she cooks she bakes

Dec

25

Aunt Eva’s Sugar Cookies // At Home, Petoskey, MI

“Home, let me go home. Home is wherever I’m with you.”

-Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros [song]

After three flights and not enough morning coffee, I arrived at Traverse City’s tiny little airport. Greeted by the pristine carpets and silence of a small-town airport at night, I walked through the baggage claim to be greeted by three lovely faces and big bear hugs. I love the city, love my friends there, the fact that you can go out after 9 and not worry about if anywhere will be open, the diversity, my church there, being able to walk places…. and it goes on. There is something about little Petoskey that has my heart, though. The wide open lakefront, the people who I’ve grown up with, the square little home on surrounded by pine trees, mama’s gardens and the boys’ dirt bike tracks. It’s home.

Part of coming home means time spent in the kitchen with mom. Last week we decided to tackle the impossible: Recreating my Aunt Eva’s phenomenal sugar cookies. I do not use the word “phenomenal” lightly here. They are tender and buttery, melt in your mouth and above all some of the most beautiful creations you’ve seen. Mom has attempted to make them in the past, with no great success. We aren’t sure if she just gives us a bum recipe from the back of Better Homes and Gardens or if we just don’t have the special Aunt Eva touch that makes these cookies famous throughout the Midwest.

After following the recipe to the last teaspoon, ours turned out surprisingly tasty. Still not on par with an original Eva Cookie, but awfully tasty. You can give them a try at home, or order a custom made batch directly from the source! Visit the website for contact information!

Aunt Eva’s Sugar Cookies
Not adapted, but carefully copied with much love from Harbor House website.

2 c. (4 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. clear vanilla extract
2 eggs
5 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla, scrap bowl as needed. Combine dry ingredients and gradually add to creamed
ingredients…mix well. Divide dough into fourths, flatten and wrap quarters with wax paper and seal in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before cutting into shapes.

To Bake:

Let dough soften a little for easier handling. Roll out dough on a floured surface to approx. 1/4″ thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet and bake @ 375 for 6-8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. When cool, glaze with frosting of powdered sugar, half & half, almond extract and clear vanilla, whisked to a spreadable consistency.

Dec

21

Dark Chocolate Almond Joy // She Bakes

Coconut Almond Candy Bars
adapted from Oh Nuts

1 tsp vanilla extract
7 ounces sweetened condensed milk (half a standard 14-oz can)
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut
3/4 cup whole toasted almonds
1 bag 60% cacao chocolate chips
Kosher or sea salt for sprinkling

In a medium bowl combine the first 4 ingredients until smooth. Incorporate the coconut until it’s coated in the milk-mixture. Press into a foil lined and greased pan. 8×8 would do, it depends on how think you’d like the candies to be. Press the almonds in rows on top of the coconut mixture and refrigerate until set. You can score them with a sharp knife/pizza cutter to make separation easier later. Once they are pretty firm and have a little bit of a hard shell on top, pull the foil out of the pan and separate the individual candies with a sharp knife. You may want to pop them back in the fridge for a little bit so the bottoms get the hard “shell” from the sugar exposed to air. I thought it made the hold up better for dipping.

In a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water melt the chocolate chips. Remove from heat, and with a fork/fingers dip your candies. I did some of the fully dipped, then half way through switched to just dipping the bottom then drizzling chocolate on top. Let them cool on wax paper or greased foil.

Sep

07

Oatmeal-Raisin Bars // she cooks she bakes

Blog Posts / Personal / she cooks she bakes / 3 comments

It’s a rainy day and I didn’t have to work today, so I’ve been being somewhat helpful in preparing la comida for a weekend at the races. It’s the final motocross race of the season for my brothers and we are spending the weekend at the track. Hungry dirt bike riding young guys=the need for LOTS of FOOD! Mom asked me to make these Oatmeal-Raisin Bars which have been a hit before. I was good and didn’t omit any sugars, sub any flours (whole wheat for white doesn’t even count anymore!) or cut back on any fats. They are made with raw butter, whole wheat flour, organic oats, evaporated cane juice (lesser of the evils) and sea salt. Like Julia Child said, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” ;)

I’ve been curled up with a cup of peach tea and the book Nourishing Traditions reading about the wonderful health benefits of raw butter. My mother now calls it “The frosting of life”… You should see her toast in the morning, and we now cook eggs with butter as well. Butter or EV Coconut Oil are supposedly better to cook with than evoo, (my go-to-favorite), because unlike evoo butter and EV coconut oil the fatty acid chains in butter aren’t affected by heat and your body can use them better. And then you have people saying don’t eat ANY fats and butter will kill you. It’s all about who you listen to, but after reading Nourishing Tradition’s views on butter I’m not spreading it so thin on my toast. (And I’ll let you know my waistline isn’t any bigger, actually smaller!)

After my butter-rant I’m sure you are longing to make these bars, which will give your diet a healthy jumpstart into the butter-consumption realm. Enjoy!

Oatmeal-Raisin Bars

from Martha Stewart

I doubled the recipe and made it in a 9×13 pan because I have a lot of hungry, dirt bike riding boys to feed :) I’ve included my version of the regular 8×8 recipe.

Whisk:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (I have very salty butter and omit salt)
1 cup evaporated cane juice (a “more natural” sugar)
1 tsp molasses
1 farm-fresh egg
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Stir in:

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups organic rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Pat into a well buttered (and better yet parchment-lined if you aren’t a lazy baker, like me!) 8×8 pan. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until the edges are golden and the center is set. Let cool, then cut into squares.

Sep

03

Homemade Juices // Juice Cleanse

Blog Posts / Personal / she cooks she bakes / 2 comments

After a week of too much sugar and unhealthy foods I’m coming back around to my normal way of eating, limiting sugars and not eating many starchy carbs. (I have to put this in though: I don’t regret any of the pizza, wedding cake, chocolate fondue or nutella s’mores. ;) ) After reading on The Healthful Pursuit about juice cleanses I figured some garden-fresh juices would be a good way to jump start the return to healthy life. I made two juices up today, starting with this Beet, Carrot, Pineapple Plum. The carrots and beets were fresh from my mom’s garden, it doesn’t get any better then organic beet you pull out of the dirt yourself! The other juice was a tomato veggie and is the most unappetizing brown color I’ve ever seen. I think that one won’t grace the blog.

Ingredients

2 large and 2 small carrots
3 medium beets
1c. pineapple chunks
2 plums

process using juicer. wahla! juice!

Aug

04

Tortilla Española // Granada, Spain

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Thursday for lunch I met Elvira at her Granada house and she taught me how to make the traditional “Tortilla Española”. In Spain, a tortilla is not your typical mexican corn or flour tortilla, but an egg dish. The Tortilla de Patatas or Tortilla Española is a Spain classic.

You start with a medium-sized skillet, a lot of olive oil and one chopped onion. Sautee the onion for a few minutes….

Then add 2-3 chopped potatoes. And salt!

Cover and leave on medium heat.

Crack 4 eggs into a large bowl. You want enough egg to cover the potato, Elvira said we have too many potatoes this time (4 potatoes and 4 eggs, 3 to 4 would have been better)