Whole Wheat Spice Bundt Cake

The teen requested a spice cake for his birthday cake (which is almost the default cake for him - but sometimes he surprises me).  His birthday was earlier this week but since his Dad wasn't home, we opted to wait for him so we could celebrate together.  We went to a movie and shopped on his birthday and he said he had a good day...but it was a bit strange not to have a cake or presents that day.  He's 19 now, so I guess it was more my issue than his.  He wanted to wait.

The expected return for Mr. Flip Flop was the 10th...on Friday I got a text saying "Lucy, I'm Home!" and I threw on my flip flops and flew down the stairs nearly barreling us both down a flight of stairs when I pounced on him!  I'd talked to him earlier that day and he let me believe he was on his way to work when, in actuality, he was on the 350 mile drive home.  He doesn't manage to surprise me often, but when he does, it's a biggie!  Ian was so happy he gave him a big hug and smile (which is not the norm for him either)!  All-in-all, an excellent turn of events.  EXCEPT, I hadn't planned a cake, wrapped the gifts, nor spiffed up the house as I am wont to do when Papi comes home.  I always like things to look "nice".  I doubt he even notices.  So, since I could do nothing about the cleaning portion of the deficit, I focused on birthday preparations this morning when I got up.  We were going out to dinner, on the island I imagined, and we'd have cake and gifts when we get back.

I decided to go with a recipe that I've made before as mini bundts, but in a full-size bundt pan.  I made one boo boo and used baking powder instead of baking soda, so it was even more dense than expected.  I was freaking out a bit because it wasn't rising as much as I anticipated, but it all came out okay in the end.  This is a very dense cake anyway... it uses 100% whole wheat flour...but the white whole wheat, which is slightly lighter.  I also didn't have regular yogurt, so I used 1/2 fat free yogurt and 1/2 ricotta cheese.  I hate being risky when baking a birthday cake...but I knew if it just absolutely flopped, I had a chance to go to the store and start over.

So, here's the recipe... my husband loved it - ate several pieces.  Ian and I both would have preferred a less dense cake.  The flavor was excellent though!  I particularly liked adding some cinnamon to the vanilla bean glaze I used - perfect for the cake.  If you like a super dense cake - this is a good one.  I would, however, likely use baking soda next time, and not a fat-free yogurt!

WW SPICE BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated vanilla sugar
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 cup room temperature butter
1/2 cup fat free vanilla yogurt (I used Dannon) - room temp
1/2 cup Ricotta Cheese - room temperature
3 large eggs - room temperature
1/2 Tablespoon Vanilla Bean Paste
2 1/2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour (I use King Arthur)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (not powder like I used)

Method:

Prepare a bundt pan with Baker's Joy or grease/flour preparation.  Make sure to get all the crevices and go all the way to the edge of the pan and the cone in the middle.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In bowl of a stand mixer, cream both sugars and the butter until fluffy (I let it go about 3 minutes).

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Add the vanilla bean paste and beat until incorporated.

In a bowl or large mixing cup, whisk together the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt and ricotta cheese until smooth.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl with the mixer running on low.
Add 1/2 of the yogurt/ricotta mixture
Add 2nd 3rd of the dry ingredients followed by the remaining yogurt/ricotta mixture.
Add the final 3rd of the dry ingredients.

Scrape the bowl and beat on medium high for 60-90 seconds until smooth and fluffy batter.

Use a large spoon to place the batter evenly around the bundt pan.  Smooth it with the back of the spoon.

Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 50-60 minutes.  Use a cake tester for doneness.  The cake was not ready at 50 minutes but 5 minutes later it had cracked (which was fine - it's the bottom) and became perfectly done with a cake tester.

Remove from oven to a cooling rack for about 15 minutes.  Turn onto a cake plate and allow to cool completely before frosting or glazing.

Ian elected a glaze since it was a bundt cake.

I made a Vanilla Bean and Cinnamon Glaze... very tasty with this cake!

VANILLA BEAN CINNAMON GLAZE

Ingredients:

1 cup sifted confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 to 4 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream

Method:

In the small bowl of a food processor, with the small blade, pulse the sugar, butter, vanilla bean paste and cinnamon to mix.  Begin by adding 2 tablespoon of heavy cream to the mixture and pulse.  Carefully scrape the bowl, avoiding cutting your spatula on the blade, to ensure all of the sugar is off the sides and bottom.  Pulse again and add more cream to get it to the proper consistence you desire.  I wanted a thick enough glaze that it would drip down the side but not so loose that it would pool under the cake.  I wanted it on top of the cake!

The thickish glaze worked beautifully!

Admittedly, not my favorite cake - but it is definitely something I'd make again with a few tweaks (which actually go back to my original recipe!)

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

Healthier Friday Night Pizza - Home Run Hit!

If you are a regular reader, you know we almost always have Friday night pizza at the Flip Flop household.  Usually the teen makes the dough, but this Friday night, I wanted to make a healthier crust than his usual AP flour crust (which is absolutely delicious of course).  So I hit the kitchen while he was vegging in teen-age wasteland...aka his man cave.

Mr. Flip Flop is home and has been hitting the gym for a few months.  After this two-week absence I really noticed a difference!  Wow...I think Mr. Flip Flop lost weight and gained muscle.  Woo hoo baby!  So, in recognition of his efforts, yet his desire for the comfort of homemade pizza, I went for a slightly more healthy version.  Slightly.  Very slightly!  Normally, the teen wouldn't eat this kind of crust...but I guess the thought of having to make his own and wait another hour for rising prompted him to think that maybe specks of flax seed weren't such a bad thing!

So, here it is, the healthier version of our Friday Night Pizza.

Flax Seed Crust Pizza
By Debbi Hook

Ingredients:

5 teaspoons Instant Yeast (or you can use Active Dry - 2 packets)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups very warm tap water
       (you can dip your finger in without screaming ouch)
4 cups White Whole Wheat Flour plus extra bench flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed meal
4-5 tablespoons olive oil plus more for rising bowl

Jar of pizza sauce (I used Ragu Homestyle)

Toppings of your choice - today I used:
Sliced Crimini mushrooms
Sliced green onions
Chiffonade of fresh basil
1 slice of lean deli ham, large diced
A few slices of Pepperoni
Kalamata Olives sliced in half
Green Olives with Pimento sliced in half

Grated Mozzarella, Romano, Asiago, Parmesan Cheeses

Corn Meal for Baking Pan

Method:

In the bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, add the yeast, sugar, and warm water.
Although instant yeast does not have to be hydrated, I find it doesn't have to rise as long if I hydrate it with sugar in the blend.  I also keep the little packets of Active Dry Yeast around - but we bake so much pizza and bread, that the 1 pound package is soooo much cheaper!

A great and dependable product.

For this dense crust, I wanted to move things along...hence the hydration.
After 3 or 4 minutes it will have a foam of bubbles on the top of the yeast - that means it is ready to add the flour.

I love King Arthur products - I find the White Whole Wheat
Flour to be a nice alternative to the heavier and darker
Whole Wheat Flour.  Wonderful product!

Add the flour and flax seed meal and turn on the mixer (low speed) and allow it to begin incorporating.

I love adding this - a little goes a long way!

Add the olive oil while it is working.  I started with 4 tablespoons and added another tablespoon when I realized the KitchenAid was struggling.  The dough came together quickly and I moved it up to medium speed for a total of 5 minutes of kneading. 
A beautiful speckled dough!

During the time it is kneading, turn your oven on for 60 seconds at 300 degrees, then turn it off.  Really, no longer, as you are just getting the chill off the oven.  My kitchen is too cool for things to rise rapidly, so I always de-chill the oven and use it for rising.

Oil a good sized mixing bowl with extra olive oil (don't let it puddle at the bottom - use  just enough to ensure the dough doesn't stick to the bowl).  With your oiled hands, remove the dough from the dough hook (it's a heavy dough so most of it will plop into the mixer bowl when you raise the head).  Form it into a ball with your lightly oiled hands and smooth the top with just enough oil that it has a slight sheen...the oil on your hands is likely plenty to achieve that).  Place it in the lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and place bowl in the de-chilled-turned-off oven for about 50 minutes.  It will double, up to triple, in size.

I usually spend the last 15 minutes or so of rising time prepping my toppings and setting up the rolling area.

Pull the bowl of dough and preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prepare a baking sheet or pizza pan with a dusting of corn meal.

Now, I don't "press out" pizza dough like you are supposed to.  I roll it - no matter how hard I try, I suck at the press out method.  So, I put down some bench flour and took 2/3 of the risen dough (leaving 1/3 for the teen to make his own pizza) and shaped it into a rectangle because I was using a baking sheet today. I gently rolled it to the shape of my baking sheet with a lightly floured rolling pin.  Like all doughs, move it around to ensure it doesn't stick.  Sprinkle more flour if needed (I used the white whole wheat flour for this as well).

Roll the dough on the rolling pin, sprinkling extra flour if needed so it doesn't stick to itself and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet or pizza pan.

Pinch up the sides of the dough so the sauce stays on the pizza during baking. 

See that little dip in the front right bottom side - yep, the sauce
snuck out of there onto the pan during baking..  

Add pizza sauce (I used a jar, but you could make your own if you wanted - you could also use any thickish pasta sauce).  Spread sauce with a spatula or back of a spoon to evenly distribute.  I used about 1/3 of a small jar of pizza sauce.

Next I laid down a layer of sliced provolone cheese from the deli.  I like the bottom layer of cheese - makes for a really cheesy pizza :-)

Next come the toppings.  I sprinkled green onions all over, evenly placed sliced Crimini mushrooms around, placed a few pieces of pepperoni (just a few - trying to keep it slightly more healthy - of course, the cheese...oh well), the bits of ham, and topped with all of the olives.  It looked like a really good pizza.

This was 3 largish Crimini mushrooms and 3 green onions.
The basil was just about 4 or 5 leaves rolled and sliced
thinly.  I used 2/3 and left 1/3 for the teen!

The balance of the toppings - we love olives :-)
Mr. Flip Flop would have liked some bell pepper
and I would have liked some pepperocini...but I
didn't think of it until it was too late!

Next came the grated cheeses - first a light layer of grated Romano, then Asiago, then Mozzarella, and finally Parmesan.  I finished with the chiffonade of basil.

Ready to bake!

Place in preheated oven for 15 minutes and pizza is ready!

The dough took me about 10 minutes to prepare...15 at the most.  I prepped the toppings in under 15 minutes and the baking time was 15 minutes...this is an easy Friday night dinner.  My friend, Linda, said she had been inspired to make homemade pizza after reading my blog.  Her hubs asked her why they ever ordered pizza when they could have this?  Exactly!  Even if you don't want to make the crust - you can buy a pre-made crust or buy some pizza dough from a local pizzeria.  Let the kids do their own toppings.  But, really, if you have a stand mixer, why bother buying dough.  This is EASY!
If you don't want to make the whole grain, healthier crust, there's always the standard AP flour crust - here's the one the teen uses most of the time.  I realize I have gotten to the point where I don't use salt in the crust.  We don't miss it and there's probably enough sodium in the sauce to make up for it!

I use an offset spatula to run underneath to ensure
there are no stuck parts and it slides easily
onto a big wooden cutting board.
Slice and eat...delicious!

I could only eat two pieces - this is a dense crust.  The teen ate his entire "smaller" pizza, and Mr. Flip Flop packaged up the remaining slices from our pizza and I guarantee that's what he'll want for breakfast whenever he wanders out of the bedroom (he sleeps late).  He'll eat it cold...right out of the fridge.  Ick.  He just tells me "I'm a guy, cold pizza is fine".  Okay, whatever!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

SHARED WITH:

Rock Star Pizza

The teen's pizza tonight looked delicious. 
He told me it was Rock Star Pizza...he said "it looks rustic doesn't it?" 
I took photos.
What's a proud mom to do? 
Post the photos on her blog!

We used white whole wheat flour in the recipe for Focaccia/Pizza Dough I've posted about before.  This pizza was made from 1/4 of the recipe (I made a half recipe and froze half the dough...this pizza is the remaining dough).

He did a good job.  He's eaten almost the entire thing :-)  I didn't even get a bite!!!  Gotta love boys!

WHOLE WHEAT CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES

I thought I wouldn't have any baking time on Sunday but, much to my great joy, the hubby and teen decided to go see a movie in Harlingen that I was absolutely not interested in seeing at the theater.  I always like it when they go off and do something together.  I'm with the teen so much, I think the men need to be together whenever they can...without "mom" butting in.  It gave me quiet time and I've made pizza dough - which is rising - so we can have homemade pizza for dinner (the last hurrah for Spring Break) and I am making a new recipe - basically a combined Oatmeal Cookie and my 2-Kinda-Chocolate Chip Cookie...made with 100% whole wheat flour.  I hope they are tasty and moist. 

So, here's to men doing men things while the "little woman" is home baking.  Ahhh, it's a good life.  (I think I'll sit on the deck and watch the bay while the cookies bake ... and read The Padre Puzzle by local author, David Harry...I can barely put it down!)

WHOLE WHEAT CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES
Based on Oatmeal Cookie recipe on JoyofBaking.com

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup of unbleached Whole Wheat White flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup Milk Chocolate Morsels
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks

Optional ingredients - nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, or other dried fruits.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth (about 2-3 minutes). 
Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. 
Scrape down sides of bowl.


Butter and brown sugar creaming

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon.  Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat until incorporated.  Scrape the bowl, getting down into the center at the bottom, not just the sides.

Flour added

Stir in the oats.  I added the first 2 cups with the mixer running and then I added the last one by hand.  VERY stiff dough.  Add both cups of chocolate chips by hand.

Cookie Dough ready to shape

For large cookies, use about 1/4 cup of batter  (I used a heaping 1 1/2 liquid ounce scoop which equals 3 tablespoons).  It made 20 cookies.  Space the cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.  I actually hand-rolled the scooped cookies into a ball because some pieces were falling apart.  I then used my hand to pat them down to about 1/2 inch thick. 

A dry stiff dough - made a nice chewy cookie!

Bake for 12-14 minutes (barely can see the brown at the bottom edge).

My, my, my...these are scrumptious!  Tender, chewy, and chocolatey - just as I hoped.  To borrow an old "A-Team" phrase... I love it when a plan comes together :-)

Mama mia, that's some delicious cookie!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

Memory-invoking Oatmeal Cookies

Nice and thick...oatmeal cookies

When my husband arrived home for the week-end I proudly showed him the Valentine sugar cookies I had made and offered them to him.  He looked reticent and held back saying, in a somewhat plaintive voice, "don't you have any regular sugar cookies?  Some that you didn't decorate?  Those are too pretty to eat.  Did you make some plain ones?"  Uh, no...they ARE to eat...EAT!  He gingerly ate one.  This is the man who can put down a dozen cookies without a blink.  Later I actually told him to just eat them...please.  So he did.  All the ones I saved for the family are now officially gone :-)  Cookies are to be eaten (I like them to be admired...but mostly I want them to taste good!)  I asked my hubby what kind of cookies he would like me to bake him for his Valentine's treat.  I named several suggestions as he cogitated on the options.  He finally said "oatmeal cookies" and, of course, I wasn't surprised.  If he buys packaged cookies at the grocery store, 8 times out of 10, it will be chewy oatmeal cookies - no frosting.  I asked him if he wanted nuts in them...I had walnuts and those great Texas pecans I had purchased.  "No nuts" he replied.  I then asked if he wanted raisins?  "no, just plain please".  I know he prefers chewy oatmeal cookies over crisps...so I got busy baking on Sunday morning while he was still sawing those zzzz's :-)  I prefer baking in the quiet morning when no one is around.  I have my first cup of coffee, find my recipe, and set up my ingredients...then I bake.  It's very fulfilling to me.

I have great childhood memories of our house on the corner of Coventry and Rogge Lane in Austin, where our maid, Ola Mae, first helped me bake oatmeal cookies.  She was a wonderful and loving woman.  Actually, to call her "our maid" is not the correct term, although in the 60's in the South, that was the term... to me, she was so much more.  She picked me up from school when I was sick, she taught me to tie my shoes, she was the person who I watched Dark Shadows with after school, she scolded me when I did wrong, she dried my tears when I skinned my knees.  She was a substitute mom, because my mom was working her ass off making a living for our family, managing our family's grocery store chain.  She kept it afloat when my Dad flaked, she worked 7 days a week, she did the payroll in the days of hand writing paychecks, she checked all the work of every person in the office.  She WAS the Culp's Super Foodlands queen.  She had five children, a charismatic but undependable husband, and she kept a fairly big business going.  She did good - but she needed help, and Ola Mae was the most memorable of that help in my elementary school year days.  She was a good woman....and she made good oatmeal cookies :-)

As usual, I meander down memory lane and get off track...but I am back on the baking path now.  Fast forward to my kitchen now.  I pulled down the ingredients I readily remembered (planning on using the traditional Quaker Oats box recipe).  Oops, I had bought a store brand of oats...ruh roh...better get online.  Double ruh roh...the Quaker Oats web site is freezing every time I get on it, locking up my computer.  So, I open task manager and shut it down and start searching for a recipe that is similar. (Afterwards, I realized I probably had it written down on an old recipe card if I would have just taken the time to look for it...but on less than a cup of coffee, my synapses were not snapping just yet).

I ended up deciding to trust my old fall back, Stephanie Jaworksi's Joy of Baking website.  It wasn't the way I remembered the Quaker Oats recipe (I know they used Crisco or something similar) but it had all the other requisite ingredients...and I trust Stephanie's recipes.  I printed it out and headed back to the kitchen.  Second cup of coffee started...first one kicking in ;-)

I also like that Stephanie's recipe made 20-24 cookies because I didn't want to end up baking 4 dozen cookies this morning.  This sounded perfect.  Also, the flour amount was fairly minimal and only used brown sugar which told me this would be a chewy cookie.  Yep, yep, yep.

Now, of course, I had to tweak it.  I bought a bag of King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour last week - a softer wheat flour, that I hoped I could incorporate into some of my baking where a dark whole wheat flour might be too heavy.  I thought, considering the minimal amount of flour in the recipe, it would be a perfect time for some substituting.  I didn't go straight whole wheat...I mixed it with some AP flour.  I must say, it worked beautifully!  I love the results!  A thick cookie, it didn't spread much, lightly crisp on the outside, tenderly chewy on the inside.  This is my new preferred recipe for oatmeal cookies.  My hubby sampled them and said "oh, these are GOOD" and he promptly ate 6 for breakfast with his coffee.  The recipe made 19 cookies using a large cookie dough scoop (1 1/2 ounce capacity).

So, let's get on to my version of this recipe.  You will like this cookie.  It's a really stiff dough.... so get a heavy duty spoon and let your stand mixer do some of the work...but it won't likely be able to do all of the work.

OATMEAL COOKIE RECIPE
based on Stephanie Jaworski's at joy of baking
further credited to Jane Rodmell's 'Best Summer Weekends Cookbook'
with tweaks by Debbi Hook

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup of flour - measured thus:
     1/3 cup of all purpose unbleached flour spooned into a graduated measuring cup
     and the balance of the measure (just 3/4 total) filled with Whole Wheat White flour.
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)

Optional ingredients - nuts, raisins, dried cranberries - see link to joy of baking above for those instructions.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth (about 2-3 minutes). 
Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. 
Scrape down sides of bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon (I actually measured in a 2 cup measuring cup and just whisked in there - thus saving me a bowl to clean).
Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat until incorporated.  Scrape the bowl, getting down into the center at the bottom, not just the sides.
Stir in the oats.  I added the first cup with the mixer running and most of the 2nd...then I added the last one by hand.  VERY stiff dough.  Use those muscles!

For large cookies, use about 1/4 cup of batter  (I used a 1 1/2 liquid ounce scoop which equals 3 tablespoons - and because I didn't add nuts or fruit - I ended up with 19 cookies).
Space the cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.  I actually hand-rolled the scooped cookies into a ball because some pieces were falling apart.  I then used a silicone flat spatula to flatten the cookies to about 1/2 inch thick.



Ready to go in the oven


Bake the cookies for about 12-15 minutes (mine were perfect at 13 minutes) or until barely light golden brown around the edges but still soft in the centers.  (I could barely see brown at the base of the cookies, if I looked really hard, when they were just perfect...any more and they would have been too hard).

Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

These were really, really good oatmeal cookies.  Hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we did!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!