Struan

I'm well aware that I haven't blogged in ages, and as usual, it's not for lack of things to post about. It's just that I surprised my family for the holidays (they were quite surprised!) and flew to New York. (I leave tomorrow night- ahh!!) Wanting to soak up every second with my parents and family, I sort of neglected the blog. And then it was Passover itself and I sort of felt strange posting about leavened baked goods on the holiday about not consuming leavened baked goods. Anyway, I made this recipe the weekend before I flew on the occasion of hosting my friend S for the weekend. (Stay tuned for the rest of the baked goods from that weekend!) This recipe was also the inaugural recipe for Josie, my new apple green mixer. :) This Struan recipe is Reinhart's latest incarnation from his book Artisan Breads Every Day. I adapted it to what I had in the fridge. I used it as an opportunity to finally finish the whole wheat flour and make a dent in the rye flakes I bought on a whim. I made one loaf and a bunch of rolls and let me say, I was in love with this bread. This was really delicious and deserves to be baked again as the recipe is written and in a million other adaptations. For now, this loaf will have to do. I'm sending it off to Yeastspotting!

Peanut Butter Graham Squares

With many of my girls either in Poland or already at home for the holidays, things have been pretty quiet around here. The bunch that is here for Pesach is quite bored, as am I, and so they come to hang out in my room to just chill out. One night, I offered to bake for them. I found this no bake recipe and decided to make it. Miraculously, I had just enough powdered sugar for this recipe, one girl generously donated some peanut butter and I was able to finish these tea biscuits-- the very last of my chametz gamur! The original recipe calls for graham crackers but since they are rare in Israel and I wasn't going to be making my own, the tea biscuits made a convenient substitute. If you so choose to use tea biscuits as your base, be sure to let the whole thing chill for a while so that they filling and crackers can meld. Otherwise, the crackers are likely to fall off as they did on the first night they were eaten. A good amount of them got eaten that night and the rest when off to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic that some girls were having. I used a mix of bittersweet and 60% for the topping- use whatever you have on hand.

A Week of Whole Grain Baking, Day 8: Soft Barley Sugar Cookies

Yes, I am fully aware that there are only seven days in a week, but I just couldn't leave out these sugar cookies from the roundup, seeing as how they are whole grain and were a part of the baking marathon. (Rest assured, this is the last post in my series on whole grain baking! Sadly, even with all this baking, I didn't finish all the flour. On a side note, I have now made more than enough [winning] recipes from this book to give it a glowing review! Buy it!) Aside from the necessary overnight chill, these cookies, made with sour cream, were easy to make. The first line in the header for this recipe says, "These taste just like my Grandma's!" Now, these barley cookies definitely aren't my grandmother's, (now that I think of it I can't recall my grandmothers baking cookies..) but they do give off a comforting, homey scent. The cookies stay soft for a while, which is a major bonus. I'm guessing that's due to the sour cream in it. The recipe calls for making ten HUGE cookies but I made regular sized cookies. I made these the night the girls were set to head off to Poland and I think they were very much appreciated. What's amazing about this whole week of baking is that no one could tell these baked goods were whole grain, just delicious. This recipe included. I hope I've encouraged you enough to seek out some whole grain flours (if I can find them in Israel, you can!) and try some of these recipes.

A Week of Whole Grain Baking, Day 7: Chocolate Graham Crackers

This week long, whole grain bake fest involved a lot of cracker making. While I was at it, I decided to try my hand at the sweet kind, namely the Graham Cracker. Having made regular graham crackers ages ago, pretty much at the beginning of my blogging days, I decided to go with the chocolate graham. Besides, who doesnt love chocolate? Right. Aaaand, it would make a bigger dent in the barley flour-- let's not forget the reason for this week of wholesome baking. Anyway, the dough comes along pretty easily by hand and then takes a time out in the fridge. It then gets rolled out, docked and baked. The smell of them baking pervaded the entire hallway with a luxurious chocolate scent. Yum! And they taste as good as they smell, a deep chocolate flavor with a nice crackery crunch. I cut some of the cracker dough in half and so the smaller pieces got burned and threw them away; with such a deep colored dough, it's kind of hard to tell when theyre done. My next batch, I took them out earlier, which made for a softer, hbendier cracker, which my girls actually loved. The last batch, I made normally. I plunked a jar of peanut butter down next to the crackers, encouraging the girls to eat them together. Most girls did. Classic combination. Feel free to eat them plain or crush them up in a food processor to use as a crust in your favorite pie. Or make a chocolate smore. Whip out your cookie cutters and make animal crackers. Let your imagination run wild!

A Week of Whole Grain Baking, Day 6: Sesame Crackers

These are, hands down, some of my favorite things ever. Cracker + sesame? YUM! If you don't know this already about me, I love sesame, especially toasted sesame. I knew these were going to be winners before I even made them, so I don't know what took me so long. I guess I just needed the push of getting rid of flours to get me going. Seriously, I don't think I stopped munching on these from the time they came out of the oven until they were finished. These deserve to be made again (shocking!) this time with the addition of the optional sesame oil, to boost the sesame flavor. If you don't have it, don't fret- the toasted sesame really adds tons of flavor. By now you should be so used to the process of cracker making that you could do it with your eyes closed. Go on. Make them.