Friday, October 5, 2012

Spelt Scones with Cranberries

We had some cream left over from Shirley's biscuit-making endeavor, so I used it to make scones.  These are very similar to the ones I used to make from The Best Recipe, but they use half spelt flour, which doesn't seem to change the color and tastes good.  I like the way cream scones are very tender and not bready or crumbly.  I also totally ignored the instructions in the recipe (does Kim Boyce not own a Cuisinart?) and used a food processor, like my usual recipe does.  The whole thing comes together in a few minutes.  The recipe is here.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Tomato and Onion Tarts

I had good luck with yeasted tart dough in a gallette, so I thought I would try it in a pan.  I made some tomato tartlets with fresh tomatoes, red onion slices, garlic, thyme, and olive oil, plus a dab of ricotta on the bottom.

The crust is basically this one, with about 1/4 rye flour because I ran out(!) of whole wheat.  Definitely has a pizza-like quality to the crust rather than a French tart crunch, but it's tasty and a dream to roll out.  It didn't need any flour at all when rolling and I got it really thin without tearing it!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A surfeit of spotty bananas on the counter and some getting-on blueberries in the fridge yesterday led me to this Martha Stewart recipe for Healthy Banana Blueberry Muffins, which I wanted to recommend.
I have an aversion to whole wheat pastry flour, but I used it here because it was all I had in the house (bought for another project) and I substituted it for about 1/4 cup of the white flour too, since I was out. The result was a lovely fine crumb that still tasted pleasantly wheaty, without that sour whole wheat pastry flour aftertaste. I also added the zest of one lemon, which I would highly recommend. Next time I'll try just plain whole wheat flour (it would give the muffins a bit more body), use the whole wheat pastry flour instead of any white, and halve the sugar: it calls for 1/3 cup of both white and brown, but I'd just stick with the brown. Martha's recipes tend to be pretty sweet. I think you could also substitute apple sauce for some of the butter if you had to, and maybe try raspberries. The recipe calls for frozen berries, which tend to hold their shape better, but fresh ones worked pretty well. The muffins are still being enjoyed by the entire household. Again, the recipe is here.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Spelt Focaccia

I had such good luck with yeasted tart dough recently that I thought I would try another yeasted bread.  The spelt focaccia from Kim Boyce's "Good to the Grain" looked easy, and it was.  I probably only spent about half an hour of active time on this bread, and it baked up delicious.  I split it into three pieces and baked the first one with chili salt (from my cousin Jamie in Boulder) and rosemary.  I plan to try the next one with roasted garlic and the last one with truffle oil.

The recipe is here.