Raisin, Date, and Pumpkin Seed Granola Bars

In an attempt to snack a bite more often on things with recognizable ingredients, and to feel healthier after snacking, I've been experimenting with home made granola bars. And not to go overboard here or anything, but I think I've struck gold with this combination. Sweet, raisin-y gold.

What you'll need:

• 1 egg
• 80g flour
• 120g oats (I used a mixture of GF porridge oats)
• 80g applesauce
• 45ml honey
• 15g ground flaxseed
• 100g raisins/sultanas 
• 45g pumpkin seeds
• 50g chopped dates

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 160C/320F.

In a large bowl, combine the egg, honey and applesauce. Mix them together with a fork or whisk.

This is a one bowl, no fussy bits kind of recipe, so next you can literally dump the oats, flour, and ground flaxseed right on top of the other ingredients in the large mixing bowl. I continued using a fork to mix everything together.

Clockwise from the top: Ground flaxseed, mixed "oats", flour, oats

Once you have achieved a dough-like consistency, add the raisins (and/or sultanas), chopped dates, and pumpkin seeds to the mix. I've also made a few batches with chopped pecans that were quite tasty too. If you have some on hand, add about 45g of chopped pecans and reduce the pumpkin seeds to 30g. 

You may want to switch to a bit of (clean, obviously!) hand kneading to mix in all of the dried fruit and seeds/nuts.

Adding raisins, sultanas, dates, and pumpkin seeds

Finally, line a baking dish or pan with parchment paper (I used a round glass baking dish that was approximately 12in/30cm in diameter) and smoosh your granola bar dough mixture into the dish. Make sure you really press the mixture down well so that it retains proper granola bar shape once it has baked.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the edges start to lightly brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before using a very sharp knife to cut into bars. Desired bar shape will come a bit more easily if you use a rectangular pan, of course. But I had a round dish on hand and I "taste-tested" the rounded edge bits. You know, just to make sure...

These granola bars are thin, but a bit chewy rather than crispy. They have just the right level of sweetness from the dried fruit, applesauce, and bit of honey, but they're definitely not that too-sweet kind of sweet you get from store bough granola bars. And, to top it all off, they were pretty darn easy to make, wouldn't you agree?

Hope you enjoy these! I'm definitely planning on experimenting with some more flavors soon. And clearly having a granola kind of week, if you hadn't already noticed. If you're having a similarly crunchy kind of week, take a look at my Pumpkin Spice Granola and Granola Cluster Cookies. Mmmmm.....granola. 

Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

Happy (belated) New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays! It's been far too long since I've posted anything here, but I've been away having family time and eating way too much - I hope that sounds familiar to some of you...

Since it's freezing almost everywhere (apparently) and I'm sure you've all been just sitting at home pondering over what to do with your leftover pumpkin and cranberries, may I suggest using this bread recipe? It's extra tasty warm.

What you'll need:

• 140g plain flour (I used a GF blend here)
• 90g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 40 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 120ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 200g pumpkin puree
• 300g cranberries
• 200ml orange juice

What to do for the cranberry sauce:

Rinse off the cranberries and then dump them into a saucepan with the orange juice. Bring just to a boil, then simmer until the cranberries pop. Set aside to cool while you prep the rest of the batter.

What to do for the bread:

Preheat your oven to 170C/325F.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in a large mix bowl and stir together.

Next blend in the milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla with a handheld mixer on low/medium.

Once the batter is well blended, gently fold in the cranberry sauce.

Lightly butter a bundt tin and pour the batter in. Level off the top with a spatula or spoon.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until an inserted fork comes out clean. 

Loosen the edges of the loaf away from the tin using a spoon, and leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before attempting to remove from the bundt tin. 

Pumpkin cranberry bread morning snack, anyone?

Mini Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

Munchkin pumpkin and Mini Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts.

Bite sized doughnuts, what? Maybe more like "two bites" sized, if we're adhering to accuracy here. Consider "bite sized" a challenge, if you will. On another tangent, yes, I did spend a considerable amount of time debating "doughnuts" vs "donuts". The Google-machine has informed me that the use of the spelling "doughnuts" predates "donuts", so that swayed me. Your baking trivia for the day!

And now, on to the more salient issue of how to make these little guys in your own home:

What you'll need:

• 125g flour (any all purpose variety, GF blends included)
• 110g caster sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (you can be a bit generous with this)
• 25g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 120ml buttermilk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• pinch of salt
• 250g pumpkin puree 

What to do:

Preheat oven to 170F/325C.

In a large bowl, combine the caster sugar, unsalted butter,vanilla extract, eggs, and buttermilk. I used a hand crank egg beater for this step, but if your electric handheld mixer has a very low setting, that would work too. It's just quite a liquid-y mixture at this stage, and anything high powered will send ingredients flying out of your mixing bowl and onto your wall. Don't ask me how I know this.

The next step is to add the pumpkin puree and keep mixing until it's delightfully orange.

Happy autumnal orange color!

In a small separate bowl, mix together the flour (I used a gluten free blend for these), baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and pinch of salt - you can simply use a fork to do so. Then gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture, mixing as you go.

Once the batter has a smooth texture, you can set it aside for a moment and lightly butter the mini doughnut tin. You can, of course, use a tin that makes larger doughnuts, just remember to increase the baking time if you do so!

If you have an pastry/piping/icing bag, it will come in handy for the next step, particularly if you are actually using a mini doughnut tin. You can fashion a makeshift pastry bag from a sandwich bag or by rolling parchment paper into a funnel. Scoop the batter (it should hold together well and feel fluffy and not at all runny) into your pastry bag and pipe the batter into the doughnut rings. Fill about 2/3s of the way up.

I have no photos of the piping process because I was alone in the kitchen and maybe had doughnut batter all over my hands from an overflow incident with my parchment piping "bag". Maybe.

Pop the mini doughnut tray into the preheated oven for about 8 minutes. The doughnuts will puff up quite a bit, and an inserted fork/toothpick should come out fairly clean when you test. After cooling for about two minutes, gently loosen the doughnuts from the tray with a spoon. If they come out with little resistance, excellent! They are ready to cool on a rack or plate for another couple of minutes before eating. DO eat this warm if at all possible.

Cooling in the doughnut pan...

About to be devoured!

See? I told you these doughnuts were tiny! They are also very light and fluffy, thanks to the buttermilk. And they have an orange vegetable as the main ingredient, so you they can feel slightly superior to other fried, non-veggie containing doughnuts out there. Not that they would be smug about it.

 Doughnuts, anyone?

Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake

The season of the Great Pumpkin is upon us, and what better way to celebrate than with cake? Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake to be exact. No, there is no coffee in this cake. Rather, it is to be enjoyed with coffee. Or tea. Or hot apple cider. With the beverage of your choice, basically. Or, heck, even ice cream if you want to go wild.

What you'll need for the cake:

• 120g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 75g dark brown sugar
• 60g caster sugar
• 300g flour (I used a GF blend)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 225g pumpkin puree
• 170ml buttermilk
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

What you'll need for the filling:

• 120g dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

What you'll need for the streusel topping:

• 85g brown sugar
• 80g flour
• 40g pecans
• 60g unsalted butter (melted)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 350F/175C.

We'll start with the cake batter.  In a large mixing bowl blend together the room temperature butter, the caster sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. I recommend using a handheld electric mixer, but you can get fancier if you'd like!

Once the butter and sugar are thoroughly creamed, add the eggs, buttermilk, and pumpkin puree.

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In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice. Then gradually add this dry mixture to the wet mixture.

Once combined, pour (or spoon/spatula! - this is a pretty thick batter!) half of the cake batter into a buttered cake tin. 

Mix the filling ingredients - the brown sugar, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice - together and sprinkle over this first cake batter layer, covering thoroughly. Then spatula the remaining cake batter over the filling layer, smoothing the top down when finished.

Finally, mix together the topping ingredients - brown sugar, flour, chopped pecans, and melted butter. You can do this with a fork or by hand, until the topping mixture starts to clump together.

Finally, spoon the topping mixture onto the top layer of cake batter, and lightly pat it down to ensure even covering.

Tiny cake waiting to go in the oven...

Big cake all ready for the oven...

Yes, I made two cakes here. A normal sized cake and a mini cake. This recipe will make one large (20cm/8in tin) cake. If possible, use a springform cake tin so that you can see the pretty sides of the finished product!

Once the topping is all set, pop the cake into the oven and bake for 50-55 minutes. When it's finished, an inserted fork or toothpick should come out clean and the topping should be a nice golden brown color.

Let cool for at least 10-15 minutes before removing the side of the springform tin, and another few minutes before slicing, if you at all value cake slices that hold their shape!

Eat warm and enjoy with coffee; pumpkin decoration optional!

Or have a slice with your morning coffee the next day - it's full of pumpkin, which is a vegetable, so it's almost good for you, right? Sounds like (cake) logic to me!

Happy First Day of Autumn!

I am maybe a little bit too excited about the first day of autumn - even though it's kind of grey and overcast here - because autumn means that my baking habits can unashamedly veer towards all things pumpkin, cinnamon, and/or apple related. SO cosy.

Here are a few very tasty looking recipes I am looking forward to trying to kick off the season:

These overnight buttermilk cinnamon rolls from Averie Cooks

This recipe for at home pumpkin spice latte syrup over on A Beautiful Mess. I've been adding pumpkin pie spice to my morning coffee for about a week now, and am excited to try a fancier at home coffee treat!

These adorable apple pie cookies from Smitten Kitchen

This recipe for pumpkin pie pop tarts over on Ambitious Kitchen

And I think I may need a special occasion/party to try this recipe for salted caramel swirled pumpkin cheesecake bars (also from Averie Cooks). They look like they'd be dangerous otherwise...


Do you have any autumn baking favorites or recent delicious discoveries?

Pumpkin Muffins

It's September, and do you know what that means? At least according to elementary/primary school students it is now fall/autumn. Which, to me, means pumpkins! Okay, who am I kidding? I'd eat pumpkins year round. But apparently autumn and winter are the socially acceptable pumpkin eating seasons. 

So to kick off September in proper pumpkin style, I'm sharing one of my many Pumpkin Muffin recipes. They're also gluten and dairy free (although you can adjust this recipe if you like gluten and/or dairy)!

What you'll need: (makes 12 muffins)

• 150g pumpkin (canned or cooked - I used Libby's)
• 1 egg
• 120ml unsweetened almond milk (I like Blue Diamond)
• 20g melted coconut oil
• 1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 200g self-raising flour (I used Dove's Farm GF blend again - does that make me predictable?)
• 40g light brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• pecans (optional)

What to do:

Preheat oven to 180C/360F.

Combine the pumpkin, egg, coconut oil, vanilla, and almond milk. I used a handheld beater for this, you could use a whisk though. Definitely don't go high powered on this stage, as it is mostly liquid and will go everywhere!

Next add the flour, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice directly to this mixture.

Blend thoroughly. It should look like this:

Finally, blend in the light brown sugar, continuing to mix until you achieve this consistency:

Next, lightly grease a 12 muffin tin with a bit of coconut oil. I know in my pictures I've used paper muffin liners. But unless you want to be picking bits of paper off your muffins before you eat them (Mmm, fibre. Haha!) I would highly recommend just using coconut oil instead.

Finally, if you'd like to, top each muffin with a pecan half. Another option with the pecans would be to chop a decent sized handful and blend into the batter. I've tried it this way too, and it's tasty!

Pop into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until you can insert a toothpick or fork and it comes out clean.

I've been eating these bad boys with my coffee for the last two days. Nom nom nom. Pumpkin.

Ed: These are best eaten within 24 hours of baking!