Baking - 2 out of 4 ain't bad.

So the other day I went on a baking binge. First I made, what I call 'healthy cookies' but the recipe my mom gave me says 'Chewy Granola Cookies'. They *sound* like they would be too healthy and granola-y, but they aren't at all. Check out the yumminess:

Here's the recipe (how I made them, feel free to sub in other healthy additions):

Chewy Granola Cookies

• 1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1-1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I *may* have added a little more, lol).

In medium bowl combine flour, oats, wheat germ, baking powder and salt: Mix well. In large bowl, beat brown sugar, oil and honey until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs; blend well. Add flour mixture and mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart onto greased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 7-8 minutes.

yum! You can sub the all purpose flour with whole wheat, or sub the oil with butter, or the wheat germ with wheat or oat bran. I try not to go too overboard with the 'healthy' or the kids won't touch them. Making them with the chocolate chips though means these disappear. Fast. Oh, and a note of caution: if you make them with wheat bran and aren't used to the whole bran thing, don't eat more than a few at a time. IYKWIM. Dh has BTDT.

Next up:

Cinnamon buns!! (drool)

I made the dough using the bread machine. I love doing that. Then I can bake other things (cookies!) in between.

Cinnamon bun dough recipe:

• 1 cup milk
• 1beaten egg
• 4 TBSP melted butter
• 4 TBSP water
• 1/2 box INSTANT vanilla pudding
• 4 cups flour
• 1 TBSP sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2-1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Put the liquid ingredients in your bread machine first, then add the dry ingredients, except the yeast. Make a well in the dry ingredients then add the yeast in the well. Select the dough cycle & press start.

My machine then gives me 1.5 hours to kill. :)

When the dough cycle is done, it is time to punch down the dough and roll it out into a rectangle. (just do your best, I can never get it just right).

Now is time to add the filling!

This time, I melted 1/4 cup of butter, spread it out over the dough rectangle. Then I combined 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar and about 2 tsp cinnamon in a bowl and sprinkled it over the butter. There is another filling recipe I used to use, where you mix the butter in with the sugar and cinnamon and spread it out, but I found it to be too hard to spread evenly, so I'd increase the amount, then there would be too much filling. So I tried this (spread butter THEN sprinke sugar) other way and it worked out beautifully! Roll up from the wide end. Place in greased pans.

Normally I used my glass pans, but they were holding leftovers in the fridge. Hence the really ugly looking ones lined w/wax paper.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Let rise till double in size - if you do this in a warm spot, it'll take less time. For me, out of the oven takes about an hour. If I turn the oven on for just a bit, then open the door until it's just 'warm' inside. I put the tray in and leave the door open just a crack. It takes about half an hour that way.

After your buns have grown (haha, they will after these yummy treats) take them out of the oven (if that's where you had them) and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then bake for 15-20 minutes. ahhhhhhhh, that aroma.

While the buns are baking, assemble the ingredients for the glaze:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 TBSP milk or cream

Got it:

Mix together:

When the buns come out of the oven (teehee), drizzle the sweet goodness all over them.

In the words of Pioneer Woman: "Eat. Faint."

I started this next tasty bread by soaking raisins overnight in boiling water:

Here are my girls playing with the cans this bread will be baked in:

Ready to go in the oven:

Voila, Hobo bread.

Unfortunately I messed up. It still tasted good, it's just a little, um, chewy. It was my first time making it. I didn't read the recipe closely enough. That's what I get for trying to bake too many things at once.

Shayda, my 8 yo, wanted to make something too, so I helped her make this fudge from a Strawberry Shortcake cookbook. It sure looked good going into the fridge.

But it didn't come out quite as firm as it should have been:

It still tasted good. I think we just didn't put enough hard chocolate in, and too much sweetened condensed milk (I was trying to convert ml into cups. Ooops). Ah well. It was fun.

Next time I'll shoot for at least 3 out of 4. LOL.