Are you still looking for that perfect arm workout? Or perhaps you’re searching for that zero-net-calorie dessert. Well, [...]]]> Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Are you still looking for that perfect arm workout? Or perhaps you’re searching for that zero-net-calorie dessert. Well, look no more, because made-from-scratch baklava is the answer! It will have you on your feet in the kitchen all day, running from stove to countertop to oven and back. You’ll be completing the near-impossible task of rolling dough into paper thin sheets. You’ll easily burn more calories making it than you gain by consuming it. And since every killer workout has an element of pure torture, you won’t even be able to enjoy the baklava until it sits overnight.

After completing a solid hour of arm exercise (read: rolling phyllo dough paper thin), I was thrilled to have 16 sheets of transparent dough, stacked and ready to layer with walnut filling. The only remaining step was to slice the dough to fit my pan. As pictured in the recipe, I sliced through all of the sheets at once with a pizza cutter.

The edges ended up hopelessly stuck together! After carefully considering a number of options (baking the dough as is, shoving the filling in between some of the layers, or completely starting over), I broke the dough into 16 pieces and immediately started rolling again. The dough never got as thin as it had the first time, but I still managed to roll out enough sheets for four layers of phyllo and three layers of filling. This time the sheets were trimmed individually as I layered them into the pan.

Being a member of the Daring Bakers certainly has many advantages, not the least of which is an entire global community of bakers who have made the same mistakes, and are there to offer advice and encouragement. This month, we were treated to a special baklava tutorial by Audax. He was lucky enough to have two baklava experts, one Greek and one Turkish, walk him through the entire recipe. They gave very specific instructions for baking temperature, and advised the use of clarified butter when layering the phyllo sheets. These changes are reflected in the recipe below.

This baklava was such a sticky, wonderful treat. I chose to use exclusively walnuts in the filling, since I had a huge bag of fresh walnuts from my CSA. To complement the walnuts, I also substituted pure maple syrup for the honey in this recipe. This made the baklava a bit less sweet, and definitely more enjoyable. The recipe is long and daunting, but I can assure you that it’s well worth the effort. Since the workout makes up for all the calories, what do you have to lose?

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Bakers June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Phyllo Dough
From Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague
Yield: enough dough for a 9″ x 9″ baklava

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer. In a separate bowl, combine the water, oil, and vinegar. With the mixer on low speed, add the water mixture to the flour and mix with the paddle attachment until well combined. If the dough does not come together, add more water, one tablespoon at a time. The dough should be soft and should form a ball.

Switch to the dough hook and knead for about 10 minutes. The dough will be incredibly smooth and silky. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for another couple of minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down onto the counter a few times during the process. It’s fun.

Shape the dough into a ball, lightly oil it, and wrap it in plastic wrap. Allow it to rest for at least 30-120 minutes (2 hours is ideal).

When the dough has almost finished resting, make the filling for the baklava.

Spiced Walnut Filling

1 cinnamon stick, broken into 2 or 3 pieces, or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
16 whole allspice berries, or a few pinches of ground allspice
1 1/2 cups raw walnuts
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until finely chopped. If you do not have a food processor, chop all ingredients as finely as possible and combine in a bowl. Set aside.

To assemble the baklava:
You will need 1/2 cup melted clarified butter. I used 10 tablespoons of unsalted butter to make 1/2 cup clarified butter. For a good tutorial on making clarified butter, head to Allrecipes.com.

The dough is not as tricky to roll out as it sounds. Make sure to remove any jewelry or rings that may snag the phyllo sheets. The best tool to use is probably a wooden dowel as shown in this video, though I managed to get the dough very thin with my regular rolling pin.

Dust your work area, rolling pin or wooden dowel, and hands with flour. Unwrap the dough and break off a golf ball sized chunk. Rewrap the dough with plastic wrap, so that it won’t dry out while you are rolling each sheet of dough.

Start by flattening the dough and rolling it into a circle. I found it to be a little tough and elastic at first, but as I kept rolling it softened up and flattened out. Continue to work the dough in a circle, rotating and adding flour generously as needed. Don’t worry if there are small rips in the dough, you can press it together or just leave it. The baklava will have many layers so it’s not a big deal.

When you have rolled the dough as thinly as possible with your rolling pin, pick it up and gently stretch it over the backs of your hands as you would pizza dough. This should get it a bit thinner. The dough is ready when it is transparent and will fit inside a 9″ square pan. Set the dough aside on a well floured surface. Follow the same steps to roll out the rest of the dough, making sure to flour well between each sheet as you stack them. You should end up with 16-18 sheets.

Note: I stacked the dough as described, but would not do it this way again. I would recommend that if you do stack the dough, the sheets should be sliced individually as you assemble the baklava. Alternatively, you could roll each sheet out, trim, and place in the pan immediately. This would prevent the edges from sticking together if you were to trim the entire stack at the same time.

Preheat the oven to 390°. Trim your phyllo sheets to fit a 9″ square pan. If you are using a dark-colored pan you may want to line the pan with foil to prevent the edges of the baklava from burning.

Brush the bottom of the pan with clarified butter, and place a phyllo sheet into the pan. Brush this phyllo sheet with butter and layer another phyllo sheet on top. Repeat until you have 4 or 5 layers of phyllo (depending on how many sheets you rolled out).

Spread 1/3 of the walnut filling over the phyllo. Repeat the entire process again, layering 4 or 5 phyllo sheets and another 1/3 of the walnut filling. Repeat one more time. On top of the nuts, layer 4 or 5 more phyllo sheets, alternating with the clarified butter as before. When you have the final phyllo layer on top, tuck in the edges so that the top looks neat.

With a sharp knife, cut your baklava into slices – but only cut 2/3 of the way through! Brush the top of the baklava with one more layer of clarified butter.

Bake the baklava at 390° for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 300° and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 210° and bake for another 30 minutes. Turn the oven back up to 390° and allow the baklava to bake until the top has browned, about 10 minutes.

While the baklava is baking, prepare the syrup.

Maple Baklava Syrup
1 1/4 cups pure maple syrup (the good stuff)
1 1/4 cups water
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 of a fresh lemon
a few cloves or a pinch of ground cloves

Combine all ingredients in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally until all the sugar has dissolved. Bring the mixture to a boil and allow it to boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the syrup from the heat and strain out the lemon half, cinnamon, and cloves (if using whole cloves). Allow the syrup to sit at room temperature until the baklava is done baking.

When the baklava has finished baking, remove it from the oven and place the entire pan on a cooling rack. Pour the syrup (it will still be slightly warm) over the baklava, making sure to cover the entire top and get it in between the slices as well.

The baklava will be swimming in syrup! But don’t panic, it will soak in overnight. Allow the baklava to cool to room temperature, cover, and let sit overnight. My baklava didn’t quite soak up all the syrup, but it was still plenty saturated.

The next morning, slice the baklava and serve! Store the leftovers, if there are any, in an airtight container at room temperature.

I need to prepare for the 2011 LA Cupcake Challenge. I’m not sure what it takes to prepare for such an event. Cupcake visualization? An all-you-can-eat cupcake contest? Avoiding cupcakes for weeks prior to the event? I’m open to suggestions.

Last year, I made it through almost all of the cupcakes. I have [...]]]>

I need to prepare for the 2011 LA Cupcake Challenge. I’m not sure what it takes to prepare for such an event. Cupcake visualization? An all-you-can-eat cupcake contest? Avoiding cupcakes for weeks prior to the event? I’m open to suggestions.

Last year, I made it through almost all of the cupcakes. I have been invited to judge the contest again this year, so maybe I can improve upon my ability to put away dozens of mini cupcakes within three hours.

This event may prove to be a bigger challenge than last year, owing to the fact that I’ve drastically reduced my refined sugar intake since then. Perhaps I should ease back into refined sugar before my cupcake binge. Would that lessen the potential for sugar coma?

These muffins won’t exactly help me with that goal since the only bit of refined sugar is in the applesauce. But I still consider them a warm up to the big event. And they make for quite a tasty mid-morning snack, paired with a cup of tea. Unsweetened applesauce would work just as nicely, if you’re not in training for the cupcake challenge.

Spiced Yogurt Muffins
Adapted from Cafe Nilson
Yield: 12 muffins plus 12 mini muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup plain yogurt, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup applesauce (I used my cranberry applesauce/jam)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Preheat the oven to 375°. Grease a regular muffin tin and a mini muffin tin with butter and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. In a separate bowl, stir together the maple syrup, yogurt, eggs, applesauce, vanilla extract, and butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins. Bake for 18-20 minutes (10-12 minutes for mini muffins), or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Place the pans on a cooling rack to cool for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan and place them directly on the cooling rack to cool completely.

What would life be like if we measured our nation’s success based on Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product? If we valued health, education, and sustainable communities above cash and consumer goods? Or, at the very least, broke our addiction to material goods?

These are some of the questions that I [...]]]>

What would life be like if we measured our nation’s success based on Gross National Happiness instead of Gross National Product? If we valued health, education, and sustainable communities above cash and consumer goods? Or, at the very least, broke our addiction to material goods?

These are some of the questions that I have been pondering over the last few months. An ever increasing number of people are changing their perspective on our consumer culture, and today we celebrate that shift in thinking. Buy Nothing Day seeks to inspire consumers to break the habit of spending and avoid the stress of shopping. Let’s do things differently today. Go for a hike, read a book, create art and music, bake a cake. To kick off Buy Nothing Day, I’ll be cutting up this credit card.

There’s no reason to go completely without modern conveniences. But I do believe that we should challenge ourselves to live with less. Before replacing an item, ask yourself if you can use it for just a little while longer before buying something new. If you truly don’t need a product, consider offering it on Freecycle or donating it to a thrift store so that someone else can make use of it before it ends up in a landfill. Or go even further and consider acquiring new products secondhand instead of purchasing them new.

As I researched the history of consumerism I came across this popular quote from retail analyst Victor Lebow. Lebow’s post-World War II vision has become our way of life, and during the last half century our economy certainly has proved to be very productive.

“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns. The very meaning and significance of our lives today expressed in consumptive terms. The greater the pressures upon the individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he wears, drives, eats- his home, his car, his pattern of food serving, his hobbies.”
-Victor Lebow, 1955

However, what happens to all of this stuff when we’re done with it? And have we considered the long term effects of the manufacturing process? It’s becoming pretty obvious that our habits are not sustainable in the long run.

My pledge is to abstain from purchasing anything today, for Buy Nothing Day, and to continue to question the need for brand new goods in my life. Today I choose to spend my time baking and enjoying this gingerbread credit card, instead of spending time at the mall with a plastic credit card.

Gingerbread Cake
Adapted from Delectable Tidbits
Yield: One 10″ square cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup molasses
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup boiling water

Preheat the oven to 325°. Spray a 10″ square cake pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, honey, and maple syrup until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and molasses and beat until smooth. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and flour. Mix on medium speed until well blended. Place the baking soda into a small bowl or measuring cup. Pour the hot water over the baking soda and stir to dissolve. Stir the baking soda mixture into the batter and continue to stir until well blended.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Place the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then invert the cake out of the pan. Allow the cake to cool on a cooling rack until completely cool. Once the cake has cooled, frost as desired.

Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting
Created by Simple Math Bakery
Yield: About 3 cups, enough to frost one cake

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk
1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

With a mixer, beat the butter, vanilla, and milk on medium speed until well incorporated. Add confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon. Beat until creamy and smooth.

We are lucky to have an abundance of delicious carrots at our local farmers market. It’s one of my favorite purchases every week. They even come with the greens attached. I’m sure there’s a cooking method for the greens, but I haven’t yet experimented with them. Anybody have any recommendations for carrot greens? [...]]]>

We are lucky to have an abundance of delicious carrots at our local farmers market. It’s one of my favorite purchases every week. They even come with the greens attached. I’m sure there’s a cooking method for the greens, but I haven’t yet experimented with them. Anybody have any recommendations for carrot greens? For now, the carrot greens go to enrich my compost pile. And the carrots this week went into these muffins!

Did you know that carrots will stay fresh for longer if you cut off the greens? The carrots lose a lot of moisture through the greens, so cutting them off will allow the carrots to stay hydrated and delicious! I don’t remember where I read that tip, but I have tested it and it works.

I can only assume that the opposite will be true when applied to muffins. If you cut off the muffin top, wouldn’t the muffin lose more moisture? Seems to me that the muffin top serves as a sort of crust and the inside “cakey” part of the muffin would dry out if it weren’t for the muffin top. Any thoughts?

If you need to do some experimentation on this theory, might I suggest a batch of carrot spice muffins? I’ve included my preferred spice blend, but feel free to change it up and experiment!

Carrot Spice Muffins
Created by Simple Math Bakery
Yield: 12 muffins

2 cups white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sucanat
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (I used rice milk)
1/3 cup canola oil
2 large carrots, grated

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease muffin tins or line with paper.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sucanat, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk, and oil.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Gently fold in the grated carrots. Divide the batter between 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the muffins test done. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan and allow them to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Banana oatmeal muffins are my go to muffin.  I always have the ingredients on hand and it’s so easy to whip up a batch.  My basic recipe is very forgiving.  I can change it up in any number of ways and the muffins still come out delicious.

This time I’ve made them healthier [...]]]>

Banana oatmeal muffins are my go to muffin.  I always have the ingredients on hand and it’s so easy to whip up a batch.  My basic recipe is very forgiving.  I can change it up in any number of ways and the muffins still come out delicious.

This time I’ve made them healthier and added a bit of spice.  Now I don’t feel so guilty when I reach for one to help me get through those last two hours of the workday!

Before I get to the muffins I’ve got to share this photo.  I live in southern California, and I woke up to this view of my street:

We’ve been having this huge rainstorm all week.  Torrential rainfalls, flooding, tornado warnings, and now snow!  I don’t get to see snow very often so it’s definitely a treat.

Also, my week was made a little brighter by Josie at Daydreamer Desserts.  She presented me with this Happy 101 award.

To accept this award, here’s what I need to do:

List 10 things that make me happy:

1. Baking and cooking
2. Ballet class
3. Listening to or playing music
4. Camping and hiking
5. My cat
6. Yard work
7. Contra dancing
8. Daydreaming about my next vacation
9. Reading a good book
10. Chocolate

Tag 10 other bloggers who brighten my day, link to their blogs, and notify the recipients.  Also, link back to the blogger who gave the award (see above).

Bloggers who brighten my day:

1. Lauren of Celiac Teen
2. Anita of Leave Room for Dessert
3. Kelly of The Picky Plate
4. Jen of My Kitchen Addiction
5. Sarah of Blue Ridge Baker
6. Rosalie of Mary Poppins in Heels
7. Emily of What’s Cooking in Emily’s Kitchen
8. Mimi of Delectable Tidbits
9. Claire of Culinary Goddess
10. Charlene of Secrets of a Southern Kitchen

And now, back to muffins.

Banana Oatmeal Spice Muffins
Recipe by Simple Math Bakery
Yield: 12 muffins

1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour (all-purpose works, too!)
1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 medium-sized bananas, very ripe
1 egg
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

Preheat the oven to 375°.  Grease a muffin pan, or line muffin cups with paper liners.

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mash the bananas.  Add egg and applesauce and beat until combined.

Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until combined.  Divide the batter between the muffin cups, and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.