Last winter while exploring the quaint little city of Victoria, BC, I stumbled into a hidden away Mexican restaurant called Hernande’z and discovered my new favorite dish – huaraches. Then a few months later, I found myself in Fort Greene, Brooklyn munching on one at the Brooklyn Flea and a week later I was in Williamsburg gorging myself on another at Smorgasburg. I was seriously hooked!

Huaraches are flattened patties of corn masa and get their name from the popular Mexican sandal. They are topped with beans, cheese, vegetables, sour cream, and salsa and they are beyond delicious. I tend to associate Mexican food with long summer evenings, but there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy the taste of the tropics in the middle of winter, right? Right!

It looks like a big production, but turning masa flour into dough is quite simple – just add a little vegetable broth and salt and then shape into balls. The dough does tend to dry out quickly so it’s a good idea to cover everything with plastic wrap when you’re not working with it. My patties were a bit dry and cracked a bit around the edges, and while I’m sure a Mexican grandmother might give me dirty looks, taste-wise, I was happy with the results.

It’s best to figure out your topping situation before starting the dough. So if you’re making your own refried beans or even just opening up a can, make sure they’re warm and simmering over low heat. Get your brisket sticky and shredded or crumble up some chorizo or shred some chicken if you’re into adding meat. I hope you’ve got some homemade salsa ready – this recipe works incredibly well with canned tomatoes (really!!!). Grate your cheese, shred your lettuce, mix up your guacamole or chop up your avocado. I also love to quick pickle some sliced red onion in lime juice for a bit of zing! The toppings are the best part so use what you like and don’t skimp! And it’s so easy to make your huaraches 100% vegan – just choose your toppings wisely!

Then mix up the dough, flatten it out with your hands, and start pan-frying. Or you can cover the the patties tightly in plastic wrap and let them sit in the fridge for a bit. The only real tricky part to these is flipping the huaraches so they don’t crack. And if they do crack, well, that’s where the loads of toppings become handy as a disguise! Gather some friends because this is a meal that is fun to eat! Once you hand over the hot patties to the awaiting crowd, everyone can add all the toppings they like. Hello awesome party time!!

huaraches
2 c masa flour
1 t sea salt
1 3/4 c slightly warm vegetable broth
oil

toppings:
refried beans
shredded pork or beef or chicken (if desired)
shredded lettuce
fresh salsa
guacamole or avocados
sour cream
grated cheese (cheddar cheese or feta or cojita)
hot sauce
quick-pickled red onions

In a large bowl, combine the masa with the salt and pour in the vegetable broth. Stir until combined and then knead the dough until it becomes a smooth ball. Pinch off the dough and flatten – does it crack? If so, add in a bit of water until there are no cracks.

Divide the dough into orange-sized balls and flatten into an oval shape about 1/4″ thick. Cover patties with plastic wrap separated with squares of parchment paper immediately if placing in the fridge.

Heat a small amount of oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat and place one or two huaraches (or how many comfortably fit in a pan). Cook until masa is golden brown, about 3 minutes and then carefully flip and cook for another 3 minutes.

Spread hot huaraches with the warmed refried beans and whatever topping you so desire. Eat and repeat! Makes about 4-6 huaraches.

Possibly related posts:

• mexican nacho pizza
• the small joys: bean & veggie burrito

I always associate apples as a fall thing, but this year, I got a hold of some early apples from my sour cherry orchard hook-up. So, this late August & early September I was swimming in heritage apple varieties like Wealthy, Sunrise, and King apples, along with the more familiar Gala and Mac varities. I love apples so an early apple glut is a welcome surprise.

I snacked on the crisp and juicy apples for as long as I could, but since I live in a shoebox of an apartment (no cold cellar), I couldn’t keep them crisp for long. So my delicious crunchy apples had transformed from an eating specimen to a cooking one – perfect for apple pancakes, ginger apple pandowdy, baked apple oatmeal, but I settled on trying out an apple cheddar quick bread instead. Good choice!

The bread was delicious and flavourful and worked really well as a side for a vegetable stew I had made for supper. But we ate it toasted for breakfast the next morning and might I say it was even better. Toasted cheese and apple bits? I’m so in.

The only real trick with this recipe was the baking time. I figured that 35-40 minutes should have been enough, but it wasn’t. While it looked lovely and golden on the outside, inside it was still gooey. So I baked it for an extra 15-20 minutes and it turned out fine. The recipe below reflects how long I think it should bake for, however, if you are using a larger loaf pan you might want to reduce the baking time.

elsewhere: Want to see just about the prettiest thing? Click over to Poppytalk where I do a post with a recipe for sea salt caramels with toasted pecans. But that’s not all! I wrap up the caramels using parchment & washi tape so it makes a super cute gift. Adorbz.

apple & cheddar quick bread
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 c milk + 2 T
1/3 c canola oil
1 egg
2 T brown sugar
1 c finely diced apples
1 c strong cheddar cheese, grated

3 T cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 400F. Prep your 8×4 loaf pan* by lightly greasing it with butter and then use a mixture of cornmeal and flour to dust the insides with – about a spoonful of each should do. Shake out any excess and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk everything together. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the milk, oil, egg and brown sugar until well blended. Pour in the diced apples and stir in the flour mixture. Add in the cheese in 3 handfuls – stirring between each addition. Dump the batter into your prepared loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over top of the bread and cook for 10 minutes longer until the cheese melts and the bread is cooked all the way through – use a wooden skewer in the middle of the loaf to test doneness.

*if your loaf pan is larger, reduce the baking time by 10-15 minutes.

Possibly related posts:

• the apple of my eye: apple-cheddar-bagel snack
• smitten with apples: chai-spiced apple oatmeal bread

Last night I had cooked up a pot of chickpeas, drained them and put them in the fridge. I had no immediate plans but figured I’d use them in a soup or stew sometime in the next few days. But then lunchtime rolled around and I was getting a hankering for some good eats. Ages ago, I had bookmarked a chickpea sandwich recipe on Smitten Kitchen and when I gave it a look over, any questions about what to eat were solved. A smashed chickpea salad sandwich coming up!

The recipe is really a cinch to prepare and it’s got a serious case of tangy with all that lemon and caper business going on. But it’s also got some creamy mayo in there too to help smooth things out a little. The original recipe calls for olive oil instead of mayo but I was all out because I only get my olive oil from Tosi & Co, the oldest Italian market in Chinatown and the shop been closed for about a week now. It makes me nervous to think about it and I’m crossing my fingers that it opens again soon! But I loved how much that dollop of mayo did for this salad. I added in capers instead of black olives, though I think that would be a great choice too. But the biggest bonus for me is the juice of a whole lemon. I used a rather juicy lemon and I loved the super lemony sucker punch it gave, but feel free to tone it down to just a half lemon if you’ve got timid taste buds.

I made sandwiches for me and Cornelius on rye toast and I couldn’t get enough, so I made another. This is a bit of a drippy sandwich, so I even licked my plate. I have no manners, but I sure can appreciate a good sandwich. Yeah, this is the good stuff. So good, next time, I’ll forget about the bread and just eat it as is, salad-style. Alone. And happy.

elsewhere: This week I go ball-istic over at Poppytalk and make a recipe for veggie balls. They’re great! Also, you have to make this creamy asian veggie slaw that converts slaw haters. It’s delicious and I make it often. Enjoy!

tangy lemon smashed chickpea salad
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen)
1 c chickpeas
1/4 c finely diced red onion
1/2 green pepper, finely diced
1 lemon, juiced (though you might just want to use half a lemon if you aren’t so into the tangy like I am)
2 T chopped fresh parsley
1 T good mayo (vegan mayo if that’s your thing)
1 t capers, finely chopped
1/4 t flakey sea salt
a few shakes of your favorite hot sauce

In a medium bowl, dump in your chickpeas and use a potato masher to smash your chickpeas. This shouldn’t be hummus texture here – just smashed with some whole chickpeas and a lot of roughly chopped ones. Stir in the red onion, pepper, parsley, capers, lemon juice and the remaining ingredients. Taste & adjust seasoning if needed. Serve on toasted bread or crusty rolls or just eat as is, salad-style. Makes 4 servings.

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• eat hungrily: chickpea & romaine salad with lemon-parmesan vinaigrette
• lemon, parmesan & chickpea cabbage salad

Despite having eaten only one banana in my entire life (I was nine when my life-long hate started), I do tend to get a bit gooey for banana bread. While my husband might keep the banana brokers in business, he often buys more than he can chew at once. The ones he doesn’t manage to stuff into his maw before they turn brown end up inour freezer where they shrivel, turn black and get baked into banana bread. Not a bad life-cycle, I think. One of the most repeated recipes in my kitchen is this wonderful cinnamon and chocolate banana bread but sometimes one needs to shake it up a little.

This banana bread is a delicious one and it has a wonderful pedigree – it comes from the Baked cookbook which has given my kitchen so much wonderful baked bounty in the past. This recipe is no exception. The original recipe makes muffins but I decided to go with a loaf pan instead. Also, the recipe easily doubles and freezes well in case you want to get all your baking done at once.

Chocolate and espresso? Oh yeah! This is a great banana bread to wake up to in the morning as it pairs so nicely with a good hot coffee. If you are a walnut-hater (and a surprising amount of you are), then just replace the walnuts with more chocolate chips and you can’t go wrong.

banana espresso chocolate chip bread
(adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)
1 1/2 c mashed, ripe bananas (about 4)
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 c unsalted butter, melted
1/4 c milk
1 large egg
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t instant espresso powder
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c walnuts, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour one loaf tin and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk and egg. In another bowl, combine the flour, espresso powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips & walnuts.

Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for about 55 minutes, or until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in a pan for 15 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Possibly related posts:

• lookie lookie: chocolate chip banana bread with ginger
• 3 brown bananas: vegan cocoa-coconut banana bread

This isn’t so much a recipe as a suggestion. Sometimes life is hard and cupboards are bare. Sometimes you’re so tired from work that you just want something that tastes great without a lot of fuss. If that sounds like a day/week/month you’ve recently lived, then this is the breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack idea for you.

We ate these for a late weekday breakfast recently and it was such a treat. I used a jarred marinara sauce to keep it simple and instead of drowning the pita in cheese, I used a good manchego to bring the flavour without the grease and ooze. If you wanted to serve this for dinner, a nice arugula salad would be a perfect accompaniment.

runny egg on a pita
1 pita
2 T marinara sauce
1 t butter
1 egg
1 t grated manchego cheese

Turn on the broiler in your oven. Spread marinara sauce over pita bread and place on a baking sheet. Place it under the broiler to lightly toast the pita and warm the sauce – about 3-5 minutes should be good.

In a small frying pan, melt butter and fry an egg over med-high heat until the sides get crispy and the whites somewhat set. Do not flip. Remove the pita from the oven and slide the egg on top and cover with grated cheese. Broil for 1-3 minutes depending how soft you like your egg & until cheese melts.

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• haute egg sandwich
• red lentil curry dip with pita chips

I’ve always felt a bit of a bias against buckwheat. Buckwheat was cute, but I was head over heals in love with Alfalfa. Then one day my dad brought home some fresh honey comb from the farmer’s market and I was completely absorbed with this new uber-sweet treat. The combination of the chewy wax and gooey honey along with all those cute little hexagons was so new and exciting. But along side the tray of honeycomb, my dad slipped in a tub of his favorite honey – buckwheat. Well, if he had a favorite honey I was sure it was going to be my favorite too. Oh to be six years old and eager to please! Let’s just be polite and say that buckwheat honey is an acquired taste. Very acquired.

Ever since that buckwheat honey incident, I steered clear of anything buckwheat related (well, except for The Lil’ Rascals on Saturday morning television). I passed up diner buckwheat pancakes because just the idea brought back some awful taste memories. But then a bag of buckwheat flour – by way of a moving neighbour – found its way into my cupboard. And I was curious. I had spied some buckwheat cookies over at Orangette and then another recipe popped up at Food Loves Writing and I was more than intrigued. Hmm, maybe it was time to give buckwheat another shot.

So I did a bit of research and it turns out buckwheat isn’t related to wheat at all but is more of a cereal, which means it’s gluten-free. As for the honey, well, buckwheat honey is still gross. But the flour certainly isn’t. I tried it out using my standard pancake recipe and it passed with flying colours! And while cookies seemed like a good choice, it was a weekend morning and I wanted to bake up some scones for breakfast. That buckwheat bag was staring me in the face and so I went with it. Maple and walnut seemed like a good compliment to the heady buckwheat and it was. The scones were delicate and not too sweet and were so nice eaten warm and smeared with cold butter and a thick layer of sour cherry jam. Buckwheat, you’re not so bad after all!

elsewhere: Looking for an easy brunch or dinner idea? How about a crustless quiche? Over at Poppytalk I make a broccoli and feta version without bothering with crust. Perfect!

maple walnut buckwheat scones
2 c buckwheat flour
2 t baking powder
½ t salt
1/4 c cold butter, cubed
1/2 c milk + 1 t vinegar
1 t maple extract
1 egg
2 T pure maple syrup
3 T chopped walnuts
1 T raw sugar, optional

Preheat oven to 425F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add in the butter and use your hands to work it into the flour until you’ve got oat-shaped bits spread throughout the mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk and vinegar, along with the egg. Stir well until mixed. Pour all but a tablespoon into the flour along with the maple syrup and extract, and walnuts. Stir with a wooden spoon until a dough forms.

Sprinkle a clean work surface with a bit of flour and turn out the dough, kneading for no more than 12 times. Pat dough into a round shape, flattening it with your palms to 1/2 inch thick and cut into 8 wedges. Place on a baking sheet covered with a Silpat or parchment and brush over the leftover milk/egg mixture. Sprinkle with raw sugar, if desired. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack and eat warm or cold.

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• snow day: ginger & vanilla scones
• chocolate chip maple walnut cookies

Sometimes in order to attain comfort you must move outside your comfort zone. I shy away from finicky recipes. Complicated steps and unfamiliar ingredients scare me a little bit. But I do push myself to try new techniques or try to see something in a whole new way. The rewards of putting yourself out there are always a bit risky, but the rewards are great.

These cinnamon buns are an example of a great reward. I’ve never made cinnamon buns before because they seemed a bit too fussy for my liking. But I really wanted to make the tightly swirled buns found at the market in my neighbourhood. You see, the Union Market makes 2 kinds of cinnamon buns – the large, blown-out style covered in icing, which I always pass on because they’re just too sweet and give off a bad attitude. But the other cinnamon bun is a shiny golden-hued bun laced with cinnamon and raisins. It sits meekly next to its brassier neighbour and I like this bun best, the one that doesn’t shout. It’s sweet but not overly so and with your morning coffee there’s nothing better.

I didn’t know if I could replicate them, but I wanted to give it a shot. While I’ve gotten over my aversion to using yeast, I still shy away from recipes that need rising time. I’m more of an instant gratification kind of girl and I just hate the waiting, but I went at it anyway. In the morning I mixed together butter and flour and yeast and pushed myself to wait it out and watched that lump of dough grow and rise and arch its body over my largest mixing bowl. In the evening, I rolled it flat and slathered on the butter, sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest and dried cranberries before rolling it up tight – but not too tight. I arranged the dough in pans and put it in the fridge until morning. I got up extra early to let the buns rise again, my patience once again tested. But when the buns got fat and chummy with their neighbours, into the oven they went. And the scent filling your kitchen smells as good as any bakery.

Oh, trust me, it’s worth it. The fussiness, the wait, the reward. And maybe you’ll love them so much that you’ll make them again and notice that the things that bothered you in the past have now become routine. Your nerves (what nerves?) are relaxed and you don’t need to go over your recipe with a fine-toothed comb. The sense of pride in knowing that “it’s no big thing” is a wonderful place to get to. It’s a badge of honour – you’ve climbed that mountain – you’ve made it!

I loved these buns. My husband really, really loved these buns. But I should mention that they aren’t the same as the buns I wanted to replicate. I’m okay with that. I certainly could rise to the challenge and work and try again and fiddle with the proportions and add an egg wash. But I also could walk the six blocks and pick up 2 cinnamon buns with raisins from the friendly owners and walk back the six blocks to enjoy them with our morning coffee.

cinnamon buns with dried cranberries & lemon zest
(adapted from Gourmet)
1/2 c warm water
5 t yeast (2 packets)
1/2 c sugar
5 c flour (+ additional for dusting)
1 1/2 t salt
1 c lukewarm milk
2 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 c soft butter

filling
1 c brown sugar
2 t cinnamon
1/4 – 1/2 c very soft butter
2/3 c dried cranberries or raisins
zest of 1 lemon

Dissolve yeast in warm water along with a pinch of sugar in a small bowl and set stand 10 minutes until foamy.

Add flour, salt and remaining sugar into your electric mixer and let mix with the dough hook at very low speed. Combine the milk and eggs together and then add it to the flour, along with the yeast. Beat at med-low speed until a dough begins to form. Add butter and beat at medium speed for 4 minutes until the dough becomes smooth, soft and elastic – it will be quite sticky at this point.

Rinse a large bowl in hot water and add the dough to the wet bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a warm damp towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, at least 1 hour or overnight.

Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface into a rectangle shape. Use an offset spatula to spread the butter over the surface. Evenly sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over top and do the same with the dried cranberries and lemon zest.

Roll up the dough firmly, but not too tight. Slice the dough into 2″ sections and arrange, cut side up, in buttered cake pans – making sure to leave about a 1″ space around each slice. At this point, you can cover in plastic wrap and place in the fridge until morning. Or put them in the freezer to eat another day.

Ready to eat? Preheat oven to 350F. Cover the buns with plastic wrap or a warm towel and let the buns rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour. Bake until golden and puffed, about 30 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes and then dig in. Add a glaze if you wish, or not. I always choose not. Now pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

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• happy easter: hot cross buns with cinnamon icing
• just pudding! rice pudding with dried cranberries

There’s something special about speculaas – the cookie I always referred to as “windmill” cookies growing up because of the dutch windmill stamped on every one. They were spicy and crunchy and foreign, which seemed quite appealing to my small city ways. You couldn’t buy them at just any grocery store, but the tiny European shop in the farmer’s market building always had them. We usually bought a package around Christmas so I associate them with winter. And it’s a good fit with all those toasty warm cinnamon and spice flavours.

I recently spent an evening clearing out my browser bookmarks and stumbled upon this recipe. Speculaas muffins? Yes, please. I baked up a batch the next morning. I added sliced almonds because my favorite speculaas cookies are the ones studded with flakey almonds. But I would imagine that raisins or currents would be a nice, non-traditional option. The batter was odd – very thick – and I probably could have scooped it out on a tray and called it a cookie. But I went ahead and lumped in the dough into muffin cups and I was rewarded by a crisp exterior and a lovely crumbed interior. The flavour was excellent and they went perfectly alongside my morning coffee. So if you’re looking to warm-up your February weekend morning with something cozy and nice, I urge you to whip up a batch as soon as possible!

elsewhere: Throw a pink dinner party, really! Check out my post over at ReadyMade and get pretty in pink for every single course. Want a crisp graham cracker? Well follow my recipe over at Poppytalk for a simple and tasty cookie. And it’s begging time around here because this blog is up for Best Canadian Blog at the very prestigious Bloggies and I’d LOVE your vote! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

speculaas muffins
(adapted from Caviar & Codfish)
1 large egg
2/3 c milk
6 T roasted walnut oil (or another oil of your choosing – melted coconut oil or butter would work too)
1 1/2 c ap flour
1 c ww flour
3 t baking powder
1/2 c sugar
1 t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground ginger
pinch cardamom
1/4 t ground black pepper
1/4 c sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 375F. In a large bowl, combine the egg, milk and oil until well blended. In another bowl, mix together the flour through to the spices. Dump the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and lightly blend until just combined. Stir in the almonds. Grease 14 muffin cups and drop batter by spoonful into cups. Bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Makes 14 muffins.

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• ginger cranberry oatmeal muffins
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I love making biscuits and the quest for a really light and flakey biscuit is like looking for the holy grail. It can be hard thing to achieve. But I recently spotted a biscuit recipe which was adapted from an old Betty Crocker recipe, so I knew there was some sort of history behind it.

The recipe seems pretty standard except for the addition of cream of tartar, which as an ingredient sits pretty much untouched in my cupboard. I was curious what this odd little addition could do to the biscuits. I pretty much stuck to the original ingredients, but I dropped out a teaspoon of sugar and added in some vinegar into my milk for a bit of tang. But when it came to the method of flattening out the dough, I remembered reading that folding and refolding the dough creates air pockets and fat pockets and that helps to create flakey biscuit layers. So I tried that approach – folded and refolded and refolded some more.

I’m not sure if it was the cream of tartar or the folding method, but these biscuits came out perfectly dreamy! See the flakey layers? The lightly golden and crispy outsides? The perfect tender crumb? Yup, these biscuits are pretty perfect and can be served with brunch alongside some poached eggs and jam and would also be a nice side to a soup or stew.

Once again – just a reminder that this blog is up for Best Canadian Blog at the 2011 Bloggies (a kinda super big deal) and I’d love your votes! Thank you!

the flakiest biscuit (aka biscuits supreme)
(adapted from the Ugly Green Chair)
2 c flour
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cream of tartar
1 t sugar
1/2 c cold butter, cut into pieces
2/3 c milk (I used almond milk + 1 t vinegar)

Preheat oven to 400F. In a large bowl, mix together the first 5 ingredients. Add in the cold butter and use your fingers to wear it down so the mixture looks like oats. Pour in the milk and stir around with a fork until the dough comes together. I found the dough to be a bit dry which worked out fine.

Turn out the dough onto a large cutting board and knead it into a ball. Flatten it into a rectangle shape and then fold it over into a square (2 folds). Flatten down again and keep folding a few more times. Shape into a rectangle  1/2″ thick and cut out biscuits into squares. I made tiny biscuits but you can cut them into how many you’d like.

Bake on a cookie sheet lined with silpat or parchment paper for 10 – 12 minutes or until slightly golden around the edges. If you make smaller biscuits, check on them sooner – within 8 minutes of baking.

Possibly related posts:

• i have reached biscuit nirvana: feather-light drop biscuits
• diner style: all-purpose biscuits

First of all, I want to thank all of you for your well-wishes during my time of extreme craft craziness. To those who I met at the various fairs and shows, thank you so much for coming out and saying hello! But why we’re really here is for the food, and trust me, these tiny cakelets are worth the wait. To me, they taste similar to a hot cross bun but with a much more tender, soft crumb (and so much easier to make).

Calling these warm, buttery bites cakes are a bit of a misnomer. While they’d be wonderful after dinner served with tea, they are also kissing cousins to a tender scone which makes them an ideal way to start the day. I’ve updated the traditional recipe which calls for currents and candied peel for dried cranberries and fresh orange zest. Using part whole wheat flour works well and still creates that soft-in-the-middle texture while upping the whole grain factor.

While Welsh Cakes can be baked in a 350F oven, I do think that cooking them in a lightly buttered skillet is the way to go for something truly special. They are the perfect start to Christmas morning or any morning for that matter.

elsewhere: In between craft fairs, I managed to write a few new posts. Check out my holiday gift guide and a recipe for colcannon with brussels sprouts over at Poppytalk. At ReadyMade I write about how to tame the crazies with a few simple meal tips.

welsh cakes
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1/3 c granulated white sugar
2 1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/8 t ground nutmeg
1/2 c cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 c dried cranberries
zest of 1 orange
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 – 5 tablespoons milk

1/2 T butter

In a large bowl, blend together the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices and fluff mixture with a fork. Add in the cubed butter and work in the butter with your hands into the flour mixture until the butter resembles oats. Add in cranberries and zest and stir in milk and beaten egg with a wooden spoon. When the dough starts to come together, knead a few times and dump onto a lightly floured surface. Pat down dough and roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out with a 2″ biscuit cutter. Roll out remaining dough scraps and repeat.

Add butter to a large heavy skillet and heat over medium heat. Add the welsh cakes to the pan, in batches, and brown each side for 4 minutes. They should be soft in the middle and nice and golden on the outside. Serve warm with coffee or tea. Makes 21 2″ cakes.

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