Whole Wheat Orange Cranberry Scones

Whole Wheat Cranberry Orange Scones (dairy-free options in blue)

1 3/4 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
5 Tbsp. butter, chilled (or Earth Balance)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup half and half (almond milk or coconut milk)
1 orange (zested and juiced)
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla


*1-3 hours before making the scones, mix together the dried cranberries in the juice and zest of one orange. Set aside until you're ready to make the scones.

Preheat the oven to 425*. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line with parchment.

In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and pulse until blended. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. (This can be done without a food processor in a large bowl using a pastry blender or 2 knives)

In a small bowl, mix together half and half, egg, and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients and cranberries (with any extra juice and zest leftover from soaking) to the food processor and pulse just until a dough forms. Do not over blend. (or add wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients and stir just until a dough forms)

Scoop out dough onto parchment paper lined or greased baking sheet in 1/4 cup amounts, 2 inches apart. The balls of dough should be the size of a large egg. Sprinkle the tops with sugar, if desired.

Bake scones but about 15 minutes or until they're golden brown around the edges. They're best if served warm or within 1 day of baking.

Makes about 10 scones.

Easy Overnight Granola

I recently found this recipe on the Alicia Cooks blog. I made a double batch this week and I've been enjoying it as breakfast cereal each morning since. It would also be a great topping for ice cream, yogurt, applesauce, etc. The best part about this granola, apart from it's slight sweetness and warm spices, is that it has clusters! All of my other granola making attempts have resulted in a loose granola that is impossible to eat without a spoon.
This will be my new go-to granola recipe. Alicia's recipe is a great basic granola so it's perfect for adding whatever flavors are your favorite. I added chopped pecans and almonds to mine. If you add nuts, put them in before baking. If you're adding dried fruit, add them after the granola bakes and cools.

Overnight Granola

1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. salt
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup quick oats (not instant)

Preheat your oven to 300*.

Combine oil, honey, vanilla, spices, and salt in a small dish and stir to combine. Place oats in a large bowl and stir to mix the two kinds up, then add the liquid ingredients and stir until well coated. Spread the oat mixture out on a baking sheet or large jelly roll pan. (I pressed the mixture down with my hands to help form clusters)

Place the oats in the oven and bake for 10 minutes and then turn off the oven and leave the granola inside. Do not open the oven. You can leave the granola in overnight to cool or take it out after about 3 hours.

Stir a bit to declump and store it in an airtight container at room temperature.

Makes 6 servings

Whole Wheat "Pain Au Chocolat" (Chocolate Rolls)

These slightly sweet chocolate rolls are eaten in France as a breakfast treat or an after school snack. Typically the dough is a puff-pastry style dough but I recently found a recipe for a softer, dinner roll type dough and thought I'd give it my own spin. The result is a pillowy soft roll with melted chocolate inside that has become quite a hit in this house. The chocolate provides just enough sweetness to make it feel like a treat but the dough is actually 100% whole wheat so it's a treat you can feel good about.


Whole Wheat Chocolate Rolls (adapted from this King Arthur Recipe)


1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
3 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter, softened (or Earth Balance)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour
1/3 cup dried potato flakes
2 Tbsp. ground flax meal (opt.)
1 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. or one envelope of yeast

~1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips



In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together all ingredients except the chocolate chips. The dough should come together resembling the texture of play-doh. Use the dough hooks to knead the dough for about 4-5 minutes. This dough stays sticky so it's hard to knead by hand. If you don't have a stand mixer with dough hooks, lightly oil your counter top and hands before you try to knead it. You don't want to add more flour to keep it from sticking.

Cover the dough and let it rise for about 90 minutes or until almost doubled.



Divide dough in half. Roll half of the dough into a rectangle 9"x8". Cut the dough into 6 even rectangles.

Place some chocolate chips about 1/3 of the way down on the small rectangle. The amount of chocolate is up to you but you'll need to be able to close the dough.

Fold the top of the dough to cover the chips....

and press the seam closed.

Lay more chocolate chips in the seam....

and fold the bottom of the dough up, sealing in the chocolate chips.

It's okay if the chips show from the ends. They won't melt out during baking.

Repeat with the rest of the small rectangles and with the other half of the dough. Lay the rolls seam side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover lightly with a piece of greased plastic wrap. Let them rise for about an hour.

They'll look slightly puffy but shouldn't be huge.

Preheat oven to 350*

Bake at 350* for about 20 minutes. You want the edges to be just barely golden brown. Move them to a cooling rack to cool completely if you don't plan on eating them right away.

Dust with powdered sugar if you like. These are best eaten slightly warm. They reheat nicely in the microwave for about 10 seconds.

Melted chocolate inside a soft, flavorful roll... doesn't get much better then that!

Whole Wheat Now or Later Cinnamon Rolls

I love cinnamon rolls. I love them warm. I love them cold. I love them with raisins and nuts. I love them plain.
I don't love them a day after they're baked..... until now.

I recently found a cinnamon roll recipe that stays soft and fresh for days after they're baked. This will be the only cinnamon roll in my recipe box from now on.

The recipe only calls for a small amount of sugar in the dough and no sugar in the filling. You can read more about why this makes for a softer roll on the King Arthur flour blog but it has to do with sugar absorbing moisture. The sugary fillings of most cinnamon rolls pull moisture out of the bread and leave it dry. You add the frosting right before they're served. Since the frosting is so sweet, you never miss the fact that there's no sugar in the filling.


Do you like my sand castle cinnamon rolls? My rolls always rise upward from the center instead of rising evenly. Not sure what that's about.

I added raisins and walnuts to the filling of this double batch of rolls. I put half of the rolls into the freezer after they were baked so I would have cinnamon rolls ready whenever we had a craving.

Now or Later Cinnamon Buns

I use mostly Whole Wheat flour and vital wheat gluten to help it rise. I also skip the dry milk and milk and use almond milk instead.



Instead of the frosting the recipe called for, I used some leftover cinnamon buttercream that I made the day before for pumpkin cupcakes (that blog post coming soon). The rolls were incredible!

Maple Bacon Scones

Any recipe that calls for a pound of bacon gets my attention...

One of my favorite blogs is the King Arthur Flour blog. When the recipe for Maple Bacon Scones appeared one morning, I knew I had to try it. They go into more detail and the how-to in their blog post about this recipe.



I tried baking the bacon and it turned out wonderfully! I just laid out 12 oz of bacon (what is the deal with some packages only having 12 oz instead of 16oz??) on parchment paper and baked it at 350* for about 30 minutes. Yum!



Since I have a really hard time following a recipe exactly, here are the changes I made to the recipe (though I'm sure they'll be great if you follow the recipe exactly)...
-I used 12 oz of bacon instead of 16oz.... next time I'll find a package that has a full pound.
- I used Whole Grain Spelt flour instead of All-Purpose (Whole Wheat Pastry flour would have worked well too)
-I used Maple Syrup instead of sugar since I didn't have maple flavoring or maple sugar. I couldn't really taste much maple flavor in the scones so next time I may buy some maple flavoring.
-I used almond milk instead of regular milk ( I have IBS and my stomach can't handle dairy anymore... except butter... thank heavens for small favors!)
-I sprinkled the top with coarse unrefined sugar since I didn't have maple sugar.



Overall, a great recipe that I can see myself using again. I may try it with ham next time to see how that tastes.

Blueberry Pancakes For Dinner

Evan has reached the age where he wants to help with EVERYTHING. Most of the time it's great and I try to encourage him. The last week he helped me make some blueberry pancakes for dinner. We used my favorite pancake recipe and added plenty of fresh blueberries to the batter.

"I do it, Momma!"

We had a few strawberries left to add to the pancake dinner buffet.

After seeing this picture again, maybe we'll have pancakes for lunch......

Berry Night

While I was looking for jam in the chest freezer, I noticed we had a lot of frozen berries from last summer left. I decided to make it Berry Night....plus I was feeling lazy and didn't feel like making a regular meal.



Charlotte helped me mix up some blueberry pancakes . I defrosted the blueberries most of the way before adding them to the batter since last time the frozen blueberries caused the batter not to cook fully inside. They turned out great this time!


Then I mixed some strawberries and blueberries to make a fruit crisp for dessert. It turned out okay but I'm not going to post the recipe since I need to tweak the recipe.

Evan loves blueberries..... I mean LOVES blueberries. Here's Evan saying "Blueberry".

Bacon, Spinach, and Swiss Quiche

I made this last night and it was so delicious! I didn't intend it to be crustless but when I tried to blind bake my crust, it sank down really low in the pan and it wasn't usable. (note to self, work on pastry recipes) It turned out so well crustless that I think I'll make it that way more often.


Bacon, Spinach, and Swiss Quiche

3 eggs
4 egg whites (I had frozen eggs whites I wanted to use up but you can just use 5 whole eggs instead of using the whites)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)
1 cup frozen spinach that has been thawed and squeezed to remove the moisture
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
6 slices of cooked, crispy bacon that has been cut up in small pieces (I used turkey bacon)
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper


Preheat oven to 350*. Spray a 9" pie plate with Pam. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs really well. Add all other ingredients until thoroughly mixed. Pour into pie plate. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the edges start to turn golden brown and the center stops wiggling too much.

You can substitute any cheese, meat, or veggie really. You could use cheddar, ham, and broccoli.... whatever you like.
Jon loved this dinner last night. I served it with a slice of homemade bread.

My Favorite Pancake Recipe

I have tried many, many pancake recipes over the past few years since I stopped buying mixes. I've googled everything from whole wheat to oat flour pancakes. My family has patiently eaten all the flat pancakes with a smiles on their faces because, after all, syrup makes everything taste good. Then finally, about a year ago, I flipped through a cookbook that has been used in my family for as long as I can remember. My mom used this cookbook for many recipes over the years. A few years ago, she bought my sister and I our own copy from ebay. My copy is as wonderfully worn as her copy is. This "Brand New" edition of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook was published in 1973 (5 years before I was born). I'm so happy to have this cookbook to refer to when making chicken and dumplings just like mom makes... or the perfect pie crust... or how long to roast a chicken.
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I found the perfect pancake recipe on page 430. It's a very basic recipe that produces fluffy pancakes that have nice flavor and are slightly sweet. I usually double the following recipe and reheat the extras for breakfast the next morning.
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Pancakes (makes about 12 small pancakes or 8 medium pancakes)
1 1/4 cups flour (I use half whole wheat pastry flour and half All-Purpose)
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 1/3 cups. milk (I use 1 cup since I like thicker batter=taller pancakes)
1 egg
*You can also add chocolate chips, blueberries, sprinkles, etc. to make your pancakes more fun*
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Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients in a small bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir ONLY until just combined. If you mix any more then that you'll have tough pancakes.


Pour into a medium hot pan and flip when they're ready... (I made blueberry pancakes)


This is when I know they're ready to flip. The outer edge looks set and there are a few bubbles rising to the surface. You can always use the edge of a spatula to peak underneath to see how brown the underside is before you flip them.

They should be about this brown before you flip them... then cook them until the other side looks the same.

Then stack them up and top them how you like them.

On my blueberry pancakes, I like a good bit of butter and a bit of syrup.
Jon likes his swimming in syrup. Charlotte likes hers without "chunks" unless it's sprinkles and likes to dip her pancakes into her syrup. Evan likes to hunt for the blueberries in his, pull them out and eat them first, then dip the remaining pancake in the syrup.



Any way you top them or eat them, they are fantastic every time!