Cherry vs Baking: Round One

[cherry]

It was one of my good friend's birthday's the other day, and I was really at a loss as to what to get her.

"Hey," I decided. "Why don't I make her cookies? Pumpkin cookies. Yeah. I approximated a sesame noodle salad the other day, so I can totally handle baking cookies."

It should be noted that, as the next time I have a sandwich in my lunch I think I am going to set it on fire, I have been attempting to forage food. I prefer the term 'forage' to 'cook', as I only approximate recipes. "This looks good, but I think it needs more sweet peppers, and oregano instead of salt. That's about a cup, right? Ish? Wait, I have some carrots in my fridge I need to get rid of as well..."

As it turns out, this is the wrong approach to take with baking.

Things started to go down hill from the start. I had to, um, purchase every single ingredient except for cinnamon, ginger, and eggs. Baking is expensive when you don't own any of the ingredients.

"White flour can totally be replaced with brown, right? White flour is the devil. Oooh, bran. I can totally toss some of this in there without anyone noticing, right?"

"Oh, hey, I've already started putting everything together, but this recipe has oatmeal in it. They're mostly the same otherwise, right?"

"Man, there's no way I need that much oil. I'll just replace a cup of it with soy milk."

"I really wouldn't want to throw away the rest of this can of pumpkin. Into the batter you go!"

"... baking soda and baking powder can be used interchangeably, right?"

*dialing frantically* "Grandma, help! I just made cookie dough but I don't have a wire rack for cooling them ... Um. Or a cookie tray for baking them."


The upside is that they turned out to be edible! They are rather more like flat pumpkin-oatmeal muffins than cookies, but they are not entirely inedible. Plus, with the whole wheat flour, oatmeal, bran, pumpkin, raisins, and soy milk, they are actually very healthy.

A very healthy five dozen cookies. I don't even really eat cookies, people. I have five (well, three, as I've given away two) dozen pumpkin oatmeal cookies.

Comments

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1710,136186-244196,00.html) is the recipe I approximated. Only with soy milk replacing a lot of the oil, whole wheat instead of white flour, less sugar, more pumpkin, no nuts, and random bran. So, um, kind of like this. I think replacing the baking soda with baking powder was the key mistake, though. They're pretty tasty, if kinf of flat and dense.

Pumpkin is ridiculously good for you, too.

I would love your recipe for lentil soup. Yum.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

I have so much love for pumpkin. Especially roasted with garlic and rosemary or in pasta with roast garlic and onion and white wine.

The soup - (all measurements approximate)

1 cup brown lentils
1 x 300 gram can cannelloni beans
1 x chopped onion
1 x carrot, peeled and chopped in one cm cubes
1 x parsnip peeled and chopped in one cm cubes
1 x small potato peeled and chopped in one cm cubes
1 x small turnip peeled and chopped in one cm cubes
1 x 600 ml-ish bottle tomato puree
1 x stock cube/cup of stock
1 - 2 cups fnely chopped spinach
garlic and ginger

Fry onion, garlic and ginger until well cooked

Add lentils, fry gently for a few minutes

Add tomato puree, stock, all vegetables but the spinach. Top up pot with some more water, if there isn't much liquid in the pot. Bring to a boil and simmer with a lid on, and the pot on low until the vegies are soft. Add beans and spinach and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

It freezes really well.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

You wacky Australians and your savoury use of pumpkin. We never did get you to try pumpkin pie when you were up, did we? For shame.

A couple of questions: These are dried lentils, yes? Also, why is your spinach measured in cubes?

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

Err.. it would appear that my mind saw the 'cube' measurement for the stock, and decided that it would like to transpose it down a line.

I really should have known something was wrong with the advent of cubed spinach. *sigh*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Well, you can buy it in frozen cubes but it's more like a brick then, than a cube. ;)

No, we never did get to try it, did we? I saw one in the supermarket near your place but it was all dried out, so I got the other cake instead.

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Only with soy milk replacing a lot of the oil...

I would think that might be a little problematic texture-wise -- one common recommended substitute for portions of oil/fat is something like applesauce, though. The baking powder/soda swap shouldn't make too much difference, since the former usually includes the latter, plus another acid (baking soda+cream of tartar can substitute for baking powder, f'rinstance). The density is probably more due to a one to one swap of whole wheat flour. Usually they don't recommend swapping more than about half, I think? WW flour is much denser, and if you add bran to that, both of which will soak up more liquid....

(um, hi again. I am avoiding work, can you tell?)

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

*wince* I just thought that 1 1/2 cups of oil was far too much, you know? And soy milk is liquid-y. Which, um, oil is. Kind of. Soy milk has lipids, too. There was chai soy milk in my fridge, so.

By the looks of it, baking soda is pure NaHCO3, whereas baking powder is cut with acidic salts.

You can't just replace white flour with whole wheat? The bag claimed that it was good for cookies. I'm afraid that I have a bit of a problem, wherein I have a moral objection to white flour. (Everything that's good for you has been removed! It's empty. There is no nutritional value and the GI index is ridiculous. Ahem.)