No-Bake Chocolate Oat Bars

Now officially working three jobs, my baking time has sadly dwindled into a few remaining evening and weekend hours. (You know, the ones that are also occupied with walking the dog, preparing meals, fitting in exercise, time with friends and family, and catching up on my reality TV marathons). Luckily, summer days are longer and, hey, I’m getting paid to teach elementary school kids—that thing I’m trying to do as a career (until I open my own bake shop).

Like many of my recipes, this was inspired by one that my mom often made in the warm summer months for my sister and I. It doesn’t require an oven—just the melting together of cocoa, sugar, and (in my case) coconut butter on the stove before stirring in a few other basic ingredients. From what I can gather, no-bake cookies are a Midwest thing, usually with peanut butter and butter, and dropped in dollops onto cookie sheets to harden. Besides the obvious axing of the butter, I opted for almond butter over peanut (it’s just what I had on hand) and poured it all into a square baking dish, resulting in even-easier-to-make bars. The first time I made them they lacked a little something, so I added chopped nuts for more texture and kick of flavor. Go ahead, try them!

Rich and Moist Chocolate Swirl Cake with Peanut Butter Glaze

I meant to make two yummy little breakfast bowls—a cozy breakfast for two. A warm, vanilly, spiced bowl of quinoa, sparkled with a dazzle of summer cherries and a pretty little ribbon of pecans sprinkled across the top. In fact, I did make this. I stirred it, warmed it, and served it up, only to come face to face with what actually became my morning…and then the rest of the tear-filled, dramatic (maybe a touch overly so), everything-I-thought-I knew-was-suddenly-unsure day. A day that called for something sinful, decadent, and (forget the sweet) bitter—a chocolatiness that the sheer baking of it made me feel like I was creating a dark (albeit extremely yummy) illustration of how I felt: depressed and very, very angry.

But I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Peanut-Butter Frosted Chocolate Cake

(Trust me, it’s all about the frosting)

It’s been a bittersweet week. I’ve finally wrapped up my year of student teaching, and am all but officially a credentialed teacher in the state of California. It’s exhilarating, and I’m ready to move on, but at the same time it’s terrifying to look ahead toward absolutely zero job openings for new teachers, unemployment still rampant, and a whole summer without seeing my hilarious fourth graders. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I didn’t even make it halfway through the whole day without crying. My master teacher actually presented me a gift in front of the class, which included an Anthroplogie (!) gift certificate (aka my favorite of all favorite stores), and a little accordion-like book with pages created by each student, complete with their pictures and drawings. Tears. Some of my favorite gems, straight off the pages:

* “I learned from you how to be shareful.”
* “Yo quiero que te seas una maestra aqui.” (One of my students who learned English this year. She was my little Spanish teacher. Lucky for her, she picked up ingles much quicker than I improved my espanol)
* “You taught me to grafe.” (Perhaps I should have spent more time on spelling?)

I will miss you, my little estudiantes.

Along the bittersweet theme, boyfriend lost his job (someone made a BIG mistake, releasing that one). The good news is that this means he can come back from Michigan to the sunny Bay Area (woot), but now he’s got to find a new one somewhere, somehow. Hopefully it happens easily and close by (I’m confident that it will ☺ ).

Amid all this my sister ALSO lost her job. Luckily, I had stayed the night with her to attend a CPR class in her neighborhood, so when she got off of her (surprise) last day of work, we promptly zoomed across the Bay Bridge and landed straight in my kitchen to do the very best thing of all for lifting spirits (other than drinking about a bajillion Patron and sodas, which we also promptly got down to): We fired up the oven, broke out the bundt pan, and whipped up a bittersweet (I love themes) peanut-butter-cup inspired bundt cake.

Dairy-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies...With a Twist

My understanding of the power in a homemade cookie dawned on me when I was eight.

My Ohio-born mother, whose attitude toward the California natural-food obsession remains at best respectfully disinclined, allowed my younger sister and I to stay home from school with minor colds. After resting on our old couch for a few hours, sniffly and bored, she coaxed us into the kitchen, placed each of us on stepping stools and began a batch of our favorite-chocolate chip, oatmeal, and rice crispy-cookies. It was our cure-all, and one that she continues to prescribe to the kids in her life today.

As my sister and I grew up, young neighbors started knocking on the door, begging to come over and bake with my mom. Today she holds her two-year-old nephew on her hip as she takes out little spoonfuls of dough for him to taste and gives him handfuls of chips to toss into the bowl.

Respected chefs often, nearly entirely, omit the cookie from their menus. Instead, diners are forced to navigate dessert options like “peerless organic coffee and mocha soufflé” (at San Francisco’s Carnelian Room) and “coconut vacherin with passion fruit ice cream and kiwi sherbet” (at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse). No comfy cookies there.

Even today, two decades later, my mom and I can barely get through a weekend together without devising some excuse to bake. The process is inherently uniting and restorative: White, powdery flour. Coarse sugar. Creamy butter. Stir. Eggs and vanilla. Stir. Flour and baking soda and salt. Stir. Chocolate. Stir. Then the baker digs in, pulls pieces out of the moist dough, and forms them into balls. Each mound is handled and shaped by her two hands. Each ball’s very form, whether big or small, lopsided or lacking in chips, is entirely her own. Or, in our case, our own.

Today most of my homemade cookies are neatly stacked, wrapped in parchment paper and carefully placed into tins, in which they’re brought over to a friend’s apartment, given away in a giant bundle, or even shipped around the world. (Alas, a girl can only eat so many cookies.) The moist-in-the-middle and just crispy enough to require a bit of a bite around the outside treats are now my gifts. Handed over in exchange for watching someone else enjoy them as much as I do, as a thank you, a nice-to-meet-you, an I’m sorry, or a just-because.

They’re something so simple, a cookie--the word has a straightforward idea attached to it--and they’re more. They’re pretty little things that have a history, accumulated thought, feelings and affection.
And you can’t find that in any flourless dark chocolate, whipped hazelnut crème fraiche torte.

This is my mother's not-so-secret recipe. They're chocolate chip, they're oatmeal, and they have rice crispies in them (sounds strange, but trust it)--all together they leave people asking how on earth you made something so magical. And guess what? They're just as good dairy free.

Rosemary Lemon Bread

I've become slightly stuck on rosemary lately. After buying a bunch at the store, I decided to see how my love for the buttery flavored herb transitioned to baked goods. The outcome? Rosemary lemon bread--made bready thanks to my new standby, coconut flour.

The are definitely a bit more grown up--not the treat to serve to little kids or someone looking for a sweet, dessert-like bread. However, they're incredibly flavorful without being super sweet and are much more interesting than the usual banana bread. This recipe is definitely a keeper in my collection. Enjoy!

Nutty Banana Muffins

Continuing onward with my almond flour experiment, I decided to use some to whip up some nutty, dairy-free (obviously) breakfast muffins. Inspired by the fabulous Elana’s Pantry blog (a must-read for anyone looking for white flour alternatives or just loves beautiful pictures of cupcakes), I added a little arrowroot powder into my almond flour. Let me tell you, that woman knows her cakes. These muffins taste like muffins—springy texture, moist with banana, and filled with the occasional bite from the crunchy peanut butter I used.

Double Coconut Muffins

These dairy-free and gluten-free muffins use the two newest ingredients I’ve run across whilst spending way too much time and money in Whole Foods: coconut oil, which I’m now using as a butter substitute, and coconut flour, which may be my new favorite gluten-free flour. It isn’t dry, and it holds together well—meaning baked goods don’t crumble at first touch, which is always a positive.

These muffins are much more dense and less cakey than the traditional blueberry or banana, making them more filling—more of a cross between a muffin and a biscuit. Whatever you call them, they’re super tasty with a little almond butter or agave spread on top. The flavor isn’t overwhelmingly coconutty, although adding some more shredded coconut into the batter in the last step would bump up this flavor even more.

Winter-is-Over Agave Citrus Jam

We’re nearing the end of citrus season, so I recently bought a giant sack of my favorite winter fruit, cuties. The problem is, since the boyfriend recently moved to Michigan for the baseball season, I’m going through food a whole lot slower than usual. I looked at my huge bag of little cuties in the fridge and realized there was just no way I could finish all of them before they shrivel up into moldy balls. So I decided to make jam—and enjoy them all through summer.

Of course, traditional jam recipes are loaded with sugar and chemicals, which basically negates all the benefits of the fresh fruit. I decided to try it with just agave nectar, the fruit, and nothing more. The consistency wasn’t exactly that of store-bought jam, but it made a slightly more viscous (is that a gross word to use when talking about food?) spread that works just as well in terms of adding fruity flavor to toast, oatmeal, or muffins. The flavor is more balanced between the tart of the citrus and the sweet of agave, making it really feel like I’m eating those little cuties atop my toast.

Olive Oil Corn Muffins

Olive oil in a muffin? I was doubtful at first, too, but this recipe, inspired by one from Giada’s Kitchen: New Italian Favorites, packs both unique flavor and moist texture. After taking a bit, the first taste will be the sweet citrus and the bite of fresh corn, followed by the olive oil’s fruitiness.

Dairy Free Zucchini Muffins

Continuing my oat flour experimentation, I decided to try a few more batches of muffins. I’m always trying to eat more veggies, and shredding some into ooey, gooey batter is the sweetest way I’ve found to do this yet. Oh, and after tasting these little puppies, I now officially take back what I said about oat flour—these turned out incredibly moist. I’m sorry, oat flour. Can we be friends? 

Mother’s Day Dairy-Free Banana Bread

Nothing says thanks for ensuring that I didn’t turn out a pregnant teen or Republican like a made-with-love loaf of bread. (It also says, “I’m poor,” but the belly-warming slices spread with (vegan) butter should sufficiently distract from that whole issue.)

This is my take on a classic banana bread—one of the early baking projects I made as a child with my mom, standing on a stool to reach the kitchen counter. This week I’m experimenting with oat flour, recommended constantly in one of my favorite healthy-eating books SkinnyGirl Dish. I want to like oat flour, since it doesn’t seem to require all the extras that other gluten free ones do, but I recently tried making a batch of cookies with it, and they turned out very dry. So, for this loaf, I used over half oat flour and the rest traditional white flour—and it turned out just as moist as it’s supposed to be. I’d like to tinker my way out of all of the processed white flour, and will try to do this with my two recipes this next week.

What else, what else? As always, substitutions are at the bottom of the recipe. If you’re like me, and, well, hurting a bit in your financial sector, this is an economical and thoughtful gift to make for this Sunday.

No-Butter Nutty Rice Crispie Treats aka Avalanche Bars

This week I realized that I had two care packages to send off. One for a friend in Colorado who was an AMAZING host a few weeks ago, and another for the boyfriend’s little sister whose 22nd birthday is next week.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet (as though more than my three faithful friends are reading this), but my part-time job in college was—that’s right—a counter girl at a local gourmet chocolate and sweets shop. Did I eat so much that I would have been the store’s best customer had I actually paid for any of it? Obviously. While it was no good for my morality as an employee (The truth: One does not get sick of chocolate when surrounded by it every day), I spent my days surrounded by caramels, dipped strawberries, truffles and creative concoctions like triple-dipped chocolate pretzels and tiger bark (Don’t. Even. Ask.).

One of my favorite chocolate-shop confections (that I’ve made regularly up through today) is one that we called Avalanche Bars. These nutty treats put a spin on traditional rice crispie squares by filling them with a natural disaster’s worth of marshmallows and mini-chocolate chips, held together by—not butter—peanut butter.

Send these in a care package and the recipient with definitely feel the love—no matter how far they’ve got to travel.

Berry Breakfast Scone Cookies

Scones have been one those gorgeous breakfast pastries that that I’ve had to learn to live without since becoming lactose intolerant. Well, now I can have my digestive health and my scones, too. Inspired by a raspberry scone recipe in the bible of all vegan and gluten-free cookbooks, Babycakes, I decided to whip up a version of the classic pastry sans cream and butter. Since it’s not quite summer, and I didn’t have any fresh berries on hand, I used some organic frozen blueberries and raspberries. Any mixture of fresh or frozen berries would work.

Also, these aren’t technically scones—I decided not to bother with the whole cutting and shaping process. These no-regrets, dairy-free scones look more like cookies, but they have the light and fulfilling texture and fresh flavor of a satisfying morning pastry.

The one rule that you absolutely must, must, MUST stick by: Do not overmix!

Blueberry Streusel-Topped Squares

Baking these fruity bars got me excited the way baking is supposed to—a few relatively easy steps left me with a fresh-tasting, melt-in-your-mouth cookie that looks gorgeous on the plate (though you may not be able to tell this from my sorry photography skills). And that vegan butter I was talking about last week? I’m officially a huge fan. I used it in these cookies and they came out rich and, well—for lack of a better word—buttery, like shortbread is supposed to taste. All it takes is whipping up a single type of dough for the top and bottom layers and cooking up a fruit filling while the crust cooks. Easy as pie. I mean, uh, cookie bars.

Hazelnut Meringue Cookies

I spent last weekend in Eugene, Oregon, and fell in love with the locally grown hazelnuts that they serve on everything. A roasted hazelnut has such a nutty, rich taste that’s unlike any other nut. Obviously, this inspired me to come home and experiment with a hazelnut baked good. I adapted a meringue cookie recipe to make it dairy free by using some vegan butter, which was a first for me. I’ve shied away from using this up until now, but the cookies actually turned out really well in terms of texture. I may just be a vegan butter convert.

The Coffee Cake that Wasn't

Yes, I posted a pretty picture of a beach to distract from the fact that I have no baked good to write about at the moment. (It's Hawaii. Oh, how I wish I was in Hawaii.)

My commitment is to bake two new creations per week. Being someone who responds well to schedules and goals that can be neatly checked off on a list, I obviously planned a second baked good for last week: coffee cake. I scoured recipe books for inspiration and wrote out my own version. I substituted canola oil for the butter (a poor girl’s coconut oil). I created a crumb topping with espresso powder, almond meal, and more canola oil. It was crumbly and sweet, and that’s where I should have stopped.

The tricky part, for me at least, when it comes to gluten- and dairy-free baking is that one slight mis-substitution can throw the whole thing off. Patience is key—testing one substitution at a time to preserve the texture and flavor of the original dish is essential. Patience, unfortunately, isn’t one of my strong suits.

I got excited. My crumb topping tasted so crumbly-coffee-delicious that I got ambitious—why use an egg when I had some applesauce in the fridge that I could sub it out for? That would make the cake vegan. Why use half garbanzo flour and half regular when I could use all garbanzo? (Forget the whole idea about gradually experimenting with it to preserve the texture.) Then I’d have a gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan cake. I tossed in applesauce, agave nectar, garbanzo flour, vanilla, and—hey, why not—some chopped up chocolate for good measure.

Well, what I came out with, despite prolonging the cooking time by 15 minutes (jiggly when poked), and then 15 more minutes (still jiggly when poked), so closely resembled the original dough (albeit with some hardened, brown edges) that I was able to mix it around the pan like it was dough when I finally gave up and took it out.

So, while there was no second recipe posting this week, it’s not for lack of planning or trying. The dough, however, is resting and waiting in a plastic container in my freezer. It will make a reappearance in a crust or crumb topping sometime very soon.

Homemade (Healthier and Yummier) Granola

Since I’m heading off to Oregon this weekend, what more appropriate food to bake and bring along than granola? I never was much of a granola person (too many long, sugar-ridden ingredients in the store-bought stuff), but I was inspired after trying a friend’s homemade version. I lowered the sugar, took out the butter, and can now add granola eating to my list of very hippie-like hobbies.

This is one of my favorite recipes to make because not only can I vary it based on whatever I happen to find lurking in my cupboards, but it’s a cheap and healthy way to shake up breakfast. I make a batch and save it in an airtight plastic container, and eat it mixed with some store-bought cereal and fresh fruit. It would probably make a week’s worth of breakfasts. I say probably because I’m not exactly sure—I can’t manage to keep myself away from it at lunch and around 10 p.m. when the munchies hit, too. It disappears a bit faster around here.

Easter Bunny Cake (Gluten and Dairy Free)

What better way to infuse Easter with some spring festivity than by concocting a cake in the shape of a giant bunny? Granted, my clever guests got a few laughs out of my Easter "pig," but this is a lot easier than it looks. While mine didn't turn out exactly as I imagined, making it was a creative project that left me with a gluten- and dairy-free dessert that had even the non-health conscious eaters returning for seconds. Some tips and advice:

Almond-Pastry Lemon Squares

This being my first post, I think it's safe to say I'm not quite sure where I want to go with this. I absolutely love baking, and I find myself descending into a cloud of sugar in the kitchen at least twice each week (my boyfriend has become quite the baked-goods connoisseur). As for my personal approach to baking: I'm lactose-intolerant and commited to natural, wholesome cooking. That said, I believe in all good things in moderation, and refuse to bake "healthy" baked goods that are the wrong texture and leave you jonesing for sweets more than before you ate them. I like to take recipes and put a healthy, dairy-free twist on them. But you'll also find butter and cream here, along with vegan and gluten-free recipes, too.

Anyway, let's get down to it: my first recipe. The picture, insterted above, taught me lesson number one of being a food blogger: Take prettier pictures. I will try. These are my almond-pastry lemon squares. You could substitute the butter for coconut or another cooking oil to take out the dairy. Since I was making these as a gift, I kept the butter with all its rich goodness in my pastry crust.

My lemons came straight from a tree in the backyard of the boyfriend's parents, but any organic store-bought ones will do (organic since you will be using the zest and don't want pesticide infused bars). I incoporated almond meal into my crust to add some protein and a slightly higher nutrient density. I tried this before using all almond flour and ended up with soggy, buttery-bottomed lemon treats. This ratio worked really well, giving them a nutty flavor that retained the texture and richness of pastry crust.

Almond-Pastry Lemon Squares
1/3 c. butter
1/4 c. confectioner's sugar
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 c. almond meal
2 eggs
3/4 c. evaporated cane juice (a very unprocessed form of white sugar)
3-4 tsp. lemon zest
3 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp. baking powder
confectioner's sugar (for topping)

1. In an electric mixer, beat the butter on high speed until creamy. Mix in the 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar until combined. Beat in the flour and almond meal until totally combined (it will be crumbly in texture).
2. Press it firmly onto the bottom of a greased 8x8 baking dish. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until it just begins to turn gold around the edges.
3. Meanwhile, in electric mixing bowl, combine eggs, evaporated cane juice, flour (note: almond meal will not work here. Tried that. Not-so-pretty results.), lemon peel and juice, and baking powder. Beat for two minutes at medium speed.
4. Pour filling over crust. Bake 20 minutes more until lightly brown around the edges and the center is set. Cool completely. Use a sifter and dust generously with powdered sugar. Cut into bars.

Well, the computer battery's breathing its final breaths of the night, and I need to get myself in bed. Next time, better and more pictures. Promise.