Oatmeal & Almond Crisp/Cookies

My sister gave me this awesome recipe a while back and I finally tried it out. It’s really good!! Trust me, we have been baking this on a weekly basis. It’s become our favourite snack. Hubby said it reminds him of the yummy CNY biscuits back home. Give it a try and I am sure you will love it. Try to roll it as thin as possible to get a nice crisp.

Ingredients:

50 g (9 tb) Oatmeal
85 g (1/2 cup) Almond, minced
40 g (5 tb) Icing sugar
1/2 tsp Baking powder
90 g Butter, unsalted, room temperature **
1/3 tsp Salt
15 g (1 1/2 tb) Plain flour
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 Egg, lightly beaten

Steps:

1. Mix together oatmeal, almonds, flour, baking powder, icing sugar & salt.
2. Pour beaten egg, melted butter & vanilla into (1) and mix.
3. Roll into 2 or 3 very thin sheets between baking paper and wax paper (on top).
4. Remove the top paper and bake at 150 C/310 F in the oven for 7mins, rotate and bake for another 6-7mins or until it turns golden brown.

**Can substitute with 50g butter + 2tb vege oil.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffin

I always love to bake muffin as it is easy to bake, freeze well and taste good with my favourite cup of coffee. I normally bake a batch of muffin, eat some and store some in the freezer for the following week. For this week, I am baking the oatmeal chocolate chip muffin obtained from allrecipes.com. We really love the toppings – pecans and brown sugar! In the near future, I plan to do a hybrid of these toppings with our all time favourite Awesome Banana Muffin. Watch out for my next post

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• 1 cup chopped pecans

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

• 4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

Steps:

1. Combine oats and milk and allow to stand for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease each cup of one 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Stir egg, oil, 1/2 cup of the brown sugar, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the pecans into the oat and milk mixture.
3. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add oat mixture to flour mixture, stirring until just moist. Fill each cup of one 12-cup muffin tin 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with the remaining brown sugar and pecans.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

Date-Banana-Walnut Muffin

This year Autumn has been the most beautiful Autumn that we have witnessed ever since being here in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The beauty of the foliage seems to have transformed the city that we live in into a Magical Land. Last month alone we have had 2 hiking trips just to take in the beauty of the Mother Nature –Cape Split and McNab Island. Having that said, I have lesser time to bake in the kitchen now. Probably will do more baking in the Winter time. This week I have tried a new muffin recipe using date. We bought a big bag of dates from Costco and since then, I am looking forward to using it in my baking. I have selected this healthy Fat Free Banana-Date-Walnut muffin recipe. However, I have made some modifications to the recipe as follows:

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour 

3/4 cup unbleached white flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup white/brown sugar

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup almond milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/3 cup natural apple sauce

1/2 cup chopped dates

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 and spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray. Sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, mash the banana with the sugar, almond milk, vanilla essence and apple sauce.
2. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Add in the dates and walnuts, and pour into 12 muffin cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

The muffin is nice to be served with some whipping peanut butter/butter. It is good for freezing as well.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffin

We have lots of ripen bananas and I was thinking of baking a different type of banana muffins instead of the standard Banana Walnut Muffin. Since hubby really loves peanut butter, I have decided to try the Peanut Butter Banana Muffins instead. The recipe is pretty simple.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed

STEPS

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the peanut butter, oil, eggs, milk and bananas.
4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened.
5. Spoon the batter into 12 well greased muffin cups. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

As compared to the banana walnut muffin, the taste of banana is more mild in this recipe. Overall, it turns out good and we love it. The above recipe yields about 13 muffins.

Banana Walnut Muffin

For this week tea-time snack, I have decided to bake banana walnut muffins since we got some good and cheap banana from Pete’s Frootique yesterday . This recipe is pretty simple and yield about 12 muffins. Sorry for not having any photos but you can view it from here. The only modification I made to the original recipe is to reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup as I figured out that banana is sweet in its own way. And this is absolutely true!

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted or raw)

STEPS:

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

2 Mix in the sugar, egg, espresso and vanilla.

3 Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

4 Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

5 Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.

Chinese Peanut Cookies (Hua Sheng Bing)

This time round I am baking something that have been sitting on my to-do list for months (since CNY 2012). Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I wasn’t able to bake it for this year CNY despite I already have all the ingredients on hand.

This Chinese peanut cookie is a staple for every Chinese New Year since I was a kid. I remember helping my mum to shape the cookies when I was young. Back then, we used lard instead of peanut oil. Of course, it is much tastier with lard but at the same, it is bad for health. Over the years, my mum has changed the recipe to use peanut oil instead.

As I didn’t have the time to obtain the recipe from my mum, I have decided to try the recipe from Viet World Kitchen. Strange isn’t it!! It should have from a Malaysian/Singaporean website. Anyhow, what we can tell from here is that Chinese in South East Asia do have some food in common.

Anyhow, the outcome is good and hubby loves it much. Never did I know that peanut cookie is one of his favourite cookies.  This recipe is definitely a keep and I shall bake it for the next CNY! Perhaps, I shall try mum’s secret recipe next time round.

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unsalted, roasted peanuts
1 1/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
10 3/4 ounces (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons) all-purpose flour, bleached or unbleached
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup fragrant peanut or canola oil
1 egg, beaten 

Steps:

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325F degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.

2. Put the peanuts in a food processor and grind into the texture of coarse crumbs. Add the powdered sugar and process until there is a mixture of fine crumbs and powder, stopping to scrape the bottom of the bowl if needed. Do not over process or you'll end up with peanut butter.

3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Dump the peanut mixture into bowl and stir until well combined.

4. Drizzle melted butter and the oil into the bowl. Use your hands to mix and knead the ingredients to form soft dough. It will soften as you knead it. The dough texture feel a bit like coarse play dough. If the dough becomes too soft to handle and feels oily, refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes to firm up. If the dough feels dry, add oil by the tablespoon.

5. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and put them on the baking sheets, spaced 1 1/2 inches apart. If you like, put a little decorative stamp on top. I used the top of a clean and dry Sharpie pen cap!

6. Brush the tops with lightly with beaten egg, then bake for 20-22 minutes until light golden in color. Transfer to racks and let cool completely before eating or storing in an airtight container. These cookies are very delicate and can smudge easily. Be gentle with them.

Chewy Granola Bars

 

Granola bars have been our favourite snack as it is so handy to bring around. We have been buying granola bars on a regular basis especially the “Sweet and Salty” chewy types as we don’t really like the crunchy type. Having watched some cooking programs which include granola bars making, it seems fairly easy after all to make your own granola bars. I have decided to try the recipe provided by Eggs on Sunday blog. The good thing about making your own granola bars is that you are in control of what go into the granola bars!

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup oat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts
1/3 cup peanut butter or another nut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey/maple syrup
2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola
1 tablespoon water

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″x8″ pan with parchment paper and set aside.

Stir together all dry ingredients (oats through fruit & nuts). Separately, in a microwave-safe bowl, combine the melted butter, honey or maple syrup, oil and water. Add the nut butter if using, and microwave for about 1 minute at 30% power to soften (this makes it easier to mix into the liquid ingredients.) Whisk together to combine, then stir in the vanilla.

Pour liquid mixture over dry ingredients and stir to thoroughly combine. Transfer the mixture to the baking pan, using the back of a spoon (or your hands) to firmly press the mixture into the pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Let cool completely in the pan.

Use the parchment paper as handles to lift the baked mixture out of the pan, then slice into bars with a sharp knife.  (If the mixture seems to crumbly, try chilling in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.)

For the dried fruits and nuts, I used a mixture of raisins, mini chocolate chips, walnut, flaxseed and sunflower seeds. Overall, it tastes good but just a bit crumbly. I kept some in the fridge and some in the freezer. Probably I would try using different mixture of dried fruits and nuts in the future. I would say omit the raisins and chocolate chips if it is for adult consumption.