Trail Mix Bars

Yield: 24 bars

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked quick cooking oatmeal
• 1/2 cup(s) whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp ground flax seed meal
• 1/2 cup Grape Nuts/Kashi Cereal 7 In The Morning Cereal
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 cup Egg Beaters Egg Substitute
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 cup Agave Nectar
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup walnut halves, chopped
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 3 Tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line an 8-by-8-inch pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. Set pan aside.

In a large bowl, combine oats, flour, ground flaxseeds, Cereal, and ginger. Add Eggbeaters,, applesauce, agave nectar, brown sugar, and oil; mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Spread mixture evenly in prepared pan using a back of a spoon or spatula. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Cool completely on a wire rack. Use edges of foil to lift cooked granola from pan, and cut into bars.

Source: Adapted recipe from Fitness Magazine, March 2011

Chocolate Tofu Mousse

Yields: about 5 servings

Ingredients:

• 16 oz silken tofu
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips or carob chips
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
• 2 Tbsp Agave Nectar
• 1/2  cup  Silk Pure Unsweetened Almond Milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Take tofu out of package  and place between layers of paper towels and then place a plate on top with cans to weight it down and squeeze out any excess liquid. Let rest for about 5 minutes

In food processor puree silken tofu until smooth.

Microwave chocolate chips in 30-second increments, stirring each time, until melted. Turn off heat, whisk in cocoa powder and agave nectar (you can use honey or Splenda if you are looking for less calories). Stir until well combined. The mixture will be stiff and a bit sticky.

In a food processor, add melted chocolate, vanilla, and almond milk to pureed tofu until smooth and combined. For extra silkiness, place mixture through a sieve into a medium bowl, pressing with a spoon or spatula. This will eliminate any lumps.

Scoop mixture into five serving dishes (each serving is about 3- 3 1/2 oz), and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes to 1 hour. Garnish desserts with grated chocolate, chocolate chips, fresh mint, or raspberries, if desired.

Best Sugar Cookies!

Yields:  about 5 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond or lemon extract
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla and almond/lemon extract. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, add to dough until well combined. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into heart shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for about 8 minutes, or until cookie is slightly golden. Cool completely.

Royal Icing

Yield:  about 3 cups.

Ingredients:

• 16 ounces powdered sugar, sifted
• 6 tablespoons warm water
• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (can use lemon/almond as well)
• Food Coloring to achieve desired shade

Directions:

Place powdered sugar, water, powdered meringue, and extract in mixing bowl. Beat with mixer on high speed 5 to 7 minutes until a stiff peak is achieved and the icing is fluffy and shiny.

For each color of icing, place 1/2 cup icing in bowl. Stir in 3 to 4 drops food coloring until evenly distributed and icing is smooth. Add additional drops of color until icing is of desired color. (Keep remaining icing covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying, do not refrigerate as mixture will become hard.

To ice cookies, place cooling rack on foil-lined baking sheet. Spoon icing onto cookies using a teaspoon. Cookies can also be iced using a new small paintbrush. Place iced cookies on cooling rack to dry. Do not write “Love” or any other word onto the cookie until first color is completely dry.

Use contrasting icing colors to decorate iced cookies, if desired. Place small amount of contrasting icing in small ziploc plastic bag or place in a pastry bag (using a small writing tip). Snip off tiny piece of the corner of the plastic bag. Create design by squeezing contrasting icing onto cookies. Allow iced cookies to dry thoroughly before stacking.

Source: Notes from Cookies, Tarts, and Petit Fours, Valencia

Spicy Red Pepper Corn Muffins (Cheaters Style)

Yields: 6 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 box Corn Muffin Mix (such as Jiffy)
• 1/3 cup Plain Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Red Pepper Jelly Spread (such as Harry and David’s)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Grease muffin pans, or use paper baking cups

Mix all ingredients together. Batter will be slightly lumpy. If you let the muffins batter rest for few minutes before filling the pan, you will notice a better rise.

Brownie Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Cream Cheese Mixture Ingredients:

• 8 oz cream cheese softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup of shredded coconut
• 2 tsp coconut rum
• 1 egg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 8×8-inch baking pan.

Combine sugar, butter and in mixer until well incorporated. Add in eggs, one at a time until combined add vanilla extract. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl; fold in wet mixture.

Mix softened cream cheese and sugar together until combined. Add coconut, rum, and egg, until thoroughly mixed.

Pour brownie mixture into prepared pan and even out mixture. Place cream cheese mixture on top by dollops and evenly spread mixture out creating a slightly swirled effect with chocolate brownie batter.

Bake for 35 minutes  inside comes out slightly gooey and almost cookoed. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar using a small sifter. Cut into 16 bars.

Cookie Ingredients:

• 6 7/8 oz            Egg Whites
• 2 ½ oz              Granulated Sugar
• 1 ½ Tbsp         Egg White Powder
• 8 1/8 oz            Almond Flour
• 13 ¾ oz            Powdered Sugar
• Food Color, as desired

Directions:

Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar together

Whip the egg whites, sugar, and egg white powder to stiff peaks. In last stage of whipping turn the mixing speed down for stiff peaks.

Fold the almond sugar mixture into the meringue, color as desired, and pipe 1 ½ inch circles (about the size of a quarter) onto silpat-lined perforated sheet pans. Color should be a bright a bright pastel, but not neon.

Let a skin form by leaving at room temperature for 45 minutes- 1 hour. and bake at 310 degrees in a convention oven with the vent open for 9 to 11 minutes. Macaroons should have a crisp shell and chewy interior (a crispy foot, with a domed air pocket).

Chefs Note: Leave a bit of the powdered sugar out of the sifted almond mixture & add to the egg white (between soft & med and peak).Mix in before adding almond mixture for greater stability.

French Butter Cream (use to fill macaroons)

Ingredients:

• 7 ¾ oz              Sugar
• 2 1/8 oz            Water
• 4 5/8 oz            Egg Yolks
• 1lb,1 3/8 oz            Butter

Directions:

In saucepan, heat the sugar and water as for a pate a bombe

In a mixing bowl with the whip attachment, mix the egg yolks to lighten the texture.

When the sugar reaches the soft ball stage 244 degrees, slowly pour the sugar into the whipping egg yolks and whip until cool. Add the softened butter, and mix enough to ensure good emulsion of the buttercream.

Assemble two cookies between a small amount of butter cream. You do not want to overload the cream or it will explode and squeeze out when bitten into.

Source: Notes from Pastry Techniques, Valencia

Pita Bread

Yields: 6 Pita Breads

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp         dry active yeast
• 1 cup         lukewarm water
• 1/2 Tbsp  sugar
• 2 cups       white bread flour
• 1 tsp          salt
• 2 tsp          extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Place yeast in 1/4 cup of the lukewarm water. Add sugar and let stand for 10 minutes or until doubled and bubbly. Sift the flour and salt together into a small bowl. Form a well in the center; pour in yeast mixture with remaining lukewarm water and olive oil. Begin to mix with hand or a wooden spoon (add a bit more flour only as needed).

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 to 15 minutes, until smooth and no longer sticky.

Place in a large clean bowl that has been lightly greased, and cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise, in a warm place, for a bout 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Punch down the dough, on a lightly floured surface; divide it into 6 equal pieces and shape into balls. Cover with oiled plastic wrap; let rest for 5 minutes.

Roll out each ball of dough in turn to an oval about Winch thick and 6” long. Place on a floured dish towel and cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Let rise at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place 3 baking sheets in the oven to heat at the same time.Place two pita breads on each baking sheet and bake for 4-6 minutes or until puffed up; they do not need to brown. If preferred, cook the pita bread in batches. It is important that the oven has reached the recommended temperature before the pita breads are baked. This ensures that they will puff up.

Transfer the pitas to a wire rack to cook until warm, the cover with a dish towel to keep them soft.

Source: Notes from Specialty Breads, Valencia

Preferment/Poolish:
1 cup water
1 cup bread or all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

Mix preferment in a dish with a wooden spoon, and cover with plastic wrap or a cover.  let it rise at cool room temperature for anywhere between 6 and 24 hours. You will notice it will triple in volume and then collapse a tiny bit. The mixture will also be sticky and wet when you go to use it.

Ingredients:
All of the preferment
4 1/2 cups bread flour or white whole wheat flour (or a combination of the two)
1 1/2 teaspoon King Arthur’s Pizza Dough Seasoning
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 OLIVE OIL

Directions:
Sift together flour, pizza dough seasoning and salt and mix with your hand. Move the ingredients to the sides of the bowl, creating a large well (or an empty space/hole) in the middle. Pour the preferment,water, and olive oil over the flour into the well.

Mix together the ingredients , your hands work best, but you can use a mixer to form the dough. When using a mixer, be careful not to over work the dough, this will break the gluten stands and ultimately cause the bread to not rise and bake correctly. Gradually incorporate the flour  from the sides of the bowl until a soft dough is formed.Doing it all at once will be too difficult. So, go bit by bit, if it’s too liquid, just add a bit more flour and if it’s too sticky, add a bit more water.

Next is kneading. Remove the bread from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough  by pushing your palms into and then turning it one quarter. Keep kneading and turning dough quarter turns for about 5-10 minutes, or until the bread is supple and non-sticky. Take a piece of the dough and do a window pane test. This will determine if the dough and gluten has been worked enough. Pull off a small piece of dough off mix and gently stretch the dough to see if it appears thin and translucent. If the dough tears easily when doing the windowpane test, continue kneading a few more minutes and try testing again.

Place the bread in a lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp dish cloth. Let it rise for about 1 hour in a warm location. The dough should double in size.

Sprinkle a flat surface with flour. Prepare a baking pan by lightly oiling it With your hands, remove bread and place on floured surface. Punch it down once, hard, with your palms. Now, re-shape it into a loaf.

To shape the loaf, take half the dough and roll it out to a rectangle of desired size and roll longest side up (like you were rolling cinnamon rolls). Pinch seam together and then pinch ends up into the seams. Put the loaf into the prepared baking pan. Cover with dish towel and let rise for about 1 hour. It should double in size.

Using a pizza stone and placing bread pans on top of it will make the bread more crispy.  You can also make two  round loaves and place them directly onto the stone. Make sure the stone is in the oven prior to pre-heating.

Before placing in the oven,  score bread. Use a paring knife and quickly slash the bread in a slight diagonal from one end to the other (leaving about an 1″- 2″ on each side). Scoring not only serves as decorative finish, but controls the expansion of the loaf druing baking. Brush the loaves or spritz with water. The water will cause an initial steam to the bread, giving it a bit more crispness. Put in oven at 475°F and bake for 20-30 minutes.  Allow to cool completely before cutting.

Spicy Cheddar Cheese Spritz

Yields: About 8 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1 lb cheddar cheese, finely shredded
• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 Tbsp hot red pepper sauce
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp finely chopped parsley

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a medium bowl, cheese (MUST BE FINELY SHRED), butter, cream cheese, and hot sauce sauce until smooth. In separate bowl, sift flour, salt and spices together. Gradually add to cheese mixture. Mix until dough forms soft smooth ball. Shape dough into logs big enough to fit in cookie spritz. Using desired disk,  the bigger openings in the shape tend to work better, press shapes onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet on cooling rack. Remove from sheet and continue to cool on wire rack. Cookie taste and texture will taste better as they cool.

Banana and Chocolate Hazelnut Empanadas

Yield: 16-20 Empanadas

Filling:

• 1 cup of Nutella spread
• 1 large banana, cut into small dices

For the pie pasty/dough:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 16 Tbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut
  into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup ice water
• 1/8 cup of milk or cream for wash
• Sparkling Sugar

Directions:

To make the dough, in a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and sugar. Put the butter in a separate bowl. Place both bowls in the freezer for 10 minutes.

In a food processor, pulse the flour mixture until the ingredients are combined, about 5 pulses. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 15 to 20 pulses. Add 1/3 cup of the ice water and pulse twice. The dough should hold together when squeezed with your fingers but should not be sticky. If it is crumbly, add more water 1 Tbs. at a time, pulsing twice after each addition. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, divide in half and shape each half into a disk. Wrap the disks separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Remove 1 of the dough disks from the refrigerator and let stand for 5 minutes. Place the dough between 2 sheets of lightly floured waxed paper and roll out into a 12-inch round about 3/16 inch thick. Cut out 8-10  circles with a 3” cookie or biscuit cutter. Repeat the above steps with the second disc of dough

Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix Nutella and diced banana together and drop 2- 2.5 teaspoons of filling in center of dough circle. Fold pie dough together and pinch together. Use a fork to seal off the ends of the pinched edges. Brush with milk/cream wash and sprinkle with Sparkling sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes on a greased cookie sheet. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack.