So we will create a hearty, wholesome, textured “Caveman” pancake that is good to eat any time. Using ingredients you probably have hanging around your pantry… from those days at the grocery store when you SWEAR you’re going to be “healthy from now on!”

You know…..the almond butter you’re switching to instead of peanut butter;
the gluten-free brownie mix that makes it “OK” at midnight,
the lactose-free ice cream that goes with the gluten free brownies…

You can use all that stuff in this recipe called “Caveman Pancakes”.

1 cup of Pancake Mix
1 Cup Oats or any other Cereal you love
2 Eggs
2 T. Oil- vegetable, coconut, or Almond, etc.
2 T. Honey
1 Cup Milk – almond, regular, soy, rice, heck even water will do
2 T. Almond Butter or peanut butter (optional)
1/2 C Flaxseed – ground or whole
1/2 C Wheat Germ – the one in your fridge door
1/2 C Pumpkin seeds
1/2 C Sunflower seed
1/2 C Raisins or other dried fruit
1 Apple rough chopped
Pancake syrup or Molasses, or Cane Syrup

Mix everything in a bowl.

Heat oil or butter in a frying pan and when heated and bubbly, pour roughly 3/4 cup of batter into the pan.

When brown and puffy, flip the pancake. Wait until it browns then slide onto a plate.

I ate mine with molasses and maple syrup.

Totally delicious, then I decided to add more fruit! Blueberries, totally “cave age”!

Enjoy.

This is my most favorite dessert of all time, to both eat and make. Of the thousands of confections that exist, cheesecake is the most satiating, the utmost fulfilling, and uttermost complete dessert in the universe. Its nature is highly flexible and deeply forgiving.  You can “Dress Her Up” or leave her “Plain Jane”. Either way, a good friend. 

Many people think that the cheesecake got its origins in New York… this may seem reasonable, in a funny kind of way, but actually cheesecake started in ancient Greece over 4,000 years ago. They were creating what was called a “cheese cake”, which makes sense for the times.  Flour, yeast, honey and some Greek cheese were formed into a cake and baked. Then when those crazy Romans conquer Greece, all hell breaks loose and they start doing great stuff to the “cheese cake”, like filling it in a pastry shell, adding flavors, and stuffing it with fruits.

It really wasn’t until the 18th century that “cheese cake” started to look like something that we know it as of today “cheesecake”,  using eggs instead of yeast and making a little sweeter to taste more like a dessert rather than a savory cheese plate. 

Now cream cheese was a definite American addition to this delicacy in 1872.  A cheese maker in New York was trying to replicate a French cheese and accidentally discovered a process which resulted in cream cheese, of course now its famous and that’s all we need to know.

Having lived in New York for many years, I can tell you that New York made cheesecake an American dessert! Everyone in New York and every restaurant has a different version of a cheesecake.  Amazing because they all taste and are slightly different, but all extremely wonderful in their own right. The possibilities are endless, this is one of the reasons I love cheesecake, if you have a good base recipe, you can pretty much do anything your imagination will allow you to do.

The key is to have a good base recipe and master that recipe, then you can go off the board and start experimenting with different a desired outcomes. Also, two other tricks that work great are to have your ingredients at room temperature and use a water steam bath when baking your masterpiece. Also, see “TIP” during recipe for other great tricks.

To show how versatile regional cheesecake can be, you can follow various cultures:  Greeks bake with Feta, Germans use cottage cheese,  Italians love ricotta, Japanese combine cornstarch and egg whites, ( pix on left)  Americans pour on the cream cheese, and the French probably do it with blue and so it goes on and on from there.I think no matter how you look at it, cheesecake is the dessert that stands the test of time.  It deserves respect,  it deserves to be eaten frequently and it deserves to be experimented with because it’s got that strength and integrity to hold up.

Pear and Raspberry Cheesecake – a good base recipe
I like a thicker crust so I have increased the crust proportions- reduce for a thinner crust. TIP:  This recipe makes enough for a 10″ cheesecake, but you may divide the batter and it will yield two smaller cheesecakes, 8″ or 9″. Make them different, and it is OK to freeze, just wrap them good! 

3 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 T. sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 T. cinnamon (optional)
4 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 T. flour
5 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup sour cream
1 T. vanilla
1 T. lemon juice
1 jar pear preserves and raspberry preserves (do not need to use both, pick one) 1 pint fresh raspberries 1 fresh pear

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees
• Combine graham cracker crumbs and sugar.
• Stir in melted butter and cinnamon until moistened.
• Pour the mixture into a greased 10-inch by 3″ spring form pan. Press the crumbs into the bottom and up the sides of the pan.  TIP: use the side of a measuring cup to help shove the crumbs up the side of the pan.
• Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove and cool to room temperature.

• Beat cream cheese, sugar and flour until fluffy.
• Add eggs then yolks one at a time, mixing well with each addition
• Add heavy cream, sour cream, lemon juice and vanilla until combined.
• Pour into pan. TIP: Take a baking sheet and fill with water, place on shelf directly beneath the cheesecake, this will steam throughout the baking cycle. 
• Place cheesecake on shelf above water and bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes.
• TIP: if using 2 smaller pans, reduce baking time to about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
• The center may jiggle a bit, that is ok, it will continue to cook.
• Remove from the oven and let cool completely to room temperature.
• Chill in the refrigerator, the longer the better. 

• Place the preserves in a glass bowl, just use one kind, save other for next cheesecake. Add a splash of water, then microwave until warm, about 1 minute. Glaze the top of the cheesecake.

• Slice the pears thinly. Place them on top decoratively with the raspberries.Now this cheesecake is definitely better when set and cold. So put it back in refrigerator and chill until ready to eat. Use whipped cream, or ice cream and definitely grab a coffee or hot tea!Enjoy, let me know how yours turns out. Mine is fabulous. Gotta go, I can hear it calling me from the fridge…..LOL. Leslie

The other day I was combing through some cook books, looking for new recipes and I came across a masterpiece of a cook book that I had bought before I opened The Cottage:  The Betty Crocker Cookbook of All Purpose Baking, published in 1942!  It boasts 220 of the best tested recipes from the thousands of recipes in the gold medal file.

Although this is an out of print book, I do find the best ideas and recipes tend to evolve from older cookbooks. Back in the day, baking recipes were just simpler, easier, and a lot of times, tastier.

I started thumbing through the book looking for a better version of a white cake.  In my experience, white cakes tend to dry out very quickly and it’s hard to get the right moisture. So the quest is to find a moist white cake using the Betty Crocker 1942 first edition cook book.

The chosen is a “Butter Cake”, and in this particular recipe, stiffly beaten egg whites are folded into the batter. Ugh, sounds like a mess, but OK.  This would certainly make the batter very fluffy and very white. But what about moist? I remember my grandmother always used to tell me when making a cake you always want to use half butter and half shortening and sure enough when I checked with Crocker, that’s what this recipe calls for: half shortening and half butter. So that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to try it just like the recipe says. But first we need to begin whipping the egg whites into the billowy, cloudy air they will become. Thank you, KitchenAid.

I decided to upgrade some of the main ingredients: Plugra Butter, King Arthur Flour, Vanilla Bean Paste and Large Organic Brown Eggs.

Back to Basics White Cake from 1942
Grease and flour 3-9” cake pans and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 3/4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla paste or extract
6 egg whites, stiffly beaten, save and freeze the yolks for later use.

Stiffly beat the egg whites until peaks appear and hold, set aside.

Sift flour, powder and salt together in one bowl, set aside.

Beat the butter, shortening, sugar and vanilla until white and light, about 5 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix gently.

Fold in beaten egg whites, until just mixed and pour equally into your three pans and place in center of oven.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until center is firm and springs back. Cool completely.

Frost with desired icing and decorate with fruits. I used a cream cheese and cool whip blend for the frosting, very light and tasty.

Notes from the Testing Kitchen:

• What I noticed right off the bat was that the batter did not appear to be very white. But it was!
• This is a MOIST white cake! Quest achieved!
• White frosting enhances the whiteness of the cake.
• The cake crumb is large and delicate.
• The center was slightly raised after baking, go ahead and trim it so your layers can stay level.
• Definitely use fresh fruit, either between the layers or on top, it is spectacular!

Let me know how yours comes out, and remember, even if it doesn’t look good, it will taste great!

C U next time!

Leslie

When this time of year rolls around and I see all the farmers markets opening, I get antsy to make bread, whether sweet or savory, that incorporate fresh vegetables. Not only are they packed with flavor, but they’re also one more way to get vitamins while satisfying a creative urge and, of course, a sweet tooth.

For example, if you add shredded fresh zucchini to a standard “sweet” bread recipe along with apples, carrots and cranberries, you will end up with a very moist, flavorful, nourishing and quite satisfying loaf.

The most popular vegetables for bread baking are zucchini and carrots. But lately I have been fantasizing about incorporating darker veggies such as kale and spinach. These vegetables are extremely high in vitamins and alkalinity, and are inherently full of water and guarantee a moist bread.

Kale has been cultivated for over 2,000 years and in much of Europe, was the most widely eaten green vegetable until the Middle Ages, when cabbages became more popular. Throughout history, kale has been particularly important in colder regions due to its resistance to frost. Kale is low in saturated fat, and very low in cholesterol. It is also a good source of dietary fiber, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, iron, magnesium and phosphorus, and a very good source of Vitamins A, C, K, B6, as well as calcium, potassium, copper and manganese.

To bake with kale, I suggest blanching it to soften it up a little bit, drying it, then chopping it up. Now if you are not a fan of regular white flour you may use any kind of flour, including a gluten free flour. (When using gluten free flour, however, remember to use about half a cup less the recipe calls for since gluten free flours are more dense.)

For this version, I am going to stick with the basics and use white flour. My fruit of choice is another high antioxidant gift of mother nature, blueberries; I think the combination of kale and blueberry is quite a good one for the body. I’m also adding nuts, because I like the crunch. 

Here’s one recipe to try. Feel free to stop by the cottage and let me know how yours goes.

Happy Experimenting. Remember, even if it doesn’t look good, it will taste great!! And your body will thank you!

Kale Blueberry Bread Recipe

Makes 1 9″x5″ loaf

Ingredients:

1 pint fresh blueberries
1 cup blanched, dried,chopped kale
1 cup almond milk
2 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp wheat germ
1 cup shelled pistachios
3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (or whole wheat flour or combination of both)
1 T. baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp ginger, fresh or ground

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and put rack in the center.

Grease and flour 9″x5″ loaf pan.

Combine first 7 ingredients in a bowl, set aside.

In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, salt, and spices together.

Add to the wet mixture and stir until just barely combined. Don’t stir too much or it will get dense.

Pour mixture into pan. if you have more batter, use it in a muffin pan or sheet pan.

Bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Cool before removing from pan.

Let me know how yours comes out, and remember, even if it doesn’t look good, it will taste great!

C U next time!

Leslie

HOURS OF OPERATION
Breakfast – Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Lunch – Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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