Raspberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

It has been quite some time since I have posted. Almost a year! This was the busiest school year yet but only one left! That's crazy to think about. It also means that I am going to need to figure out what the next step will be for me. Until then, I will continue to enjoy cooking and baking! These bars I actually made at the end of last summer. My friend Claire and I went raspberry picking, which might I add was a fabulous outing. We had planned many times to go strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry picking I don't know how many times. This time we actually made it work! Hopefully we can get out in the blueberry and strawberry patches this summer, so I can get some fresh fruit for more delicious creations!

I don't know about you, but I sure love me some raspberries! Let me tell you, these bars are full of raspberry deliciousness! If you are a fan of raspberries and chocolate, you could even add some chocolate chips or white chocolate chips. Both options would be delectable! And if you are feeling really adventurous you could add a cream cheese layer!

Only a couple more months until the raspberry season comes again! Can't wait to make these bars again and maybe indulge with some homemade ice cream! Yummy!!

Raspberry Oatmeal Crumble
Adapted from Andrea Meyers

Ingredients:

Oatmeal Crumble
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup spelt flour
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. coconut oil, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla

Raspberry Filling
3 cups raspberries, fresh or frozen
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. chia seeds
1 Tbsp. corn starch

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 Degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, spelt flour, coconut sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add the coconut oil and vanilla. Mix until combine.
3. Pour 2/3 of the crumble mixture into a greased 8x8 baking dish. Press down firmly to form a crust.
4. In a medium size bowl, toss the raspberries, coconut sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, chia seeds, and corn starch together. Spread the filling mixture over the crust. Sprinkle on the remaining crumble mixture.
5. Bake the bars until the top is golden brown about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Enjoy!

Another Birthday Calls for Another Cake

On this birthday of mine, my family and I were in the lovely state of Montana on a family vacation. That state has stolen my heart, and one day I hope to call it my home. If you have not been there, you must take a trip there. The beauty cannot be imagined or explained. Anyhow, as bitter sweet as it was, we flew home on my birthday, but I was able to make this cake! 

I am grateful that I was able to make this cake because boy it was delicious and the best way to end a birthday and vacation. This cake was so easy to make that I was able to make it and eat it within two hours. It is such a flavor filled cake. The lemon and blueberry complement each other impeccably.

You may question the "glaze" as not tasting good since it is made out of plain greek yogurt. Well let me tell you, I was skeptical, but now, I am a believer! The cake would taste absolutely wonderful with out it too, if you are dairy free. However, if possible, I would add it because it is amazing. To me, it kind of resembles a cream cheese frosting.

As you can tell, all the pictures have pieces of cake missing...yes, that would mean that I did not even take the time to take pictures before we all snatched a piece for ourselves. It smelt so good, we could not wait any longer. Just try to refrain from indulging in it! It is harder than you think!

Blueberry, Lemon, Poppy Seed and Almond Cake
Recipe Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories
Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

4 cups almond flour
3 Tbsp. poppy seeds
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup (or honey)
1 large or 2 small organic lemons
3 large eggs
2 cups blueberries (save half for topping)

Glaze:
1 cup plain full-fat greek yogurt
2 Tbsp. maple syrup (or honey)
1 tsp. vanilla
Remaining lemon juice

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.
2. Combine almond flour, poppy seeds, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl and set aside.
3. Heat oil and maple syrup in a sauce pan on low heat until combine. Grate the zest of the lemons and add it to the maple syrup/oil mixture. Divide the lemons in half and add the juice of three lemons halves (or 3/4 of 1 lemon if using one large lemon) to the mixture. Save the rest for the glaze.
4. Add the maple syrup/oil mixture to the bowl with dry ingredients.
5. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Then fold into the dry ingredient bowl.
6. Grease a 8-inch spring form cake pan and add the batter to it.
7. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until golden on the outside and baked all the way through (may add foil for the last 15 minutes if starting to get dark brown). Remove from oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the edges of the pan.
8. Meanwhile start making the glaze. Combine the yogurt, maple syrup, vanilla, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Leave in the fridge to chill.
9. When the cake has cooled completely, cover it with the glaze and and top with the remaining blueberries. May also serve with the glazing and blueberries on the side.

Hope you enjoy! Eat up!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

I finally find myself back here. It has been quite awhile. With finishing up school and working way more than expected this summer, I have been way too busy! Thus, my kitchen time gets limited. However, just yesterday I had a baking day with my good friend Claire who has this awesome food blog Your Daughter's Kitchen. 

The slightly ironic thing about our baking day was that we never turned on the oven until we had to for our spare of the moment dinner. We made a Raw Peach Cashew Cheesecake, Zucchini Fig Pasta, and these delicious Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars. The recipes for the others are soon to come!

The Raw Peach Cashew Cheesecake had to cool for about five hours. So Claire and I got a little impatient and hungry. We kept checking it and the progress of freezing it seemed non-existent. We were just sitting there talking, and Claire saw the picture of these bars come on Instagram. She showed me, and we both decided that we had to make them...So we did!

With only six ingredients, these bars are easily made on a whim! However, we realized that these too had to cool.. But let me tell you, it is totally worth it! They are absolutely positively scrumptious. They reminded us of puppy chow and fudge in one. If that doesn't sound amazing, I don't know what would!

The bars came from the blog Hungry Happens. I was just shown this blog this weekend, and I already love it! After eating these bars, I can't wait try many more things from here!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars 
Recipe from Hungry Happens
Yields 18 mini bars

Ingredients:
1 cup raw smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup dark chocolate chips (dairy-free if needed)
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
1. Line an 8x8" baking pan with parchment paper
2. In medium to large size pan on medium-low heat, melt the peanut butter, coconut oil, and maple syrup together. Do not heat on high or the mixture may burn. Stir until throughly combine.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla. Then add in the oats.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Smooth out the top with a rubber spatula.
5. Freeze for 1-2 hours or until set.

Leftovers should be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Enjoy and eat up!

Delicate Peanut Butter Cookies and A Confession

For the love of peanut butter and cookies!! These lovely babies were a concoction from quite awhile ago, but hey, better late than never right!? So these cookies were inspired by my desire for some Christmas cookies. Yes, a long time ago. Of course, we had all kinds of other cookies in the house, but no healthy ones. So I hopped up off the couch, crutched to the kitchen and sat on a chair with my leg on another and stirred that dough. You are probably wondering what on earth I am talking about. Well, like in my previous post, I was hung up because of my surgery.

Thank God for my wonderful mother! If it wasn't for her, we would not have these wonderful cookies to enjoy. I mean she is amazing in many other ways too. Always there when you need her. Anyways to the cookies. I am quite obsessed with peanut butter...if you haven't figure that one out yet. It is definitely a staple food in my diet. Thus, after my surgery what was I craving? Well of course, peanut butter and cookies!

So what better than to put the two together to make peanut butter cookies! Some times I am amazed at how creative I am. These cookies are seriously amazing. My whole family loved them as well! Always a good thing. They literally melt in your mouth. These peanut butter cookies are more rich than sweet, which makes them absolutely perfect for my taste! And they are so easy to make! If I can make them while having one leg and two days out of surgery, I think anyone can manage these delicious cookies.

And now on to my confession. Well, there is a saying "third time's a charm". It just so happens that it took me three times of making these cookies to get pictures of them before they were eaten. Needless to say, they could have been posted long ago if my family (mostly I) didn't eat them so fast.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Yields 20 small cookies (1.5" to 2" round)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 egg white
1/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium size bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar and egg white, stir until mixed thoroughly.
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and press down with a fork.
5. Bake for 5-8 minutes.
6. Let stand on pan for a couple minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
7. Allow to cool almost completely or they may crumble in your hands.

Enjoy! Try not to eat them all in one sitting. It is hard!!

A Chocolate Bar, A Little Taste of Heaven

I have had the ingredients to make chocolate for about seven months now. So I finally decided it was time to experiment. And oh boy! I am glad I did. My mom was quite happy too. (She is quite the choco-holic to say the least). I have seen multiple recipes for chocolate before, but none of them fit the idea that I had for it. So what did I do? Well like always, set aside time between studying and take everything out of the cupboards that I think I will need and start throwing ingredients in.

I am just so happy that it actually turned out the first time! I mean it better for how many times I taste "tested" it while making it. You never know when the flavor might just change on you...even when nothing new is added. That's my motto, and hey, it hasn't proven me wrong yet! This chocolate is an all around winner in my book!! there are many different ingredients/flavors that you could put in this chocolate to make it your own. My personal favorite was goji berries and cocao nibs. Another flavor that I made was roasted almond, sea salt. That one was my mom's favorite. So play around with your already favorite flavors and spice it up for your preference!

Now on to the ingredients. Cocao butter is the basis of this chocolate. It can be hard to find, but it is necessary to create such soft chocolate. This chocolate literally melts in your mouth. To find out more about cocao butter and another chocolate recipe visit My New Roots. Also, you may or may not notice that this recipe has cocao powder instead of the more popular cocoa powder. Cocao powder is a superfood. Yes! One of the most loved foods is good for you! However, like all things it is only good in moderation. Sarah Britton writes more about cocao on her blog My New Roots (which is one of my favorites!)

Heart-warming, Mouth-watering Homemade Chocolate
Yields roughly 3 oz. 

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cocao butter
1/4 cocao powder
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. coconut sugar
one pinch sea salt

Directions:
1. In a double boiler, melt the cocao butter.
2. Once melted, add in cocao powder, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and sea salt. Stir until combine.
3. Pour into a mold or in a pan lined with parchment paper.
4. Let cool completely and make sure they are hard before removing.
5. Store in the fridge to ensure they do not melt if warm out. Best to remove from fridge a few minutes      before serve/eat them.
6. Enjoy!

My advice...try not to eat them all right away. Not as easy as you may think!

Possible Flavor Combinations:

Roasted Almond Sea salt: load up on almonds and light on the salt
Goji Berries and Cocao Nibs: load it up!
Vanilla Coconut: 1/2 vanilla been scraped
Espresso: add 1 Tbsp. espresso powder
Add some hemp seeds for a little crunch
Be creative!

Vanilla Almond Fig Biscotti

With Christmas around the corner, my house is usually filled with baked goods that have been made by my mom, sister, and I. When I was younger, we would make at least ten different kinds of cookies, if not more. My mom had made both my sister and I cute little Christmas aprons that we would always wear. Some of the best holiday memories were made in our kitchen during the holidays. For some reason, we have been known to make some of the best cookies. From my mom's legendary chocolate chip cookies to suited-for-santa cookies to chocolate carmel cookies. However, this year has been a little different as baking together went.

My sister no longer lives at home, so she has not been around to bake all the Christmas cookies, and as for me, I am a little hung up. I just got surgery on my foot this past Wednesday. It has been a long four days let me tell you. I am used to being active, moving around, and not sitting/sleeping all day. Well it just so happens that is the case for me right now. After a long two days, I begged my mom to help me bake some delicious Christmas cookies that were healthy. (All the cookies that she and my sister have made...aren't the healthiest but are good!) I love love love figs, so I began brainstorming. After awhile of debating on what type of cookie I could throw figs in, I came to the consensus that fig biscotti would be fabulous!

I found this basic biscotti recipe to get the approximate measurements and went on with my creativity. Let me tell you...it was a pretty pathetic sight in the kitchen. I was sitting on a stool with my foot resting on another stool as my mom ran around the kitchen getting the ingredients that I would need. She's a trooper! I am truly thankful for her!

Now to the actual cookies. Biscotti is a one of a kind cookie usually eating with tea or coffee. It is a very crisp and dense cookie. There are so many different flavor combinations that can be made for biscotti. I chose my favorites: almond, vanilla, and figs. Let me tell you, they smell delicious when they are baking and taste just as amazing. This recipe could truly be made with any fruit or flavoring. Change it up to meet your favorites! Enjoy!!

Vanilla Almond Fig Biscotti 
Adapted from My Happy Dessert

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup whole spelt flour
2 Tbsp. flaxseed meal
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 Tbsp. stevia
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
2 egg whites
1 whole egg
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped dried figs

Directions:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine flour, flaxseed meal, sugar, stevia, and baking powder in a medium size bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl until thoroughly combine.
4. Pour the bowl of dry ingredients into the large bowl and stir together the two mixtures.
5. Once the dough is throughly combine, add almonds and the chopped figs.
6. Split the dough into two logs and place them on the pan. Flatten to a thickness of one inch. They can be made as mini biscotti or regular size. It's up to your preference.
7. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until firm.
8. Upon removal from the oven, let the loafs cool for 10 minutes and turn the oven down to 325.
9. Then slice the biscotti to desired thickness, usually around 1/2 inch.
10. Place back in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until desired crispness is reached.
11. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Nothing is better when it's snowing and cold outside than a large mug of hot cocoa, friends, and cookies! Eat up!!
~Lauren

The Classic Holiday Gingerbread Man with a Twist

'Tis the season for some holiday baking! However, with school being hectic and finals coming up, things have been put on hold. This post actually is a debrief from studying for my two finals tomorrow. There has not been much time for me to bake/cook/be at all creative in the kitchen this semester, which is quite a bummer. I have so many ideas of new things I want to try, but I just can't find down time. These cookies were actually not made by me, but rather my lovely sister.

For the first time, I had to study, and my sister was free. She decided that she was going to do some baking. Gingerbread are a staple Christmas cookie, and I just had to throw some new ingredients in them to healthify them of course! When I mentioned to her the substitutions she should make she was not too fond of the idea. But I persisted and won! Yay!! It was a good thing I did because these babies are scrumptious!

Oh, yes, my sister thought so too. I can't say anyone didn't like them. Some went to her friends at college, and the rest....well quite possibly most in my stomach. Oops! I mean my mom ate some and my sister too, but overall, I did the most damage. What can I say? If it is good, I am going to eat them...and enjoy every bite. These cookies are the perfect sweetness. They are chewy beyond belief, and literally melt in your mouth! Definitely will be making my gingerbread like this from now on out!

Gingerbread Cookies

Base recipe from The Betty Crocker Cookbook

Ingredients:

Cookies-

1 1/2 cup dark molasses

1 cup coconut sugar

2/3 cup cold water

1/3 cup coconut oil, softened 

7 cups whole spelt flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt 

1 teaspoon ground allspice

2 teaspoons ground ginger 

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

Icing-
1/4 cup softened coconut butter (should be pourable, add more liquid as needed)
2-3 teaspoons honey
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup full fat coconut milk
 
Directions:
Cookies-
1. Mix molasses, coconut sugar, water, and coconut oil, until combine.
2. Mix in the remaining ingredients.

3. Cover and let chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. 

4. Heat oven to 350. 

5. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until the thickness reaches about 1/4 inch. 

6. Cut the cookies out with the desired cookie cutter shape. 

7. Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet. 

8. Bake until firm about 10-12 minutes. (if you touch the cookie it should spring back)

9. Allow to sit on pan for 1-2 minutes then remove and cool on a cooling rack until completely cool. 

10. Decorate with frosting!

Icing-

1. Mix together the coconut butter and honey to form a thick paste until thoroughly combine. 

2. Add the vanilla, and then the coconut milk one tablespoon at a time until it is the consistency you desire.  

I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as my family and friends did! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

~Lauren