Cranberry-Orange Oatmeal Bread

I decided to go for a sweet bread this week. And since I had one lone orange wrinkling in the fruit bowl, too dry to eat, it sparked the idea for this. The zest was still salvagable and I managed to get a little juice from it. And what goes good with orange? CRANBERRIES!! Plenty of dried fruit in my pantry! So giddi-yup!

Ingredients:
2-3 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 egg
zest of 1 orange, plus its juice
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1- 1 1/2 cup warm water at 120F

First off, grate the zest, and squeeze the juice of an orange. Set aside.
In a big bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, 1 cup of the bread flour, yeast, salt, sugar and orange zest.
Heat the water to 120 and add the orange juice and cranberries. That way, the crans will soften a bit!!
Pour the liquid in the flour mix and whisk with a fork, add the egg and another cup bread flour. When it starts coming together transfer to the kneading surface and keand for 8-10 minutes, adding more flour if necessary. When it's all smooth shape into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl and rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.
Gently punch it down, knead for 1-2 minutes and shape to fit a loaf pan, or into an old-fashionned loaf and rise again for about 30 minutes, until double in size.
*I was gonna do it on a tray but then decided otherwise. I like the big slices I get in the loaf pan, the bread always gets nice and tall.
After the second rise, brush with eggwhites and sprinkle some oats on top.
bake in a 350F oven for 35-40 minutes.
When it's done it'll sound hollow when tapped.
Take it out of the pan immediately and cool on a rack.
I had a couple slices for lunch, with goat's cheese and coleslaw...the sweetness of the bread go really nice with the tartness of the cheese.



It'll make great french toasts too!!

I'm sending this over to Yeastspotting!!

Cocoa-Orange Snap Cookies.

I love baking cookies. I love eating them too! With a cup of coffee or tea it's pretty hard to beat. I rarely buy them in the grocery store because a)i love baking and b)commercial cookies can have stuff in them that don't belong in food...
This recipe is also from Sarah Philips' "Healthy Oven", each cookie as approximately 50 calories. Not bad...I tweaked it a bit by adding orange zest, because orange and chocolate go together so well, and I also I'm fascinated with citrus zest.



These cookies take a bit of thinking ahead because they need to chill in the fridge for a while.
So here's the recipe: it'll give you about 30 cookies.

1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

1 cup sugar(plus 2TBSP for dipping)
6 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 TBSP light corn syrup
1 TBSP vanilla

zest of one orange(keep 1/2 tsp for dipping)

-In a bowl, mix flour, sift in cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside
-In another bowl, beat sugar and butter until it starts looking like breadcrumbs(with a hand mixer is better, and quicker!!)
-Add egg, corn syrup and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the zest and mix lightly.
-Stir in the flour mixture, in 2 batches.
-Transfer to a sheet of wax paper and shape the dough into a log, about 1 1/2-2 inch in diameter. Wrap tight and put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
.......
-Turn oven on at 375F, set rack in middle, oil spray a cookie sheet.
-On a small plate, mix 1-2 TBSP or so of sugar with the one half-teaspoon of zest. Mix it well, take time to crush it good so the oil gets out and the sugar becomes a little yellow.
-Cut the dough into 1/2 inch rounds, dip one side in the sugar/zest mix, put on the sheet sugar side UP(obviously...).
-Bake for 10-12 minutes.
-Let stand 5-8 minutes on tray before transfering to a cooling rack.



The cookies might seem underdone after 10 minutes but keep in mind they will keep baking for a bit once out of the oven. They're snap cookies so they'll get hard. Perfect for dunking in tea, or milk, etc.



Note to self...: try not to eat the whole stack...