Frosted Oatmeal-Cranberry Cookies with Walnut Butter

Having set out to make an oatmeal cookie for grown-up tastes, my initial thought for Frosted Oatmeal-Cranberry Cookies with Walnut Butter was to bake them as bar cookies, as if this would somehow make them more sophisticated than the usual round shape. Fortunately, I abandoned that approach almost immediately. For although they are designed for grown-up tastes, and contain plenty that’s “good for you,” these aren’t health bars. They’re oatmeal cookies, and there’s no reason to hide that proud heritage. So round it is!



Any similarity between these oatmeal cookies and the ones we all grew up with, however, ends with their round shape and the base ingredients (oatmeal, for example). While children will enjoy them too, the flavor blend includes several items more likely to be appreciated by grown-ups. Specifically:
• This recipe combines the usual all-purpose flour with ragi flour, which is found in Indian markets. Aside from packing a ton of nutrients, ragi flour has an earthy flavor that combines beautifully with the oats and deepens the flavor. 
• Coconut, which is often used in combination with ragi flour, provides not only good flavor but a kind of after-texture I hadn’t expected but was very pleased with. 
• The use of fresh cranberries adds a lively touch to the texture of the cookie, and brings a natural tartness that contrasts with the sweet ingredients. (And don’t get me started on how much more nutritious fresh cranberries are compared to the dried ones!) 
• The use of walnut butter lends a delightful, grown-up, nutty flavor that’s a change from the familiar peanut butter. (Where do you get walnut butter? Easy: you make it yourself in a matter of minutes. The recipe is described below, but here’s the short version: put a couple of cups of toasted nuts in a food processor, add a small amount of a few simple ingredients, and process the living daylights out of it until it’s smooth and creamy. Everything should be so easy!) 
• Adding a simple frosting to almost any baked good can take it to an entirely new level. In this recipe I went with a raspberry liqueur frosting, but swap any fruit liquid (orange juice, lemon juice, cranberry juice, etc.) for the liqueur and you’ve got a child-friendly version.
And did I mention these delightful treats are reduced fat?


This recipe makes 30 – 36 2-1/2” cookies. (You might want to make them a bit smaller for children or some adults. I just like larger cookies.)


First, let’s make the walnut butter. (You can skip this part if you decide to use store-bought peanut butter or almond butter instead.)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


Spread 2 cups of shelled walnuts out in a single layer on a baking sheet and place in the oven for a few minutes until lightly toasted.




After the toasted walnuts have cooled, place them in a mini food processor and process until powdered but not pasty. Add a generous pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon of flavor-neutral oil (grapeseed, canola, or similar)


Process until creamy, about five minutes.


















Set aside until ready to use.










Next, we’ll make cookies.


In a bowl, combine ¾ cup all-purpose flour, ¾ cup ragi flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon salt.





In a separate bowl, beat together 3/4 cup butter substitute, 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, and ½ cup granulated sugar until creamy.





To the butter mixture, add 2 egg-substitute eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and ½ cup of the walnut butter.






Stir in 3-1/2 cups of uncooked oats, ¼ cup of untoasted shredded coconut, and the flour mixture. When mixed, fold in 1 cup of fresh cranberries.



Drop by rounded tablespoons onto a parchment-lined cookie sheets. (For smaller cookies, drop rounded teaspoons of the mixture instead.)




Bake 12-15 minutes (a little less for the smaller cookies) or until golden brown, reversing the baking sheets half-way. (When putting two baking sheets in the oven at the same time, stagger them as in the photo for better heat circulation.)


Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheets, then move them wire racks to finish cooling.






When the cookies are cool, make the frosting by combining 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar and 1-1/2 tablespoons of raspberry liqueur or other flavoring liqueur or fruit juice. (Don’t apply the frosting to warm cookies.)
Mix the frosting until smooth.










Using a spoon, drizzle the frosting on the cookies, and let harden before serving. (Placing wax paper under the cooling racks before applying the frosting is recommended.)
I found these cookies can be pretty addictive. You’ve been warned!


Looking forward to meeting again next week for another fun, delicious recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-) 

Cranberry Chutney

Welcome to new subscriber, My Loaves of Love. (Don’t you just love that name?) Great to have you here!


Chutney is a condiment originating in India but affectionately embraced in the United States and elsewhere. It has a jelly-like consistency, but firmer and chunkier, and can be sweet, hot and spicy, or a wonderful sweet-sour-savory flavor mix. (Today’s recipe, Cranberry Chutney, is an example of the sweet-sour-savory kind. In the photo, it's shown on fish with asparagus bundles and herbed roasted potatoes.)  The best part is that, for all their deep flavor, chutneys are very easy to make, a simple reduction of a few basic ingredients in a single saucepan.


Chutneys can be made from many combinations of things, many of which you might not ordinarily think of going together well. (The first chutney I ever tasted was made with mangos and artichokes.) Most are a combination of fruit, vegetables, sugar, herbs, spices, and an acid (usually vinegar). I chose cranberries (fresh ones, not the dried kind), but Cranberry Chutney should not be mistaken for cranberry sauce. Both have a sweet-sour quality, but the savory character of chutney really sets it apart as a great complement to pork, poultry, and fish. (It also works well as a spread on bread or cheese!)


This recipe makes about 2-1/2 cups.


Place a small, glass plate in the freezer for use later in checking the real thickness of the finished chutney. (This is for a great trick from the world of jellies and jams, and that regular KTC readers have seen before in recipes for fresh syrups.)


Set aside ¼ cup of raisins. Optional, but enthusiastically recommended, is adding just enough brandy to cover the raisins and letting them soak for at least 30 minutes.


Put 1 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon ground ginger (or 2 tablespoons fresh), 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper in a medium saucepan and stir to combine.
Add ½ cup of cider vinegar and stir to mix. Turn the heat on medium until the cider mixture just begins to boil.




Add 12 ounces of fresh cranberries, 1 medium onion (diced) and 4 cloves of garlic (minced). Stir to mix. When the mixture just starts to boil, lower the heat to a simmer.


Simmer the mixture uncovered till thickened, about 25 minutes.




Check the texture by putting a small amount onto the frozen plate.



When done, if necessary add salt, pepper and sugar to taste.




While we’re at it, here’s a bonus recipe you might like from an earlier post you may not have gotten to see: fresh-made three-cheese ravioli!






I hope you enjoy making and using Cranberry Chutney! Visit again next Saturday for another easy, kitchen-tested, low-fat recipe. Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Low-Fat Cranberry-Orange Muffins with Raspberry Liqueur or Orange Puree Glaze

One of my favorite (and simple!) ways to bring baked goods to a new level is to add a nice glaze. In this recipe, we’ll take an easy cranberry-orange muffin, give the cake a creamy texture using fat-free Greek yogurt, and top it with either of two glazes, one made from orange puree and one made from raspberry liqueur. (The photo at right shows both; the muffins on the left have the orange glaze, the ones on the right have the raspberry glaze.)



How easy are Low-Fat Glazed Cranberry Orange Muffins? Years ago, before I was ever interested in real cooking, I could make two things: pancakes, and cranberry-orange muffins. A while back I updated the pancake recipe (check out Fluffy and Reduced Fat Blueberry Pancakes with Fresh Strawberry Syrup), and now it’s the muffins’ turn.


Two points to mention before we start:
• Although I’m showing two particular flavorings for the glaze, feel free to substitute any flavor you like. Just substitute the appropriate liquid in place of the orange puree or the raspberry liqueur. Glaze made with lemon juice, for example, is often used and works with a lot of baked goods.
• One of my pet peeves is when fruit muffins are made with practically no fruit. (We’ve all had blueberry muffins that turned out to be called that only because the baker passed a blueberry over the batter before baking it, and putting the blueberry aside to wave over the next batch.) I think we should be able to pick up a muffin and see fruit starting to show through the sides. (Don’t overdo this, though; too much fruit and the muffins won’t hold together.)


This recipe makes about 8 large muffins. (You can also use it to make more small muffins, but who wants small muffins?)


Sift together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, a generous pinch of salt and 4 teaspoons of baking powder into a large bowl.




Add 1 cup of sugar and stir to combine.






Make a well in the flour mixture and add the zest of one orange.





Then add 1 cup of fat-free Greek yogurt, ¼ cup of skim milk, 3 tablespoons of melted butter substitute, 2 egg-substitute eggs, and . Mix the wet ingredients in the well, then stir into the dry ingredients to form a batter.



Fold 1-1/4 cups of dusted whole cranberries (cranberries tossed with flour to coat them lightly) into the batter. (Fresh or frozen both work well; if you’re using frozen there’s no need to thaw them.)






Pour into muffin tins (1/2 to 2/3 full) and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes till the tops are firm and the edges are lightly browned. When they’re done, a toothpick inserted into the center of one should come out clean.


After baking, let the muffins rest in the muffin tins for about five minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.


When the muffins have cooled, prepare the glaze by combining one cup of confectioner’s sugar with 1 Tbsp of orange puree (made from the orange you zested earlier) or raspberry liqueur. Add additional liquid, little by little, until the glaze is thick but spreadable and does not ball up. Apply the glaze to the top of the muffins and let firm up for about 30 minutes.


Be careful. These can be mighty addictive!


I hope you enjoy making – and eating – these tasty (and, let’s not forget, low-fat) muffins!


See you next week with another delicious, kitchen-tested, reduced fat recipe! Till then, and as always, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Electric Cranberry Sauce with Apples and Apricots

Aside from being easy to serve, canned, jellied cranberry sauce has this redeeming quality: eating it is such good-tasting fun that you forget it doesn’t have any other redeeming qualities. I confess, with just the right amount of righteous guilt, to being a big fan of the stuff.


Still, with Christmas dinner barreling toward us at high speed and us staring at it like a reindeer in the headlights, it seems as good a time as any for "electric cranberry sauce with apples and apricots." It's a delicious, easy, and just a bit grown-up cranberry sauce I think you’ll like.


In a cup or small bowl, soak ½ cup of chopped dried apricots in 1/3 cup of brandy while you prepare the other ingredients. (It's this touch of brandy that gives this sauce both its deep taste and the word "electric" in its name.)


Combine 2 cups of cranberries, 1 large chopped apple, the juice and zest of one orange, 1/2 cup of sugar, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon of nutmeg in a saucepan. Heat it to boiling, then reduce it to a simmer until the cranberries are tender and start to burst, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.


Combine 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of water, and mix into the cranberry mixture, cooking until thickened. Add the apricots, including the brandy, and heat until cooked through and the smell of alcohol subsides, about 3 minutes. If necessary, add additional sugar to taste. (I've found adding another 3 tablespoons works for me, but you may like more or less.)


If you’d like a cookbook style, notebook-ready copy of this recipe, just let me know in a comment or e-mail and it will be on its way, guaranteed to arrive in time for Christmas.


See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)