Pumpkin Chocolate Walnut Muffins

I love making muffins. I think I've already said that before, many times, but it's true. I love how it's an easy snack, a nice quick breakfast and plus they can be really healthy. I have this one recipe I use as a base, I make them so often I know it by heart now. It's from the Healthy Oven baking book. This one here is a tweaked version.
Today I thought it was time to open the can of pumpkin and have a "pumpkin week"...And since anything goes with chocolate I decided to make them chocolate muffins.

Here's the recipe:

Dry ingredients:

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup coco pwder, sifted.
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp EACH of nutmeg, ground cloves and ground ginger
Pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg
1 1/2 TBSP canola oil
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Turn on the oven at 350. Spray a muffin pan with some good ol' Paaaam.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, wisk all the wet ingredients until frothy, about 2-3 minutes.
Make a well in the flour mix, pour in the wet mix and stir until just combined. Add the cocolate chips and nuts and mix in, but don't over mix.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and unmold and cool on a rack.

Makes about 10 muffins. They will be gone in 2-3 days I garantee it!
(As I type this the man of the house is having his third one today...)

Chocolate Walnut Fudge

What can I say about chocolate fudge?? Well, not much, really, except whoever discovered chocolate and the fudge principle is genius. Seriously.

I rarely make it because I don't want to gain 400 pounds, but it's Christmas, so I made a batch and will give most of it to my brother and his family. But of course I kept some, they didn't all fit in the box....Oh, too bad...
I got the recipe in the same magazine as the cherry balls. It's so simple, it's a charm to make, not too messy, and it's also easy to cut. Big plus when it comes to treats like that!
So without further ado, I give you the best fuedge in the world, and wishing you all a very Happy Christmas filled with good food and family.
Cheers!



1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate vhips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup icing sugar
1/2 TBSP almond extract
1/2 TBSP vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts.

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie (fancy word for "stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water) or in a micro-wave if you a have a big enough bowl (it's A LOT of chocolate!!).
While that's going on, line a 8x8in square pan with foil and brush with butter, or margarine.
When the chocolate is all nice and smooth let it cool a bit and add the condensed milk, sugar, both extracts and a pinch of salt. Stir it until all smooth, incorporate 2/3 cup of walnuts and pour into the prepared pan.
Smoothe the top, sprinkle the rest of the walnuts, pushing them down a bit so they stick, and send it to the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Then all you need to do is lift the foil out, the fudge will come out with it, and cut into cubes with a sharp knife.
Who wouldn't love this as a gift??



The kids are gonna go crazy...(and the big kids too!!)

Apple Walnut Coffee Cake

Well, I wanted to make muffins last sunday, but since Halloween kicked my butt this year, I was in NO shape of baking on that day. The couch was my haven and could not move. So my lovely Cortlands were still sitting in the fruit bowl, and today on my day off, on this gloomy rainy friday, I felt like baking something more comforting than muffins.



This coffee cake comes from the "Taste of Home-Fall Baking Issue" magazine. Not at all "healthy oven"...no butter in here but LOTS of sugar.
The almond extract in this cake is really delightfull. Different from the ol' vanilla. And the recipe called for only cinnamon but I added cardamom, my new favorite spice, and it's a-ma-zing with the almond flavor!

Ingredients:

4 cups chopped peeld apples
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a big bowl, mix the apples and sugar and let it stand for 20 minutes or so.
In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, oil and extract. Add to the apples and mix well until the apples are all coated.
In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. Stir into the apple mixture until just combined, and fold in the walnuts.
Pour into an oiled 11x7in. baking pan, smooth the top and bake for 40-45 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle will come out clean.
Let cool in the same pan. No need to unmold!



I love how this cake is so moist inside thanks to the apples, and I LOVE how the top becomes slightly crunchy.

It's good as it is...:


Or with a big serving of homemade applesauce on top!:


Did I ever mention how much I love apples?...

Honey-Nut Cake

Today I had the day off, so I decided to bake something. It was either that or go for a bike ride, I chose the sweet treat!



I wanted to try a new recipe from my favorite baking book, looked through and decided to go for this cake. It sounded really nice, different, and I had all the ingredients on hand. Even the skim milk powder!! I bought it months ago, thinking it would be good for shakes, but it sat in the pantry for a long time until now. This recipe calls for only 2 Tablespoons of it but hey, now that the bag is open I WILL use it in shakes..!
In this recipe there's a lot of honey, and that flavor comes out so nicely! The ground ginger tones it down a bit, but the honey!! It's beautifully sweet and it makes the cake nice and yellow.
Okay, so here's what you'll need:

Dry ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted.
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground ginger
pinch of salt

Wet ingredients:

3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup low-fat milk
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 TBSP instant skim milk powder
1 TBSP canola oil
1 TBSP vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Turn the oven on at 350F, set the rack in the middle.
Mix all the dry stuff and set aside.
Mix all the wet stuff until frothy, pour in the dry stuff, add walnuts and mix until just combined.
Pour in an oiled 8-inch square pan, smooth the top and bake for 35-40 minutes.

When it's done, the top will spring back when you press on it gently in the middle.
Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, on a wire rack.



Unmold and cool completely on a rack.
.......................................

Enjoy with some frozen yogurt or ice cream!



I decided to leave the cake dry but a nice lemon or orange glaze would be really nice with this. Or a berry coulis of some sort...

White Chocolate, Fruit and Walnut Oatmeal Cookies.

It's been a while since I made cookies...and I chose the first really hot day to turn on the oven and bake some. Oh well, ...I can handle the heat...
These cookies are really nice. I took the basic recipe in the "healthy oven" book, so they're somewhat "healthier" than the usual chocolate-nut-fruit cookie. They each have about 80 calories but they taste like they're 200 calories each, they're so nice and sweet and soft. Nice way to induldge...



Ingredients:

Dry:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup quick oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Wet:
6TBSP unsalted butter at room temperature(today it was almost melted...)
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 TBSP vanilla

1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried fruit mix(apricots and cranberries were used here)
1/3 cup chopped nuts(i used walnuts...)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer or by hand with a rubber spatula until nice and creamy.
Add egg and vanilla and mix until all is smooth.
Add the flour to the butter mix, in 3 parts, and with the last part throw in the fruits, nuts, and chocolate chips. Mix until combined but without overmixing.
Drop heaping teaspoonfuls on an oiled baking sheet, 1 inch appart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes(mine took 10...)
Cool on the sheet for a minute before transfering to a tray and cool completely.
This will give you about 2-3 dozen cookies.

I find the white chocolate chips is a nice twist on the oh-so-popular regular chocolate and the apricots come out nicely too!



Have a glass of milk on the side and pretend it's Christmas...

Double-Chocolate and Walnut Muffins

Muffins of the week this week are kind of like a cross between muffins and...dare I say it,... cupcakes. Before I started this blog I used to make always the same muffin recipe, changing it a bit every week, but it was always the same "base". Now, I've been trying new recipes so that a)I'd have new "material" and b)you the readers don't get bored!! I have a cook book of ONLY muffins and cookies, which I love. And that "Healthy Oven" I always talk about, where this one came from, has a lot of good muffin recipes. As always, for these I added stuff because I can't just make a recipe like it's supposed to be and I have to admit, I really have a thing for walnuts, and other types of nuts and seeds. As for the chocolate chips, well, how can you go wrong with that?!



*On a side note, when I worked in Whistler at Mogul's coffee shop where I was doing the baking(best job of my life!!)and a little cooking, we were famous for our muffins. Whistler being a ski resort, people would come in at 7 am before hitting the slopes and grab a couple of muffins for the gondola ride. I would start at 5:30am, making dozens of muffins and by noon they were usually gone. Anyway,...we had a basic recipe, kinda healthy with oats and buttermilk, dark brown sugar,.. I wish I'd written it down...anyway so we could put anything we wanted in them, to keep in interesting. One day I was gonna do choco chip, but then decided to substitute coco powder for some of the flour and make it even more chocolate(don't know why the girls before me never thought of it...). They were so good! These double chocolate muffins became MY specialty. For some reason the other baker girl never made them, or not like I did anyway. Woah ok I'm rambling...My point is these ones remind me of my double-choco muffins from Mogul's, minus the oats. I should try them with oats next time...
Here's Sarah's recipe for chocolate fudgy muffins:

Ingredients, for 10-12 muffins:

Dry:
1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour(or all-purpose)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder(*you can sift it but i didn't because I kina like lumpy cocoa in muffins,...but that's just me.)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

Wet:
1 ounce bittersweet or semisweet chocolate(1 square "Baker's chocolate").
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 TBSP unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp instant espresso or instant coffee powder

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walunuts

-Preheat the oven at 350F, set the rack in the middle and oil spray muffin tins.
-Mix all the dry ingredients, walnuts and chocolate chips, and set aside.
-Melt the chocolate, let it cool a bit and mix in the melted butter.
-Transfer to a medium bowl, add sugar, appelsauce and all the other wet ingredients and whisk until frothy.
-Pour the wet mix in the dry mix, stir until it just comes together.
-Scoop in muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.
-When they're ready they will spring back when you press on them, or do the toothpick thing...
-Cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minutes and unmold carefully.

*If it's somebody's birthday, or if you just need a treat, go for it and ice them with your favorite icing!!



The coffee powder comes out really nicely in these. So they go great with a cup of joe!!
Enjoy!

Roasted Beet Salad with Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Beets is one of my favorite vegetables, but I rarely eat them. I almost never buy canned veggies or pickled stuff, so when I pick up beets at the grocery store it's always in a bag, or sometimes in a bunch with the leaves still on. But it takes so long to cook! And I seem to always forget I have them. They sit in the bottom drawer and end up rotting. Tonight I had to throw out half of the bag 'cause of blue stuff growing on them. Yuk. But I salvaged the rest and cooked them all. The easiest way obviously to cook those gems are in boiling water, but like anything else, they end up losing a lot of nutrients with that water. So I baked them in the oven. It takes around 45-50 minutes, for cubes of about 2 cm. in diameter. All you gotta do is peel, cube, lay on foil with about 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, and some herb(i used thyme. it goes with everything!). Fold up the foil around the beets just a little, leaving a big opening at the top, and bake at 400F for, like I said, 45-50 minutes. So delicious!
For this salad I used baby romaine, green onions, feta(surprise, surprise...), flat-leaf parsley and chopped roasted pecans.
For the dressing, I made a honey-balsamic vinaigrette:

1 TBSP honey
small squeeze dijon mustard (just to help bind everything...)
1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
1/2 TBSP lemon juice
2-3 TBSP olive oil
cracked black pepper

I mixed all the greens and feta and nuts, with some of the dressing, and added the still kinda hot beets on top so everything kinda whilted and warmed-up a bit. Poured the rest of the vinaigrette, big squeeze of lemon juice and more pepper.



I should definetly eat beets more often...

*on a side note, i've been trying different settings on my camera, so it's totally normal those 2 pictures have different lightings... :)

Oatmeal-Walnut Bread

This is now my basic bread recipe. I know I always say this everytime... but it's sooooo good!! And really easy. It takes a while to make though, 2 hours total rising plus the baking but it's so worth it!! It makes a BIG loaf, it's healthy and you can add stuff to it. Perfect for my "type" of baking.



This recipe comes from here. The "original" had fruit and almonds in it, I used only walnuts because I had a bit too many left over and nothing's worse than having to throw out a bag of walnuts because they went bad. So walnut bread it is. I made the recipe exactly the same as it was on "Food for Poems", but next time I'm gonna try to tweak it with a different kind of oat and maybe I'll add fruits, maple syrup instead of honey would probably work too, who knows...I'm beginning to understand this yeast chemistry thing...

Ingredients:
3 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp salt
2 tsp rapid-rise yeast

1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 TBSP butter
1 1/4-1 1/2 cup warm water, at 120F.(start with 1 1/4 and add if necessary...)

3/4 cup chopped walnuts.

Throw all the flour, oats, yeast and salt in a big bowl and mix it.
In a different bowl mix warm water, honey and butter and add to the flour mix slowly while stirring with a big fork(or with the dough hook of a mixer).
Ditch the fork and knead on a well floured surface until nice and smooth, about 5-8 minutes. Add the nuts towards the end of that process. Make sure they get all the way to the middle of the dough, knead knead knead...
Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a dish rag and let it rise for 1-1 1/2 hours, until doubled.

Before:


After:


Punch it down!



Take it out of the bowl and form into a loaf, but no hardcore kneading!! Gentle...
Place on an oiled baking sheet and let it rise again until doubled, another hour or so...I covered it loosely with plastic wrap.

This is the "after" result:


Bake at 350F on the middle rack for about 35 minutes.
Internal temperature will be 180-190F and it'll sound hollow when tapped.



Cool on a rack, wait at least 30 minutes before slicing(THIS is the hard part, actually...).



I have a feeling I'll be making french toast for breakfast tomorrow...

The walnuts here add a really nice crunch. Not to mention some healthy protein and fats!