Maple Bread

 

 

My house has been filled with the smells of fall lately.  We've been roasting pie pumpkins to make puree for pies and baked goods.  Making crock pots full of spicy apple butter.  Baking soft ginger molasses cookies and brewing big pots of Vermont maple coffee.  Maple is one of those flavors that seems perfectly suited for fall.

My husband's grandmother has a wonderful recipe for maple bread that I want to share with you today.  It's a quick bread employing the muffin method - you combine your wet ingredients in one bowl and your dry ingredients in another bowl and then marry them together.  This simple recipe comes together in a flash and is easily doubled, which I highly encourage because you'll find this loaf of bread is so tasty you'll want to share it with your friends and neighbors.  Share the love my friends.  There's enough to go around.

It's best eaten warm, straight from the oven with a little butter smeared on top.  Or, if you really want a delicious treat, slather a slice with butter and pop it under the broiler for a couple minutes until the top is nice and golden.

To die for!  I'm going to go cozy up with my knitting, a cup of Vermont maple coffee, and slice of toasted maple bread right now.

Maple Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp maple extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a standard loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt).  In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, and extracts).  Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredient mixture.  Gently fold to combine (a few lumps are okay!).

Pour the batter in to the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in to the center comes out clean.

Yield: 1 loaf

Printable Recipe

Best Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

We're having a rare 68 degree summer day here in Michigan.  I make it no secret that summer is not my favorite season.  I'd much rather enjoy the crisp autumn air and be able to feel the cool breeze blowing through my house as I bake up a storm.  So on these days when Michigan does what it does best, weird weather, I put on some comfy clothes, open the windows wide, and bake all day!

I received a request to bake some cookies for next week - as if I need an excuse!  I decided to get out my very best peanut butter cookie recipe.  My cookie tin is bare too, so some of these cookies will be staying home and some will hop in to the freezer until they are needed next week.  Have you ever frozen cookies?  I haven't, but I'm told they'll taste just fine when they're thawed out next week.  I can tell you that fresh from the oven, these cookies are the bomb!

This cookie is an adaptation on a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com (original can be found here).  With a little tweaking, I do declare this recipe is perfect!

The cookies are lightly browned on the bottoms, and soft through the center.  And absolutely loaded with peanut butter flavor!  These cookies stayed soft in my cookie tin for days..........well, I can tell you they stayed soft for at least two days, but beyond that I can't say because my family devoured them in that time. :)

My kiddos enjoyed them with a mug of milk, and my daughter announced they were the best peanut butter cookies ever!  And there's oats in them too - that means they're healthy right?  Of course!  Have two!  If you're experiencing unseasonably chilly weather, or you just want to scarf down some of the best cookies ever, give these a try!

Best Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup extra crunchy peanut butter (I used Jif)

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats

1 (10 oz.) package peanut butter chips (I used Reece's)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugars, vanilla, and peanut butter.  Add eggs one at a time, and mix until thoroughly combined.

3. In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Stir in oats.  Stir flour and oats mixture in to the butter and sugar mixture; stir until combined and batter is evenly mixed.

4. Add peanut butter chips and stir until combined.

5. Use a medium cookie scoop or drop by the rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 12 minutes, or until bottoms of the cookies are just browned but tops are still soft.  Cool on pans for 2 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool thoroughly.

Fruit Leather



When I was a kid the cool thing to have in your lunch was a Kool-Aid Jammer and Fruit By The Foot.  Alas, I wasn't a cool kid, and I usually had a CapriSun and no sticky, corn syrup, red dye filled Fruit By The Foot.  Total bummer.  Now I'm a little older and a little wiser, and I know my mama was doing me (and maybe my teachers) a favor by not totally pumping me full of sugar and food coloring.  Thanks ma!  Well, we can still enjoy a sticky, fruity treat without all the funky junk.  Enter, fruit leather!

 

My dear friend and neighbor had an abundance of juicy, red strawberries and asked if I wanted half a flat.  Umm, heck yes!  We traded that half flat of berries for jam and chocolate chip cookies, and I got to work on my fruit leather.

First, I washed and hulled two pounds of berries.  Then I popped them in the food processor and pureed them until the liquid was smooth.

At this point, I tasted the puree and it seemed a little tart to me.  So I added a smidge (official US standard measurement - look it up) of honey and a splash of good vanilla until I was satisfied with the taste.  This is totally up to you how much sweetener you add, and you certainly do not have to add vanilla.  I just happen to think everything tastes better with a little vanilla.  If your berries are sweet enough, don't add any honey or sweetener and pat yourself on the back for making no sugar added treats.  Hooray!

 

For a little variety, I chose to make a batch of strawberry banana too.  I blended one pound of strawberries and one pound of bananas in my food processor until smooth.  What a pretty, pretty color!

After tasting this puree, I decided the bananas added enough sweetness so I just added a little splash of vanilla and called it a day.  You can strain the puree through a fine mesh sieve if you want to remove the strawberry seeds, but I don't mind them so I skipped that step.  Next, I lined my dehydrator trays with parchment paper and spread the purees out on the lined trays.

 

You want the puree to be about an 1/8th inch thick.  If your puree is spread too thin, your leather will be brittle.  Too thick, and it will take forever to dry and might be too chewy.

 

Once my trays were all filled it was on to the dehydrator.  Another blogger suggested starting out at a lower than normal temp for fruit leather, so I popped my trays in the dehydrator and set the heat at 105 degrees for 10 hours.  After about 8 hours, I checked my trays and realized they needed to be turned and to dry for a little while longer, and a couple seemed a little runny still.  My dehydrator model has a display with suggestions on temperature settings for different types of foods.  The suggested temp for fruit leather was 135 degrees, so I bumped up the temp and set my timer for another 6 hours.  I know, it's a long, long time to wait for a treat, but your patience will be rewarded!

Check it out!  I made fruit leather!  The texture should be a little sticky, but peel-able.  I'm thinking I need to invest in some Silpats or Teflex sheets for my dehydrator because the parchment paper seemed to bunch a bit.  Plus Silpats and Teflex are reusable - bonus!  But, if you only have parchment paper on hand, that works too and the winkles in the leather don't affect the roll-ability or the tastiness.

 

Peel, roll and enjoy!  These are so tasty and so incredibly easy to make!  These, however, do not look like Fruit By The Foot.

Bam!  Oh that's better.  You can use scissors to cut your fruit leather in to strips.  Then roll up in wax paper or parchment paper and you have your faux Fruit By The Foot.

 

Just look at that gorgeous red color and flecks of strawberry goodness!  Way cooler than store bought, boxed junk in my opinion.  Pack these in your family's lunches for that cool kid factor.  Get the kids involved so they can say, "Yeah, I made these."  Total cool kid status.  I hope you give fruit leather a try!  Don't stop at strawberry or strawberry banana.  Branch out.  Get crazy!  There's a whole rainbow of fruit out there just waiting to be made in to fruit leathery yumminess!