Foodie Post

So I've had a few successes to bolster my baking self esteem. I made the Blueberry Boy Bait coffee cake courtesy of Cybele Pascal's The Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook, and then I dabbled with a recipe my MIL found on Oprah (of all places) by Alicia Silverstone for Oatmeal, Walnut, and Dried Plum Cookies, (of which we, of course, omitted a few nut ingredients).
The blueberry coffee cake was met with rave reviews, and I only had the slight problem of the cinnamon/sugar dusting not carmelizing on the top. (And no, I don't own a creme brulee torch to recitfy the problem easily). Needless to say, the fact that the topping wasn't as pictured in the book did little to dissuade anyone from eating it. It was gone in 4 days!

Yum!

Now onto the cookies. I just want to apologize in advance to my mother, since her oatmeal cookies have been my favorite since I was old enough to eat one. (Sorry Mom. You just got booted by Alicia Silverstone.) And of course, the fact that Scootch can enjoy them because they are a vegan recipe adds triple bonus points. Although, to be truthful to any vegans reading my blog, I did cheat and put butter in this since I don't own the prescribed safflower oil and would have no idea where to procure any if I wanted to. And that was only one of the tweaks this recipe underwent. (So if anyone wants the recipe as modified, feel free to email me!)


Anyways, just so you're fore-warned, these cookies should come with a warning label. I think the cookie dough was just as good (if not better) than the baked product. When I snuck some of the mixed wet ingredients off my finger I swear it was like eating liquid butterscotch, and the addition of the dry ingredients didn't diminish that particular deliciousness any. And what I love about them is that they don't suffer from preservative free-syndrome. You know where you bake all those cookies and they turn crispy and rock hard after a day no matter how you store them? Yeah, I hate that. Especially in oatmeal cookies. They shouldn't be something you'd give your kid to cut their baby teeth on. Although you could, because since they have oatmeal in them, they're healthy cookies, right? (I hope so since I ate them for breakfast) ;-)


So my next projects are cakes and cupcakes, since the Monkey's birthday is in a week. I need to make a cake for our home party that we have with family, and then cupcakes for her kiddie party at what my kids affectionately refer to as "Old McDonalds." I'll try to make sure to keep you posted with the successes of those! :-)