Stopping By

Just a quick update to let you know that my next post will be a special fruit tart for my friends Jessie and Steve. They'll be hosting a party on Saturday, and I thought I'd bring something special. The tart has a rich crust, a pastry cream filling and gorgeous fruit as a topping.

It's a bit of a practice tart. If it works alright, I'll make it again for another party. It's just one of those roll-of-the-dice things that happens when I try altering a recipe for the first time. I'm not sure I'll be making a tart for Richard's annual 4th of July bash. That will probably be pie.

Stay tuned. I should be updating with the new tart soon.

Oatmeal Cookies at Pride in NYC

The oatmeal cookies below were a huge hit at my friend's gathering as well as another big party on the roof of a gym to watch the Gay Pride Day parade in New York. Yesterday evening, my mother reminded me that the first time I experienced Pride was when I was in junior high school. Mom and a friend of mine watched Andy Wharhol wave to us from a window during the parade. Even at that young age, I knew this parade with all its colorful participants was something important and special.

The Pride parade has become such a big event now -- 6 hours more or longer. I'd completely forgotten that it was the last Sunday of June when I drove into the city to meet Thom for his birthday lunch. I'd arrived a bit early, so I walked around the neighborhood where we'd agreed to meet, the West Village. I walked up Greenwich Street to 15th Street, where the Chelsea Market is.

I'd been there before, but I enjoyed the treat of walking through the market, stopping to buy three pints of beautiful raspberries for a tart I plan to make and blog about here. I also bought a shiny, new, round tart pan with a removable bottom at the restaurant supply store. It's the first one I've ever owned, so I'm pretty excited about using it for an Altered Plates recipe.

Thom and I enjoyed a yummy lunch at The Village Den, then headed off to meet the others. I remarked that there was a bigger traffic police presence than I'd seen lately, and Thom reminded me that it was Pride day. The buzz was palpable.

Everyone at the gathering loved the homemade cookies. Other folks had brought store-bought cookies and donuts, but I was happy to see what a big impression the cookies had on these lovely folks.

It was so much fun watching the parade from a rooftop filled with gorgeous young shirtless men enjoying this celebration of freedom. We waved to all the marchers and float dancers, especially the beautiful cross-dressers singing to us in their gowns and short summer frocks. Of course, the handsome bodybuilders were great to see as well.

At the end of the day, buoyed by the excitement of Pride, I drove back to my suburban home in New Jersey, thinking how much the times have changed, yet how much they stay the same. The number of young, out people we saw was remarkable. On the other hand, the stroller set was not represented at all in any of the groups I could see from the roof. Regardless, I'm happy for my gay, lesbian and transgender friends, for whom every day is Pride day.

The Best Oatmeal Cookies Yet

I'm not a big self-horn-tooter, but these are definitely the best oatmeal cookies I've ever had. Not that I wrote the original recipe, because I didn't. The lovely and talented Elise of Simply Recipes did. I've included a short film below describing my baking process for these fabulous cookies.

The recipe is really buttery -- 2 sticks, but the resulting cookies are heavenly. I almost hate to give them away, but I made them for my friend Thom's birthday party taking place later today -- and if I'm not as good as my word, then what am I?

The original recipe makes 18 large cookies, but since I'm making them for a large (or rather, potentially large) group, I made smaller cookies. My yield was pretty high: 60 cookies. However, by the time I got to the end of the batch, there seemed to be a few ugly ones to keep to myself. No worries though, the ugly ones taste just as good. So filled with buttery goodness!

Before we get to the movie, here are my alterations:

1. Additional spices: 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon cloves -- really made a huge difference in flavor.
2. 1 1/2 cups of agave nectar for the 2 cups of mixed sugars.
3. 1/2 cup of chopped apricots for 1/2 cup raisins.
4. Pecans for walnuts
5. Baked at 325 degrees F for 11 minutes, then switched the positions of the pans in the oven and baked for another 11 minutes (but that's just my tricky oven, you may have different baking times).

And now for the show...



What are your favorite oatmeal cookies?

Tweaking Cook's Illustrated's Classic Brownies

Well, isn't that just the picture of brownie loveliness?

Have I mentioned how much I adore brownies? In my case, they're carob brownies, but they still taste great regardless. In today's blog entry, I'm reworking Cook's Illustrated's classic brownie recipe, curtosy of the wonderfully talented Smitten Kitchen blogger, Deb.

I made a few substitutions:

1. Whole wheat pastry flour for cake flour
2. 8 oz of unsweetened carob chips for 6 oz of chopped unsweetened chocolate
3. 1 stick of butter for 1.5 sticks
4. 2 cups of agave instead of 2.25 cups of sugar
5. 4 egg whites instead of 4 whole eggs
6. Vanilla paste for extract

First, the recipe calls for toasting the chopped walnuts. While they were toasting, I melted the butter and the carob chips together in a glass bowl over previously boiling water.

Then, I combined the dry ingredients. After the carob mixture cooled, I added the egg whites one at a time, whisking after each addition. Then, I added the vanilla and mixed again before mixing in the dry ingredients and the nuts.



Next, I poured the mixture into my favorite Polish pottery baker, just to try something different. I'd lined the baker with aluminum foil as per the recipe. That was a really good idea because the brownies later were extracted with the greatest of ease.

After 30 minutes, the brownies were still very wet and the walnuts had floated to the top. I put them back in and baked them for another 30 minutes. To do this recipe again, I would have increased the heat to 325 degrees F, as in the original.



The brownies cracked right in the spot where I tested them earlier. They smelled so great, I could hardly wait until they were done to try them.

They came out great! Very carob-y, rich and nutty. I didn't mind that the nuts floated to the top, but if I were to tweak this even more, I'd probably just use two whole eggs, and cut the agave by another 1/2 cup because the brownies were pretty sweet. Otherwise, I'm pleased with how they came out.

John's Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies

I've been making these Vegan With a Vengeance cookies for a while now, but haven't shown in a movie how I do it. So, I decided to take the opportunity while I baked John some cookies earlier this week. They really don't take much time at all to make, including the baking. What's more, they're tasty and reasonably healthy.

I only made two changes to Isa's original recipe, and those were 1. agave for sugar, and 2. no arrowroot/cornstarch.

Otherwise, I really don't change the recipe except for the lower oven temperature. Here's a short film that shows my baking process.



What are your favorite peanut butter cookies?

Not Shortbread, But Lovely Cookies Nonetheless

Shortbread is my baking Everest.

The cookies above were my attempt at reworking Martha Stewart's Living Cookie of the Month for July, Rum-Raisin Shortbread. The main challenge was adapting the recipe to account for the agave/sugar substitution. While I thought I'd be able to do it with the coconut flour, the cookies ended up tasting much more like these treats I made for Passover instead. Not that there's anything wrong with them at all. They were lovely. However, they did not remotely taste like shortbread.

Here is a list of my alterations to the original recipe:

1. I don't cook with rum (or any other alcoholic drink for that matter), so that was the first change.
2. I substituted chopped dried apricots for the dried currants.
3. I used agave instead of sugar.
4. I employed a lemon for zest instead of orange (although that would work really well with the apricots).
5. I added vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract.
6. I used a mixture of coconut flour and all-purpose flour instead of just ap flour.

When I creamed the butter with the agave, I had high hopes for the recipe working out as shortbread. However, when I added the remaining ingredients, the dough was just too creamy.



It wasn't like a sugar cookie dough, but I plowed ahead.



Martha's recipe called for forming the dough into two logs wrapped in parchment. Luckily, the parchment really helped in rolling the very mushy (yet tasty) dough.





Afterward, I let the dough rest in the fridge for two days, until I had time to bake the cookies (day before Father's Day).

At this point, I'll let a short clip tell a bit more of the story.



The resulting cookies were yummy and a big hit at my Dad's for Father's Day. However, they're not what I think shortbread should taste like. On the other hand, I'm willing to keep trying different flours and perhaps barley malt powder to achieve a more dry, crunchy, shortbready mouthfeel.

Why Agave Nectar?

Over the past two years, I've been cooking and baking with agave nectar, experimenting with ways to replace all other sweeteners in my diet. I had tried stevia, but really didn't like the flavor at all. Then, there was honey, but it had such a huge affect on my system that I couldn't tolerate much of it at all. Honey almost instantly causes my body and skin to feel very hot. It also affects my mood the way cane sugar does -- a huge, arcing high, then a devastating low. Crying under the table, low.

Prior to going back to trying natural sweeteners, I tried Equal, Splenda and Sweet'n Low. All three left metallic tastes in my mouth, and Splenda had the same affect on me as sugar, but it didn't last as long. Still, not viable options.

So, I went completely sweetener-free for about two years. They were long, difficult years. I missed things like cookies, cake and pie. I had to do something.

I tried a number of different options. First, I tried brown rice syrup. In small amounts every once in a while, I enjoy some frozen Rice Dream (mint carob chip to be exact), but not often because, but it's high on the glycemic index. While I don't get the "hot" feeling, I still experience the mood shift. The same thing happens with barley malt, but I enjoy a barley-malt-sweetened candy once in a while.

While those two liquid sweeteners are used in a great deal of "health food" sweets, they're really not much better than cane sugar. It grinds my gears that "health food" manufacturers try to pull the wool over people's eyes by saying that evaporated cane syrup is any better than plain sugar. It comes from the same place! They just use a different method to extract the sucrose.

So, I discovered agave nectar at a local health food store one day. I asked the owner what he thought of it, since he knows of my dietary restrictions (and musical tastes, but that's for another blog). He recommended it highly and mentioned that I'd need to drop my oven temp and alter the other liquid ingredients in recipes if I were to bake with it.

Before I tried the stuff, I did some preliminary research. Agave falls at 14 on the glycemic index. Now, that's less than half of fructose. Just reading that fact led me to try it straight on pancakes. No mood swing. No wacky feelings at all. I was instantly hooked!

But, like every learning experience, I pushed the envelope. If I ate too much of my own baked goods made with it, I did experience the hot/moody bit. Let me clarify "too much" -- 4 brownies; 10 cookies; 1/4 of a pie. You get the idea. I had to eat a large amount to make the negative effects occur. I don't normally eat that way, so I figured I'd be alright.

Agave nectar is much sweeter than sugar, so I don't always use equal amounts to the recipes I'm altering. However, it's fortunate that agave is sweeter because it's also so much more expensive.

Since I've been keeping this blog, I've signed up to a Google alert on agave nectar. There appears to be a trend forming regarding this sweetener. Increasingly more manufacturers are using it in "raw" foods and in energy bars. I'll bet that we'll be seeing more of it in the news now that obesity and diabetes are the latest epidemics in the United States and agave nectar is safe for diabetics who watch their carbs.

So, in response to my title, why not agave nectar? Except for the high price and cooking challenges (liquid versus dry sweetener), it's ideal for me and other folks who suffer from sugar sensitivities.

Off topic just a little -- I'm still battling this $#@!*&% cold, so when I'm better, I'll be making pie. The summer fruits are filling the shelves, and I'm rarin' to bake!

Apology

So sorry, friends. I've been struck down with a massive cold this week and just can't get it together to bake. Also, I'm not sure I'd want to serve anyone anything I'd made while sick, so there it is.

I'm drinking lots of herbal tea and taking huge doses of vitamin C, so hopefully this thing will run its course, and I'll be back to baking next week. Until then, be well.

Reworking Lidia's Bread and Berries Pudding

I am a HUGE fan of Lidia Matticchio Bastianich's programs on public television. Just the fact that they're on PBS rather than some other network is enough to make me watch. John says that Lidia reminds him of my mom in that they explain things in a similar way.

This special way of expressing herself is artfully echoed in Lidia's well-edited cookbooks, of which I own two. These aren't garden variety cookbooks. I enjoy reading them even when I don't plan to cook. It's evident that her editors took the time to keep her readily identifiable voice within the pages. And, for that I am very grateful. Even John, who doesn't normally read the books as I'm cooking, laughed along with some of the "Lidia-isms."

Earlier today, while John tied flies for his fishing excursion, I decided to play with Lidia's recipe for Bread and Berries Pudding from her book Lidia's Family Table. I adore bread pudding, so there was no question I would make this dish eventually. But instead of waiting for an occasion, I scooped up all the bread-on-its-way-to-the-croutons-pile bits available and made them ready for the recipe.



The first part of the recipe calls for cubes of bread to be tossed in maple syrup and toasted for 15 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees F. As is my way, I substituted agave nectar for the maple syrup, and lowered the oven by 25 degrees. I also didn't limit myself to hearty white bread, but also included some of my homemade wheat bread and some whole wheat pitas (I will not use those next time, although they added interesting texture. I can think of lots of her lasagne recipes where they would work much better.)

When those came out of the oven, I nearly ate a handful because they smelled great and tasted better. While they cooled, I noodled around with the rest of the recipe.



While this may seem like an OXO ad, it's not. It's just to show you how much liquid I ended up using -- less than the recipe due to the agave nectar. It's a rich recipe. When I say "rich," think eggs. Lots of eggs. Four eggs and four egg yolks. Not the kind stuff you'd give to your uncle with the heart condition. I kept all the eggs, but dispensed with the heavy cream and whole milk in favor of vanilla rice milk. (I do plan to use almond milk in a future recipe, but I bought the rice milk in bulk, so it needs to go first.) I also cut the amount of rice milk by 1/3 to account for the agave.



For the fruit, I used a small banana and two cups of fresh strawberries. If you live within 250 miles of the New Jersey area, please take advantage of the Jersey Fresh produce. It's in season now, and you will get good prices on them. Better yet, visit a local farm stand. You'll get even better prices and fresher produce.



I filled two of my favorite Polish pottery bakers with the toasted bread cubes and the fruit. Lidia advised buttering the bakers well, and I'm glad I did. When they came out of the oven later, the juices of the berries made for sticky edges.



Next, I topped the bakers with the liquid ingredients and made sure that all of the bread and fruit had been dunked at least once. Then, off to the oven to bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes.

At 30 minutes, I saw that the tops were browning too quickly, so I tented the bakers with foil and lowered the heat another 25 degrees. That worked like a charm.



After it cooled, I tasted the dish. It was delicious! Next time, though, I'm taking Lidia's advice and using just white bread. I know, it's indulgent, but I don't eat white bread often. I'm taking the big baker with me to Mom's on Monday so she and Dave can enjoy it (and so I don't eat the whole thing myself).

The Hamantaschen That Became Stars

Here's a 15-minute short film in three parts on my experience re-doing hamantaschen from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. The dough didn't turn out to be pliable to fold into the traditional shapes, so I made cut cookies instead. Regardless, they were a huge hit.









Sorry to have had to cut them up into three clips, but at least there aren't any commercials!

Delightfully Hearty Handfuls

These muffins are super hearty and heart-healthy. Uber-fiber-icious. Ok, they're pretty darn tasty, too. Best of all, they fit in the palm of your hand, so they're good to take camping, hiking and biking for quick energy.

For this recipe, I had a field day with a muffin recipe in "The Baker's Catalogue." My version is almost nothing like the original, with the exception of three ingredients: whole wheat flour, rolled oats and baking powder.

In my altered version, I used cashew butter in place of the butter or oil. I also used rice milk instead of cow's milk, agave for sugar, and loads more spices and add-ins.

If you decide to make these yourself, just know that they don't make big muffins at all. They're pretty dense, but very tasty.

Makes 12 handful-sized muffins.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon alspice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup chopped dried pears
1 cup unsweetened carob chips
1 cup rice milk
1/2 cup cashew butter
3 large eggs

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan.
2. Sift together all the dry ingredients except the rolled oats and the dried fruit. Mix in the rolled oats and the dried fruit.
3. In another bowl beat the eggs with the agave nectar, rice milk and cashew butter until smooth.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until incorporated. Let sit covered for 10 minutes before spooning into the muffin pan.
5. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, turning the pan after 10 minutes.
6. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before storing or enjoying!

Product Review: Fruit-sweetened Ginger and Orange Marmalade

In the recipe for Hamantaschen below, I made two different fillings using fruit-sweetened spreads. This was not one of them. Not because it isn't tasty, because it is. I just didn't want to make a gingery filling for the hammys.

Now, on to the product review.

First, a little of this Ginger and Orange Marmalade goes a long way. I've never really been a fan of marmalade, except for a lemon marmalade I've used in chocolate fillings. But, this spread has convereted me. It's sweetened with the typical fruit juices, but the primary flavors are definitively orange and ginger. There are thin slices of orange rind, as you would find in most marmalades, but interestingly, they bite back like they've been marinated in ginger.

If I were to cook pork, which I don't, but I know some of you do, I would use this spread in a marinade for pork chops. I think it would be fantastic.

When I baked the hammys below, I had a bit of extra dough leftover. With the excess dough, I made simple cut-out cookies that I topped with the marmalade to a very tasty result. I also used miniature tart pans, lined with the cookie dough and filled with the marmalade. Those were delicious as well.

So, to rank this product on a scale of 1-10, I would give it a very high 9. Why not 10? The price! Bottles of St. Dalfour aren't cheap, but in the case of their Ginger and Orange Marmalade, it's worth the investment, especially if you have to avoid sugar-sweetened jams and preserves.

Moosey Hamantaschen

I've written and tested hamantaschen recipes before, but had yet to achieve the buttery crispness found in the bakery cookies I ate in my youth. That is, until I tried altering the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant hamantaschen recipe for agave nectar.

The cookies shown above are the result of my efforts. I made these while cooking another recipe, so I didn't make one of my short films about the experience. However, I can tell you that I only used half the recipe and made about 24 tasty cookies.

My alterations to the recipe included 1/2 cup coconut flour for part of the all-purpose flour called, 1 cup of agave for the sugar, 2 teaspoons pineapple juice for the orange juice, and a completely different set of fillings.

For the fillings, I used a base of chopped dried tart cherries and dried apricots. I hydrated these and drained them, then pureed them. I divided the puree in half, then mixed each with a different fruit-sweetened mixed fruit spread, respectively. One was a peach spread, while the other was this amazing concoction from Trader Joe's with pomegranate in it.

Both were wonderful foils for the buttery cookie. However, I plan to try this recipe again, substituting more coconut flour for the ap flour and using a poppyseed filling. I've had a bag of Pensey's poppyseeds in my cabinet for a few months mocking me. So, it's time to use them.

Just a tip for creaming butter with agave, make sure that the butter's softened to almost mush. It incorporates much better that way, and even gets to a nice, fluffy consistency quite easily with the stand mixer.

The Vegan Dulce de Leche Trials

Because this is a test recipe and not yet "proven," I'm not going to publish the ingredients and amounts. However, I can tell you that it's very close. Not bad for the very first try!

My friend Judie came by yesterday, and she (being game for trying most anything I concoct in the kitchen) gave it a go. Judie really liked it, even the burnt caramel end note. She ate spoonfuls of the stuff straight. She also proposed making a sandwich of the dulce de leche with cashew butter. My reply was "Anything tastes better with cashew butter," which got me to thinking...

Experimental Dulce de Leche

This is just a quick update to let you know that I've been noodling around with a new recipe for vegan, agave nectar-based dulce de leche. The first try was very close. I made a short movie about it that I'm editing and will post soon.

Making dulce de leche from scratch is extremely time consuming, especially if you don't use sweetened condensed milk. Same goes for rice milk, which is the base of my recipe.

All this tinkering in the kitchen makes me wish I studied harder during high school chemistry.

Coconut Apricot Almond Biscotti

The name is a bit of a misnomer since these cookies are much more apricotty and almondy than coconutty. And, feel free to change the name if you make this version your own. I've altered this recipe before on my other blog, Here and There, but this is a very different take on it. Instead of adding carob powder to offset the liquid sweetener, I've added coconut flour. Additionally, the dried apricots lend the cookies a great tartness to offset the richness of the almonds.

I've never worked with coconut flour before, but I definitely will again. It smells fantastic, is very low in fat, and is very high in fiber. What could be bad? Also, it really sucks up the liquid in a recipe, so I could actually replace flour with it instead of adding to a recipe. It might just be my answer to how to tackle the sugar cookie issue.

I've made a little film of how I made the biscotti. Please let me know what you think. The recipe follows the film, although in the film, I use one egg. I've corrected for dryness by adding the second egg back in the recipe below.



Yields at least 30 cookies, depending on how thickly you slice them.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups toasted almonds coarsely chopped
3/4 cup agave nectar
2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
4 tablespoons vanilla rice milk (you could use regular, soy or almond milk here as well)
1/2 cup dried apricots chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a food processor, grind 1/2 cup of the almonds and the agave nectar until it resembles a wet paste.
3. Add the paste to the bowl of your mixer and beat in the flours until combined well.
4. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until a dough forms.
5. Add the rice milk and mix until the dough loosens (about 2 minutes).
6. Add the remaining almonds and the apricots and stir until incorporated.
7. Halve the dough and on a flat surface, roll each piece into a log at least 10 in. long and about 2 in. in diameter. Pat down the logs a bit so they're oblong rather than round.
8. Bake until golden brown and set, approximately 27 minutes. Place the pan on a rack to cool for 10 minutes.
9. Move the logs to a cutting surface and slice each into 1/2 in. to 1 in. pieces, depending on your preference.
10. Place the slices cut side down on the pan and bake for another 10 minutes.
11. Take the pan out of the oven and turn over the biscotti before putting the pan back into the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.
12. Cool completely on the pan, on a rack.
13. Enjoy the biscotti by themselves, or in my favorite way, by dunking them into a cold or hot drink.

Carob Fudge

Sometimes I really do miss chocolate. I have fond memories of walking along the boardwalk at the New Jersey shore, inhaling the flavors of the freshly made fudge. I could never decide which was my favorite flavor, so I'd usually spend a little bit more for a variety box. Sweet, creamy, chocolaty stuff that eventually made me sick with a monster headache after I'd finished a few pieces.

Still, I miss the flavor and the consistency of fudge. Of course, there are plenty of companies offering malitol-laden fudge, but that also has awful consequences for me. I won't divulge details here, but suffice it to say that the packages of "sugar-free" sweets with sugar alcohols are labeled as hazardous for a reason.

To develop a fudgy candy that wouldn't have icky and/or painful consequences (even in small amounts), I stepped into the kitchen and experimented. My intention was to make carob fudge. As you can see from the photo above, I got pretty close. Because there's only the dairy included with the carob chips, it's not a creamy-tasting concoction. And, it's a bit more chewy than I'd like for "true" fudge, but it's really close. I'll be experimenting again, especially with different add-ins and alternate proportions of the base ingredients, so you'll see other incarnations of carob fudge in the future.

I deviated from my usual sweetener, agave nectar, and used barley malt. I'll probably try it with agave next time. Which is not to say the barley malt was bad at all, because it wasn't. It just didn't achieve the sweetness profile I was going for in the recipe. I tried it here because I've had it in health food store-bought confections that were really tasty, and thought I could wing it.

Because this recipe yields 15 pretty large pieces, it will be a while before I try my hand at carob fudge again. It's rich stuff, so I can only tolerate a piece a day. Give me a month or so, and I'll be back at it.

Experimental Carob Fudge I

Ingredients:

2 cups unsweetened carob chips
1/2 cup barley malt
3 teaspoons grapeseed oil
1/2 cup unsweetened dried coconut
3 tablespoons carob powder

Directions:

1. Grease an 8-in. square pan.
2. In the top part of a double boiler (or in a glass bowl over simmering water), melt the chips, barley malt and oil. Stir continuously until the mixture is smooth.
3. Mix in coconut and carob powder until well blended.
4. Press into pan and refrigerate until just set.
5. Let the pan come back to room temperature (1 hr) and cut into 15 pieces.

Inspiration

I recently finished reading My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme. I'm so glad that I read it now, as I'm in the process of writing my first cookbook (the inspiration for this blog).

Written in the first person, My Life in France provides an incredibly candid view of Julia's exhaustive research into the recipes of her first cookbook and how they would translate from French kitchens to American households. I could hear her voice, that unique voice of hers, in my head as I read about how she and her husband Paul traveled extensively and literally ate life up as they went.

Her descriptions of life in her kitchens (in each of her French apartments), cooking numerous French dishes for the first time and tasting remarkable flavors dished out by other fine chefs are nothing short of inspiring for a writer. I was even more enthused as I learned how exacting an editor she was. As both a writer and an editor, reading My Life in France gave me hope that I really can do this -- even if it takes as long as ten years, like Julia's first book did.

I have many favorite books, but I think that this one tops my list at the moment. And, it's not even a cookbook.

Making Over Martha's Brownies

Oh Martha! How I wish I could make all the lovely cookies and yummy desserts in your Baking Handbook! Alas, I cannot. It's so hard to alter true butter cookies to suit a liquid sweetener like agave nectar. It will be a happy day for me when a dried agave product comes on the market.

But, thankfully, Martha's "Fudgy Chocolate Brownie" recipe follows a common model for brownies -- melt butter and chocolate together and add the remaining ingredients in stages before baking. I've made quite a few agave-and-carob-laden brownies, but this recipe required the most amount of (ehem) fudging.

The result is a very fudgy brownie with a nice crust. It definitely goes well with a nice glass of vanilla rice milk.

Here's the recipe with my alterations:

Fudgy Carob Brownies

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup unsweetened carob chips
1 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter 8-in square baking pan.
2. Boil 2 in. of water in a medium saucepan and turn off the heat. Place the butter and the carob in a glass bowl on top of the steaming saucepan, and stir until the butter and carob are completely melted together and smooth.
3. Take the bowl off the hot water and let cool for 15 minutes.
4. Stir the agave nectar into the mixture until combined.
5. Whisk in the vanilla.
6. Whisk in the eggs until well combined.
7. Gently fold in the flour and salt.
8. Pour the batter into the pan and bake approximately 40 minutes, until a toothpick tester comes out with a few moist crumbs.
9. Let cool, then cut into 16 2-in squares.

Performance note: When using agave to make brownies, do not expect to achieve the cracked top of the typical brownie. It just won't happen. It might be a bit on the soft side, so feel free to make a tasty carob ganache to pour on top!

Better Graham Crackers

Almost a year ago, I tried altering another graham cracker recipe that just didn't fly for my husband John (I, however, enjoyed them immensely). Since I've been collecting other graham cracker recipes to try and other cookbooks since that first attempt, I decided it's time to try again.

This recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, a great resource for wonderful cookies. I had to make some big substitutions for the recipe to work with agave nectar, but the outcome was a graham cracker that more closely matched John's idea of what one should taste like.

One note of caution, though. I baked these for the prescribed time, but found that their texture was much more like a cookie than a cracker. A day later, I re-baked a few of them in the toaster oven for about 15 minutes, and achieved an ideal cracker consistency. Ideal for me. Not for John, he liked the "cookier" ones better. C'est la vie!



Better Graham Crackers

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or grease lightly.
2. In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients.
3. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the dry mixture until it is evenly crumbly.
4. Slowly add the agave nectar, mixing it in using a fork.
5. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it over gently until smooth. [I also used the pie-crust-making technique of using the ball of my hand to mush the butter into the dough further. It really makes a difference in the final product.]
6. Divide the dough in half and on one of the pieces of parchment paper from the baking sheets, roll one piece into a large rectangle, 1/16th in. thick.
7. Use a pizza cutter to cut crackers 2 in. wide x 3 in. long. Don't separate the crackers.
8. Use a dough docker or a straight fork to prick a design into the dough to keep it from puffing up irregularly.
9. Transfer the sheet of parchment paper with the dough to one of the baking sheets.
10. Do the same with the other half of the dough.
11. Bake the crackers for 20-25 minutes, or until they are medium golden brown.
12. Remove them from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes.
13. Gently break the crackers on the cut lines and gently transfer them to a rack to cool completely.
14. Enjoy!