Cran-Apple Crisps

It's Tuesday and I'm still making up recipes from Baking From My Home to Yours like my life depends on it. At the beginning of the year, I had 78 recipes to make up. I'm not sure how many are left, but it's lots less than 78.

This recipe is perfection as a do ahead, and even if you're making it from start to finish, it's still very doable on a weeknight. I made some changes:

• We have tons of desserts around so I made 1/4 of the recipe, yielding 2 crisps.
• I didn't have dried cranberries, so I substituted chopped walnuts.
• I considered adding cardamom to the crisp topping but didn't. I think it would be awesome so if you try it please let me know how you liked it.
• You can use practically any fruit with this one. Really, grapefruit, pears, berries, stone fruit, you can use them all.
• Dorie's crisp topping is quite unusual in that it has oats and coconut, but it works beautifully, and is easy to throw together as it's made in the food processor.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

Daring Bakers - Cranberry Orange Apricot Bread

I have been remiss in posting Daring Bakers challenges of late, even though I've made at least two that I could never get written and posted. When I saw this month's challenge however, I knew I had to participate.

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

This bread is one that I've cobbled together from various recipes (starting with a recipe from The Silver Palate Cookbook) over the years, completely reworking the assembly to the point that I think it's perfect. Your mileage may vary, but I encourage you to incorporate some of these techniques in your quick bread making. They've given me tender, delicious quick breads for many years now.

• MEP, or mise en place, is critical. Have all of your ingredients ready, including chopping, measuring, melting, heating, etc.
• Flavors and add ins are critical, because without them, you've made a block of cake in a loaf pan with bits of things every slice or so.
• DON'T OVERMIX. Really. My technique (I've never seen it in another recipe) is to add your mix ins when your dry ingredients are about half way mixed into the wet ingredients. This way, you don't over mix while you're trying to incorporate the mix ins. Quick bread batter quickly (no pun intended) starts to stiffen the more you mix it, making it harder to thoroughly combine the mix ins.
• Also to address the mix ins, I mix mine together in a bowl before adding them to the recipe. Again, this makes it easier to have a homogenous loaf instead of one where all the nuts are in one half and the fruit in another.
• Texture. I address this in a couple of ways. If I'm using a wet fruit, I let it drain on a dish towel before adding it. I try to use a variety of mix ins, including nuts or poppy seeds or oats or something to provide an interesting crunch to break up the monotony of the bread.
• Short on time? Muffins. A muffin is a mini quick bread.
• Plan ahead. If you want muffins for your Saturday breakfast, you can make the batter Tuesday night and freeze (well wrapped, of course) in the muffin tin. Set the muffin pan on the counter while you preheat your oven the day you plan to bake. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.
• I use my food processor for this bread because there's a lot of chopping, and I find frozen cranberries to be the most frustrating thing to chop by far. In this recipe I start with the nuts (if I'm using nuts), then go to the cranberries and finally the dried fruit. No need to wipe out the bowl.
• Think outside the box, er, recipe. Chopped crystalized ginger goes so well with many fruits (think lemon, orange, cranberry, banana, etc.) Likewise, chocolate will play well with many fruits (orange, raspberry, strawberry, apricot, etc.) 

Cranberry Orange Apricot Bread
Printer-friendly recipe

2 cups/280 grams unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup/100 grams sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup/60 grams walnuts
11/4 cups/138 grams cranberries, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup/75 grams dried apricots
2/3 cup fresh orange juice (I've used store-bought, and substituted POG)
2 eggs
3 tbsp/42 grams unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp grated orange zest

Grease or coat an 8 x 4½ x 3 inch loaf pan with baking spray. Place oven rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Weigh or measure the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl, whisk until combined, make a well in the center and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the walnuts until coarsely chopped, and empty walnuts into a medium mixing bowl. Repeat with the cranberries, then the apricots, pulsing each individually until coarsely chopped and them transferring to the mixing bowls with the walnuts. Stir the chopped ingredients until they are equally distributed.

In a small mixing bowl or 2 cup measuring cup, add the orange juice, eggs and melted butter, then zest the orange into the wet mixture and combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and with a spatula, fold them together until about halfway incorporated, then add the nut and fruit mixture, folding just until combined. Make sure you're getting to the bottom of the bowl with your spatula so you don't have dry pockets of flour.

Transfer batter to the pan and bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove the loaf from the pan and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Wrap in plastic wrap and store for a day or two before serving (I've never done this because it smells too good when it comes out of the oven!)

Classic Brownies

If you've ever picked up a copy of Baking From My Home to Yours, you may have noticed that there are a lot of brownie recipes. To me, a chocolate and brownie lover, that's very endearing. Astonishingly, when I was going over the list of recipes I have yet to make from the book, there were a couple of brownie recipes I missed from when the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers were baking their way through the book.

These brownies are called "Classic" by Dorie because they are the standard brownie with walnuts that you may remember from your childhood, except they don't come from a box. I doubled the recipe because I was taking them to work. They were so easy and I think I actually preferred them to my go-to recipe (you can find it here). I might have to make them again and test them side by side to make up my mind.

I normally put the nuts on my brownies so they toast in the over rather than getting soggy, but went with the classic and put the nuts in the brownies. I do prefer the nuts on top, so I'll probably do it that way in the future.

I found them to be a little bit crumbly, but moist and incredibly chocolatey. Definitely a repeater.

Classic Brownies - adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours
Printer-friendly version

5 tablespoons/2 1/2 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 5 pieces
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional, but really good)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt (according to taste - I used 1/2 teaspoon)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment paper, or spray with baking spray.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add the butter and chocolates to the bowl and stir occasionally until the ingredients are just melted - you don't want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.

With a whisk, stir in the sugar. Don't be concerned when your smooth mixture turns grainy. One by one, whisk in the eggs. Add the vanilla and give the ingredients a vigorous whisking (this really changes the texture a lot) before gently stirring the espresso, if you're using it.  Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the salt and flour; stirring only until incorporated, then fold in the chopped walnuts.

Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the spatula. (don't skip this part as I did or your brownies will be bumpy and uneven).

Bake the brownies for 30 to 33 minutes, or until the top is dull and a thin knife inserted into the center come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the brownies to room temperature.

When the brownies are completely cool, turn out onto a rack, remove the parchment and invert onto a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares.

Orange Berry Muffins with Crumb Topping

In my continuing quest to bake every recipe from Baking From My Home to Yours, this week I'm catching up with the orange berry muffins. Practically every time I pick up this cookbook looking for something quick and spontaneous to bake, I look at these muffins, see the blueberries and turn the page. I've written before about the reason for my blueberry aversion here, but the time was here to put on my big girl apron and do it.

To get around my lack of true love for the blueberry, I also added some raspberries I froze last year when they were plentiful at the farmers markets, I included walnuts AND I topped them with a crumb topping. They were spectacular, and I didn't even care that they had blueberries in them.

This is not what I'd call a fast recipe, and you will dirty a few bowls, measuring cups, etc., but it will be totally worth it. It's much easier if you have the crumb topping pre-made in your freezer.

Orange Berry Muffins with Crumb Topping - adapted from Dorie Greenspan
Printer-friendly recipe

Crumb topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

Muffins:
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
About 3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 Tablespoons honey

1/8 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia extract (from King Arthur Flour, optional)
1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup raspberries – fresh or frozen (not thawed)
1 cup blueberries – fresh or frozen (not thawed)

2/3 cup chopped walnuts

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Make the crumb topping:

Combine the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and the butter crumb topping ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the butter is the size of peas. Rub the mixture with your fingertips until it's in big crumbles, then set aside in the refrigerator, tightly covered, until ready to use.

Make the muffins:
Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey, melted butter and Fiori di Sicilia (if using).

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with a spatula until the sugar is moist. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Sprinkle on the crumb mixture (you may have some leftover - just freeze if for another time).

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes (mine were done at 21 minutes). When fully baked, the crumb topping will be golden, the muffins springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Programming note: Check back tomorrow because I'm posting a cake that will amaze you and is a lot of fun to make. In a very tortured way that leads to a lot of dishes. 

Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

I have news for you.

There is such a thing as too much chocolate.

I know, I never would have believed it could be true but it is. I'm not sure if it was the milk or white chocolate (or maybe the combination) that sent these over the top, but I could only take a tiny corner. Two bites. People who I relayed this to looked at me like I was an alien life form, and told me I was crazy. Just another day at the office.

These brownies, from Baking From My Home to Yours, contain cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate chips and a white chocolate glaze.

Bottom line, if you like milk chocolate and sweet brownies, you'll love these. If not, I would suggest replacing the milk chocolate chips with semisweet or even bittersweet, and forgoing the white chocolate glaze entirely. They'd be quadruple chocolate if you did that, which is still pretty special.

I was feeling lazy and didn't toast the walnuts and the world didn't end. At least not yet. But I would recommend toasting the nuts, unless you're trying to bang out as many recipes as you can so you can write lots of posts during your non-existent down time at a conference. Like I am.

You can find the recipe all over the blogosphere, or you can find it in the original post when these were picked for TWD here.

Bittersweet Decadence Cookies

Unless you don't like chocolate (and not everybody does), the name of this recipe alone should be enough to send you to the kitchen. But if it isn't, check this out:

These cookies have been a favorite here for years. We love the slightly crackly outside that covers a soft center with chunks of walnuts and chocolate chips. There is no wrong temperature to serve them at, no wrong time of day to eat them, and no wrong event to take them to. They're always the star of the cookie tray, no matter how enticing you make the shortbread and peanut butter cookies. They're like the friend who has so much personality that no one notices she's a bit homely and everyone wants to sit next to her at dinner.

Bittersweet Decadence Cookies - adapted from Alice Medrich

Printer friendly version

1/4 cup/70 grams all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups/225 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I use Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips)
2 tablespoons/28 grams unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1/2 cup/95 grams sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups/200 grams walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
1 cup/175 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks (I use Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips)

Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 350℉. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or wax paper.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir with a small whisk to combine. Set aside.

Place the 1 1/3 cups of chocolate and the butter in a large heatproof bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water (you can also use a double boiler) and stir frequently just until melted and smooth. Remove the chocolate from the skillet and set it aside. Leave the heat on under the skillet.

In a large heatproof bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla together thoroughly. Set the bowl in the skillet and stir until the mixture is lukewarm to the touch. Stir the eggs into the warm but not hot chocolate. Stir the flour mixture, then the nuts and chocolate chunks.

Scoop slightly rounded tablespoons of batter 1 1/2 inches apart on to the cookie sheets. Bake until the surface of the cookies looks dry and set but the center is still gooey, 12 to 14 minutes. If you used parchment paper, carefully slide the cookies, still on the parchment, onto racks or set the pans on the racks. Otherwise, let the cookies firm up on the pans for a minute, then transfer them to racks with a spatula. Let cool completely. Store in a tightly sealed container.

Browniepalooza Day 4 - Browned Butter Brownies with Walnuts

We're celebrating Browniepalooza this week at Lethally Delicious. Yes, it's a made up holiday, but I believe brownies deserve their own week in the spotlight.

Today, I give you the brown butter brownie from the February 2011 cover of Bon Appetit. If you've done the rounds in the blogiverse you've probably seen them, and the feedback is wildly positive. The recipe is from Alice Medrich, whom I love love love, and the brownies have the taste of a classic brownie, but with a tiny, subtle twist. You can't figure out what it is, so you eat another, and another and another... Brownie bliss. No shame. No remorse. Make another batch and do it again. I won't judge.

These had several things to recommend them. Browned butter, chocolate and nuts, specifically walnuts. Walnuts aren't my favorite but I went with it.

Ever since I read the Cook's Illustrated tip for putting nuts ON the brownie batter (they toast in the oven and get crunchy rather than getting wet in the batter), that's how I've done it. But I made these exactly as the recipe stated, including the nuts, and was pleasantly surprised that the nuts retained their crunch.

Brown Butter Brownies with Walnuts (adapted from Bon Appetit)

Printer friendly recipe

20 tablespoons unsalted butter, in chunks (it's faster with room temperature butter)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned into cup to measure, then leveled)

4 teaspoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, chilled
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
2 cups walnut pieces

Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 325°F. Lightly spray a 13x9" metal baking pan with cooking spray then line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang if possible. Melt butter in a deep medium saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula until butter stops foaming, browned bits form at bottom of pan, and butter smells nutty, about 8 minutes. Remove pan from the heat; immediately add the sugar, cocoa, 4 teaspoons water, the vanilla, and salt. Stir with your spatula until blended. Let cool for 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot). Add eggs to hot mixture 1 at a time, beating vigorously to blend after each addition. When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended. Beat vigorously 60 strokes. Stir in nuts. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake brownies until a toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack. Using the parchment sling handle, lift brownies from pan and cut as desired.

Wheat Berry Salad

When you're as big a fan of chocolate and cookies as I am, you need to eat a healthy meal that reverses the effects of too many brownies. I can always count on recipes from Ellie Krieger to be delicious in a way that "healthy" becomes an afterthought. That's what I had in mind this week when I made this because this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was chosen by me!

I love wheat berries and yet I'd never prepared them at home. The preparation is easy - cover with water and boil for about an hour.

I changed up the recipe a bit, substituting toasted pine nuts for the walnuts, cilantro instead of parsley (which I hate), and I added some chopped red bell pepper for color. This one needed a lot of tinkering, which may be a result of using 1 3/4 cups of wheat berries because that's how much I bought.

Here are a few suggestions:

• When making this recipe, you can do as I did and cook the wheat berries one day and assemble the salad the next.
• I salted the water the wheat berries cooked in. One thing I've learned from making Ellie's recipes is that they always need salt -  and I'm not a food salter.
• My dried cherries weren't old but they weren't as soft as I wanted. You could substitute chopped dried apricots, quartered grapes or diced mango for a completely different twist.
• If you have walnut oil, it would be a great substitution for the olive oil if you're using walnuts.
• Speaking of the walnuts, toast them in the oven or in a skillet. It will intensify the flavor.
• The completed salad needed a lot of seasoning. And more lemon juice. An maybe a tiny clove of garlic smashed into a paste and combined with the oil and lemon juice before adding to the salad. Or 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder or smoked Spanish paprika. 

Can you tell I found this a little lacking in flavor? Sad but true, this one was a little boring for me. I'll probably play around with it before I serve it for dinner tonight, just because it needs something else to keep from being blah. If you'd like to see what my fellow Ellie cooks thought, you can find them here.

Wheat Berry Salad - serves 6
1 1/2 cups hard wheat berries
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I used pine nuts)
2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup tart dried cherries, chopped
1 scallion, white and green parts, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley leaves (I used cilantro)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice, more to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large pot combine the wheat berries and enough water to come 2 inches over the wheat berries. Bring to a boil and cook uncovered for 1 hour, or until tender. Drain and let cool. Toast the walnuts in a medium dry skillet over medium-high heat until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat berries, walnuts, celery, dried cherries, scallions, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Per Serving:
Calories 360; Total Fat 17 g; (Sat Fat 2 g, Mono Fat 6 g, Poly Fat 8 g) ; Protein 9 g; Carb 46 g; Fiber 8 g; Cholesterol 0 mg; Sodium 15 mg

Excellent source of: Fiber, Vitamin K, Manganese

Cracaos

When I saw that Astheroshe at Accro had chosen cracaos for this month's Chocolate with Francois recipe, I had no idea what it was. Cake, tart, confection? No clue.

It turns out that cracaos are slice and bake chocolate nut cookies. They're easy to mix and bake and rely on Dutch process cocoa, cinnamon, walnuts and pistachios for their personality. I made the dough ahead and sliced off a few to bake fresh when we wanted a cookie. After a few days I baked the rest of the dough and shared the cookies at work.

They were good, though not overly exciting. The first time I made some I baked them 10 minutes (the lower end of the range) and they ended up very crisp though not overdone. After that experience I pulled them out at 8-9 minutes, while they were still chewy with crispy edges. Much better.

If you'd like the recipe, Astheroshe will have it for you here. The other Chocolate with Francois bakers are here. Thanks Astheroshe, for hosting this month and picking an easy, do ahead recipe!

Chocolate Oatmeal Drops

I've been quiet for the last week or two as I've tried very hard not use my wrist and to stay off my foot. It must have worked because I'm free of wrist pain and I haven't worn my splint for three days. Yippee! My foot is finally starting to mend, and although I'd be shocked if the doctor released me when I see her Wednesday, I'm still hopeful.

On to the cookies. Looks can be deceiving and these cookies are a prime example of that. You could just as easily call these brownie cookies as this is what they resemble - the crunchy outside edge of a brownie in cookie form. I made this recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie last week (It's deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra has said) but am just now posting them. I added some walnuts to underscore their brownie roots.

While not especially attractive, they were delicious and easy. After reading the P&Qs, I knew the batter was delicious and the high ratio of butter to dry ingredients made mixing them just right even more important than usual. I was careful not to let the chocolate melt all the way over the heat, and I didn't let the mixture stand too long before scooping out my cookies. This kept the massive amount of butter from leaching out, though they do look pretty shiny.

Many thanks to Caroline and Claire of Bake with Us for choosing this recipe for the group to make last week (they have the recipe posted here). And apologies to Mike of Living Out West as this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. Scones are popular here so I know I'll make them some time, just not this week.

Nutty, Chocolatey, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

Sour cream pound cake, swirled with a brown sugar-chocolate-cinnamon-nut mixture, baked in a bundt pan. Sounds pretty good, right?

Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort selected this bundt cake (recipe here) for all of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers to make this week. It's quite a responsibility to pick the recipe and host, and we all have to wait so long before it's our turn. That's why I hate to say it, but I didn't love this one.

I nixed the raisins in the swirl, and doubled the walnuts. I had a lot of trouble with the swirl layer. I couldn't get the batter to cover it because the sugar in the swirl made it very difficult to cover up. Nonetheless, the cake baked up beautifully with a lovely, crunchy exterior, and a chewy, moist interior. So why didn't I love it?

It was the swirl. The swirl didn't melt in the batter and remained as a layer of raw sugar with a sprinkling of walnuts and chocolate chips. It made the cake fall apart when it was sliced. I'm not a fan of dusting things with powdered sugar, so I topped the cake with Dorie's ganache. That made it a crunchy-chewy-falling-apart-dripping-in-chocolate hot mess.

I do plan to make this one again because the flavor and texture of the cake were great. But I'll skip the swirl and add cinnamon to the cake instead.

Thanks, Jennifer, for hosting this week! Sorry I messed up your pick. :-)

Walnut Chocolate Dried Cherry Bars

Breakfast on the go is a challenge for many of us. While I normally eat at my desk during the week, weekends are a blur with errands and other commitments. I'm always looking for a quick, healthy grab-and-go breakfast I can eat in the car as I run my errands. Less time spent on errands means more time to relax with my honey!

These bars integrate whole grains, nuts, dried cherries, with little chocolate thrown in for extra deliciousness. Chocolate for breakfast seems so decadent, but with these healthy bars, a little chocolate for breakfast is a doable treat to start the weekend off right.

Heide of Chez Zero picked these bars for Craving Ellie in My Belly this week. You can find the original recipe here, but here's my version.

Walnut Chocolate Dried Cherry Bars -  adapted from So Easy
Printer friendly version
1 cup quick-cooking oats (regular oats are OK, too)
3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour or regular whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 egg white
3/4 cup chopped dried tart cherries
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts 

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, wheat germ, cinnamon and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the honey, applesauce, oil, egg and egg white until well combined. Stir in the oatmeal mixture until well combined. Add the dried cherries, walnuts and chocolate chips.

Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or coat with cooking spray. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool completely and cut into 12 bars, about 4 by 1 1/2 inches each.

Cardamom Crumb Cake

Two days ago, it hit me.

This is not the last week of the month.

I know, I know, at this time of the year it's kind of a "duh!" that I don't have a better grasp of the calendar, but I don't celebrate Christmas so I don't have that great an awareness that the clock is ticking down to Saturday. I thought this week was the week we could do a rewind for Tuesdays with Dorie, and I looked forward to the relaxed posting deadline for the...that I plan to make. No, I'm not telling you what it is. You'll have to come back next week.

Two days ago, I was checking the TWD website and was startled to see the P&Q for Cardamom Crumb Cake. What?!? Oh yeah, it's NOT the last week of the year. Bummer.

Frankly, the recipe didn't thrill me. Cardamom, walnuts, coffee and orange are all things I like, but I couldn't imagine how they would work together. But I trust Dorie and I know she has a terrific palate, so I went with it. And I expanded the panoply of flavors by using some leftover crumb topping from this fruit crumble. That crumb topping is decidedly cinnamon, but cinnamon plays well with the other flavors. Plus, I'm lazy. But you already knew that.

Fortunately, this is a really easy recipe to throw together, and Dorie has thoughtfully arranged it in such a way to minimize dirty dishes. I added chopped walnuts to my leftover crumb topping and sprinkled it over the batter. Dorie gives perhaps the best piece of advice about crumb toppings that I've even seen: lightly press the crumbs into the batter. Brilliant! No more crumbless crumb cake.

Please excuse my iPhone photo. We've had practically zero natural light in the Bay area recently as a series of storms marches through, and I couldn't wait any longer to head into work this morning.

This cake was liked by my tasters, but wasn't wildly popular. I thought the flavor combination was interesting and tasty, and a crumb topping is hard to beat. It was fun to be able to throw it together at the last minute.

Our host this week was Jill of Jill's Blog. I love Jill, she is unusually funny and still visits me even if I can't visit her, like for the past month while I've been trying to get over tendonitis in my right wrist. Jill has the recipe for you here.

Find out how the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers liked this one, too. You can find them here.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Walnuts and Goat Cheese

In my mind, for a recipe to be great it has to be both adaptable and idiot proof. And this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was just such a recipe.

It was chosen by my friend Kayte at Grandma's Kitchen Table. Kayte has more energy than any three people I know. It's not unusual for her to decide she wants to make all the breads in, say a whole section of a cookbook, and have it done in three days. She amazes me!

It's been a while since I posted for CEiMB, though I have made some of the recipes, and it being Kayte's week to pick was just the incentive I needed to get back in the swing.

This was supposed to be a pasta salad, and use feta and walnut oil. I decided I wanted a hot pasta dinner, so I adapted this. I don't like feta so I used goat cheese. I thought I had walnut oil in the fridge but didn't, so I used hazelnut oil. I thought I had hazelnuts to complement the hazelnut oil, but I didn't so I went with walnuts. I was too lazy to dice the red onion so I left it out.

And you know, it was really great! The warm pasta is like a sponge for the dressing, so I did add a little more to the pasta. But all of the flavors combined very well and made it a delightful light dinner. I made this after a full day of making pie dough for the freezer (for National Pie Day, aka Thanksgiving) and it was a comforting and easy meal, successful in spite of my relentless tweaking of the recipe.

Thanks, Kayte, for a great pick! If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

Fold-over Apple Torte

This will be a brief post but I wanted to tell you about this lovely torte, which we enjoyed this morning for breakfast. Since time is at a premium this week, I used 1 2/3 sheets of puff pastry instead of making pie crust, and it worked very well. Our apple tree is in high gear so I used apples instead of pears. When I make it again, I'll use less of the custard so it doesn't ooze over the folded down edges of puff pastry. I omitted the dried apricots and added more walnuts. It smells incredible while baking and is best still warm from the oven.

This week's wonderful Tuesdays with Dorie pick is from Gaye at the wonderful blog Laws of the Kitchen. Every time I see those strawberry macarons in her header, my mouth waters. She has the recipe for you here. And if you'd like to see how the other TWD bakers fared, you can find their tortes here.

Chewy, Chunky Blondies

There are so many bad blondie recipes that I automatically assume that all blondie recipes are bad. In general, they're dry and not as yummy as their cousin the brownie. I've made Martha's brown butter blondies before to great acclaim but that's been the exception for me. Until Dorie's blondies. They were so delicious with their additions of chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts and chopped toffee (I used Skor) that I made them twice in three days. The first time I made them I was tweeting with my friend Kayte and I had a blast making them. Kayte managed to eat around the chocolate and she loved them, too. I didn't give enough of them away and M. and I ate too many both times.

I lined the pan with parchment to eliminate sticking and ease cleanup. Because who wants to lose a bit of this beauty?

This wonderful recipe comes from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Tuesdays with Dorie is baking its way through this super book. Our host this week and the  person who chose this recipe) was Nicole of Cookies on Friday. Nicole, we loved your pick and I know I'll be making it again and again.

If you'd like to have the recipe, you can buy the book, or Nicole will have it for you here. And you can see what the other TWD bakers thought of it here.

TWD - Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake

Dorie has done it again.

In case you're wondering, the Dorie in Tuesdays with Dorie is Dorie Greenspan. She wrote a cookbook a few years ago that won all kinds of awards and a couple hundred of us are baking and blogging our way through it. If it wasn't for Dorie, I wouldn't have a blog, I'd be 20 pounds lighter, far less popular at work and you wouldn't be spending a couple of minutes of your valuable time reading about why you must buy this book.

The book? Baking From My Home to Yours. It's filled with hundreds of reliable, delicious, surprising recipes that are fun to bake and wildly popular with the people lucky enough to taste them. For this recipe, that was a small circle indeed.

I love chocolate, and I considered swapping the proportions of chocolate to non-chocolate batter to make the chocolate dominant, but I elected to use 70% bittersweet instead. I ground the walnuts in the food processor and substituted white whole wheat flour for about 1/4 of the all-purpose. Before I joined TWD 18 months ago, I never would have had the nerve or creativity to make substitutions in recipes, but Dorie's calm presence and the suggestions of my fellow bloggers have helped me to take chances, think creatively, and to be mostly successful no matter how crazy my changes have been.

I prepped my ingredients the night before I made this cake as I often do, and so making it was a snap. Dorie's instructions are always so detailed and helpful, and that is part of why her recipes are such a success. Dorie suggests dropping dollops of batter in the bundt pan before dragging a knife through it to marble the batter. That's a perfect approach for me since I'm neither precise nor artistic.

My cake tested done at 60 minutes, and slid out of its pan easily after 10 minutes cooling. I impatiently sliced into it after 10 more minutes. Moist, sturdy but delicate, richly chocolate with a slight hint of coffee, this cake was the one I couldn't resist cutting into each time I passed through the kitchen. It's the one that made me want to buy a lovelier bundt pan. A cake this good deserves to be as beautiful as it tastes.

This delicious cake was chosen by Erin of When in Doubt...Leave it at 350. She'll have the recipe, but you won't need it. Remember, you're going to buy the book! And check out what the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers thought of this one. You'll find them all here.

Brown Butter Toffee Blondies

Sitting at my desk at work the other day, my mind suddenly seized on a single thought.

Now, if you stop by here from time to time, you know the Lethally Delicious kitchen is stocked to the ceiling with chocolate. But this craving wasn't for a deep, dark fudgy brownie. It was for its paler, less appreciated cousin.

Blondies.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I found Martha Stewart's brown butter blondies. Brown butter has made several appearances in this space, namely these cookies (make them soon), this cake, these other blondies and oh yes, these cookies. I didn't have toffee bits but I recently saw Nancy substitute Skor bars for toffee chips in these blondies. I keep a stash of Skor bars in the pantry as I make these cookies from time to time. I used dark brown sugar as I was going for caramel notes.

These were easy to put together (a good thing as Martha would say, since I didn't start them until 9 PM). I went with a parchment sling instead of lining the bottom of the pan with parchment. Mine baked up in 40 minutes at 350. I cut one after it had cooled for 15 minutes, and it was good but not great. The walnuts seemed very bitter and the blondies were very gooey inside, even though they had tested done. Greatness was achieved after the blondies had cooled overnight. Their texture was chewy and moist without seeming undercooked and the walnuts were less assertive. I took some to work and they got rave reviews.

If you'd like to indulge yourself in these delicious blondies, you can find the recipe here.

SMS - Carrot Cupcakes (Muffins?)

Julie of A Little Bit of Everything chose this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe, carrot cake. I have an easier time giving away cupcakes, so I made 24 minis and 15 regular cupcakes. The cream cheese frosting received lukewarm reviews on the P&Q, so I elected to skip it and serve these unadorned.

I used the food processor to shred the carrots and that made this recipe a snap. Even though the recipe called for 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon, which seemed excessive, I stuck with it, using my favorite Vietnamese cinnamon to amp up the flavor. The minis baked for 15 minutes and the regular cupcakes baked in 20. I sampled one warm and found the flavor a bit lacking. I have a favorite carrot cake recipe and will probably stick with it instead of retooling this one.  Sorry, Julie!

If you'd like the recipe, Julie has it here.

Sweet Melissa Sundays - Lemon Walnut Sour Cream Pound Cake

Since I was already so far behind in all areas of my life, I decided it was time for another baking group. See, when the Sweet Melissa Sundays group was formed last year, I had no idea who this Melissa person was or what made her so darned special that my favorite bakers/bloggers wanted to make her recipes each week. Then I started seeing what they were making, and much like The Bread Baker's Apprentice event, I regretted not joining once I realized they were close to new members.

Until recently, that is. When I checked again the other day, lo and behold, they were taking new members! I emailed my request to join and ordered the cookbook, and when I found I was in, I got to work making this week's recipe, Lemon Walnut Sour Cream Pound Cake. I've had plain, chocolate, lemon, poppy seed and brown sugar versions of this quintessentially American cake, but never one with nuts. I made it early this morning to take to a gathering, and I made three mini loaves so it would bake more quickly. The recipe was chosen by Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots. I had to read it as a preview on Amazon but it came together quickly. To completely infuse the flavor, I rubbed the lemon zest into the sugar a la Dorie Greenspan. Although Melissa calls for butter and shortening, I only use butter so I used all butter and cut back 1 tablespoon on the sour cream. My mini loaves baked for 35 minutes. After waiting 20 minutes, I brushed on the lemon syrup and hurried out the door.

This pound cake was a huge hit at our gathering. The cake was absolutely delicious, so light and fluffy, and the walnuts gave it a nice crunch to compete with the tart and sweet lemon glaze. I'll make this one again and again, including suggestions I saw on the P&Q--clementines and pecans (Spike Bakes), orange and pecan, and maybe a few other variations. Check out what the other SMS bakers did with this one...you'll find them all here. If you'd like the recipe, Raeann has it here.

To all the Sweet Melissa Sundays bakers who have been working through this wonderful cookbook from the beginning, thank you for letting me join you! I can't wait to delve into this wonderful book...as soon as my copy arrives!