackers which are actually fun to make and everyone can get involved. The wonderful thing about nice crackers is that there are so FEW ingredients. 

Today the sun was shining (this is getting to be rare enough) and I did not want to spend too much time in the house baking - so these were made early in the day.

Measuring all the ingredients into the bowl

The type of crackers I made today are perhaps the most complicated ones that I make and even then there are only a few items that you will need. To make these crackers I used spelt flour, oats, butter, oil, milk, soda and then the toppings (poppy seed, thyme, sea salt).

Cracker dough ready to roll out

The element that I wanted to include here is one of fun - that was the word that I was trying to find for these last few weeks while I have been writing this blog and recording my experiences in the kitchen. Added into the taste, flavour,  and texture of these crackers is the fact that we always have fun making them, with the children watching the oven waiting for them to be done and helping out. 

Many hands helping out! 

Of course you will also get all sorts of interesting shapes, thickness, sizes and variation in the toppings which makes these fun to eat. I think they look great on a plate and at our house, they do not last long. The length of time in the oven will also give variation on the crispness, so each batch is likely to be slightly different, but always good.

Homemade crackers as they cool 

There are many kinds of crackers to make, and I also make a type of cracker from time to time with only spelt flour, oil, sea salt and water as these taste very nice with soft goat's cheese. A few weeks ago I was needing graham crackers for my son's birthday cheesecake, I refused to buy them, so, I made them myself. They were lovely also and I plan to make some more soon. 

When it comes to crackers, you have to give this a try - they really do taste much better homemade.

Have a lovely day,

April