I especially recommend these to anemic individuals like me. Blackstrap molasses add not just great flavor, but also iron to the muffins. From the other hand, if you are not a big fan of blackstrap molasses, or if you find its flavor somewhat overwhelming, you can use regular unsulphured molasses instead. Either way, the muffins are nice and quite wholesome.
I love to pack things like these to my kid’s lunch box. They are full of healthy ingredients and right calories. It is a bit of pain to find something similar in stores. There are plenty of energy bars, but nut-free ones are rare. So, I make them myself. It almost doesn’t take any time at all. Fruits, seeds, and cereal can be varied to suit any personal taste or budget. If the nut allergy is luckily not your problem, the bars can be made with any nut butter you prefer.
There’s one thing I want to point out. If you are making the bars for a nut allergy sufferer, make sure to read the ingredient list on a sunflower butter jar carefully. There are a few manufacturers who make this particular kind of butter in nut-free facilities. The most common brand, as I notice, makes all kinds of nut/seed butter together at one place, and probably uses the same mill for grinding.
Awesome cookies, exactly as the author’s saying – “noisily crunchy, light, addictive”. The recipe is by Alice Medrich
It does seem like I’m not keeping up to my promises, but a nasty fracture of the right collarbone was hard to predict. I’m getting proficient doing everything with my left hand, although it would be much easier to be able to use them both.
I hope everyone had a wonderful summer break. My best wishes for academic success to all scholars!
This cake is one of my most recent creations, for an adorable little kid who obviously likes the Backyardigans TV series. The name of the birthday boy is five letters long, the exact number of characters, so I thought it would be nice to display it this way.
Inside is a chocolate cake, soaked with kirsch syrup, filled with Dalfour’s black cherry jam and Swiss vanilla-kirsch buttercream.
P.S. I’ve been terribly busy lately, my apologies for delayed e-mail replies. I’ll answer all your questions within a day or two. From now I’m planning to be here more often, no more cake orders till the end of August. I’m going to enjoy the rest of the summer, bake with my son and blog about this, and go camping.
And last, but not least. Thank you very much, everyone, who left kind comments on my previous posts. I appreciate it greatly, thank you.
Finally, it seems like it’s summer here. Vancouver can’t ever brag about its early summer, but this year the cold and rainy spring seemed particularly lengthy. As soon as the weather permitted, and the tedious task of grill-cleaning was accomplished, I grilled my all time favorite vegetable. I love to layer freshly grilled, hot eggplant slices with garlic-balsamic-evoo dressing and fresh basil. Then I quickly toast a sourdough bread and serve it spread with goat cheese and topped with the eggplant. It is a great meal of its own. Good wine is a must, though.
The cake was a present to my best friend’s daughter who is a big canine lover. Since it’s was a gift I decided to make the cake literary looking like one – a gift box filled with the birthday girl’s favorite chocolates. Besides, Anastasia is a very sweet girl, but incredibly picky eater, so giving her the Lindt truffles was sort of my assurance that she would have at least something for dessert.
Inside was an orange cake, soaked in Grand Marnier syrup, filled with chocolate mousseline. Decor is fondant and gum paste. Non edible were only wire and a piece of skewer holding a dog’s head in place (I usually use spaghetti for this, but it turned out we cooked them all for dinner lately).
Happy Birthday, Anastasia! We love you!
