Here’s the breakfast bread our supporters are eating this month. Each loaf is filled with house made apple butter, roasted pumpkin, and sprouted wheat and oats. These demi-loaves are moist with just enough sweetness for breakfast or a late night snack. They are filled with sprouted whole grain goodness so they are good for you, and around here proceeds from all sales pay for Thanksgiving dinner at our local drop in center. What could be more delicious than that? Try making a batch for the hungry kids in your house or neighborhood!…
Archives for November 2015
Apple Butter
It’s ok to give yourself a gift every now and then. For me, loading the freezer with apple butter each fall is a gift to myself for the winter. Apple butter sweetens most of the quick breads we make during the winter for bake sales and cooking classes, and it’s also the key ingredient in a lot of our snowy day pancake recipes at home. Every year on one of these late fall weekends, I’ll head to Tower Grove and buy as many varieties of local apples as I can find. If I can talk the kids into picking the apples at a local orchard, all the better. Then I’ll spend a lazy afternoon peeling apples and listening to great music on the patio. I toss the apples and spices into my big dutch oven and forget about it. The apple butter cooks itself overnight, slowly filling the house with the aroma of happy days ahead. Make enough to eat on pancakes this weekend and freeze the rest in half cup containers for baking. You’ll thank yourself this winter….
Be a Good Cookie!
The history of the cookie swap in this country is about sharing more than cookies. It’s about sharing recipes and stories and time as well. It’s about making your best and then giving it away, hoping that someone else will love it as much as you do. That’s why it was so much fun to participate in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap to raise money for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer this year. This great organization encourages all bakers to “be a good cookie” and raise money to help end childhood cancers. The organization’s founders are fellow believers that a batch of cookies made with love really can change a kid’s life, so it was a joy to bake with them this year. For the big event, I tweaked one of our classic Little Flour cookie recipes by adding sweet dried bing cherries to our dark chocolate and toasted coconut cookie batter. The recipe makes eight dozen cookies so it’s perfect for cookie swaps, teacher thank you gifts, and sharing with friends. The toasted coconut infused dough is delicious and adaptable. You can use milk, dark or semi-sweet chocolate or a blend all three. Little Flour supporters love them with dried bing cherries this time of year, and that’s the way we made them for the swap, but you can also use blueberries or no fruit at all (as my true chocoholic family still prefers). No matter what you choose to add to the dough, the real fun is in giving them away. Enjoy!
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