I thought it was time for another recipe, and this one is seasonally appropriate for you denizens of the Northern Hemisphere. I made it these lovely bars this week with the very last of the frozen pumpkin from last fall.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking. These are one-bowl wonders—incredibly quick and easy to mix up by hand. Something even young kids could manage on their own.

¾ cup (170g) butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

¾ tsp ginger

¼ tsp cloves

¼ tsp allspice

1 egg

1 ½ cups cooked, mashed pumpkin

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 ½ cups raisins or dried cranberries

Melt the butter in a largish bowl in the microwave. Add the sugar and stir. Return the mixture to the microwave and heat until it is starting to bubble. Allow the mixture to cool until it is comfortable to touch.

Beat in the vanilla, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Stir in the pumpkin, flour and fruit.

Spoon the batter into a greased 9 x 13-inch pan, and bake 40 to 45 minutes at 180°C (350°F).

 

I made a new cake today. It was supposed to be the Orange Cake from King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking. But my husband had just used the last of the whole wheat flour for bread, and since I was going to change the type of flour in the recipe, I made a few other changes…

The result was lovely! Crunchy on the outside and divinely soft inside. It was difficult not to just sit down and eat several slices all at once!

So here’s the recipe in all its untested glory.

2 ½ cups barley flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 cup (250g) butter, softened
1 ¼ cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
Zested rind of 1 orange

Mix together the flours, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (this will take about 5 minutes). Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk. Stir in the orange zest.

Spoon batter into two greased and floured 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Bake about 1 hour at 180°C (350°F). Remove the pans from the oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack. Place the rack over a large baking tray, and brush the glaze (see below) over the tops, bottom, and sides of the hot loaves, allowing it to soak in. Cool fully before serving.

Orange glaze:

½ orange juice
zested rind of 1 orange
¾ cup sugar

Put all glaze ingredients into a heat proof bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Brush onto cake.

**The crust on these loaves is fabulous! Next time I make these I’m going to bake them in mini-loaf pans in order to increase the crust to interior ratio! They’d probably also be great as cupcakes!

As with everything in life, the only way to grow is to move outside your comfort zone, to push yourself beyond your normal boundaries.

In that spirit, several months ago I photocopied a recipe for lavender cupcakes from a book I checked out of the library.

I had to wait until the lavender was flowering to make them, but today was the day.

I don’t generally like floral flavours, and lavender is an incredibly strong one. The only way I normally use lavender is as a small component of a fresh herb mixture I put on the outside of some of my cheeses. I’ve never used it as the only flavouring for anything.

I was intrigued, but dubious. Would the cupcakes even be edible? Who wants to munch on a lavender flower? Eaten directly, lavender flowers have an overpowering bitter resinous taste.

But then, so does rosemary, and I was won over to rosemary shortbread when my mother-in-law made it for us a few years ago.

I vowed to remain open-minded.

The cupcakes came out of the oven, and I iced them with lavender icing.

With some trepidation, we tried them.

“Peculiar,” said my daughter, a thoughtful look on her face. “Yes. Not bad, just…peculiar.”

I agree. This isn’t a recipe I will necessarily make again, but I’m glad I did it, at least once.

I made an ‘everyday’ cake today—a whip-it-out sort of chocolate sheet cake. I normally don’t frost my everyday cakes, but I had a hankering for peanut butter with chocolate, so I looked for a peanut butter icing recipe…and didn’t find one I really liked the look of.

So I tried a new one—a broiled icing—a hot mixture of butter, honey and peanut butter spread on the warm cake and lightly broiled.

“Hmmm…Looks like moth-eaten dragon breath,” said my daughter when she saw it.

“Caramel sludge!” declared my son.

“It looks more like a disease than an icing,” I said.

But the disparaging comments ended when we tasted it—very nutty and not too sweet.

“Pretty good, even if it does look…weird.”

For an everyday cake, that’s really all that matters.