November 5, 2024

Cranberry Orange Scones (Gluten-Free)

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If you have kids, you probably know what summer break is like:  trying to keep them busy and entertained without letting their brains turn to mush!  One of my favorite ways to do that is baking together.    I have my older girl (first grader now!) read the recipe out loud, and both girls love to stir and mix and pour ingredients.  Today’s group baking exercise?  Cranberry Orange Scones!

These are gluten-free, made with coconut flour.  If you’ve never tried it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  For six big scones, you only need half a cup of coconut flour!  I like making treats for the girls that are single serving – that way there’s no arguing over whether the slice of bread is big enough, or having to share the last one.  These came together in a snap.  The original recipe (found on the Elana’s Pantry website) directs you to mix all the ingredients in a food processor, and I’m sure that would have made the recipe go even faster!  But because my girls wanted to help, we mixed them by hand – dry ingredients in a large bowl, wet ingredients in a smaller bowl, and then mixed wet into dry.

Try these little heaven-scented beauties today!

Cranberry Orange Scones (Gluten-Free)     makes six large scones

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup coconut flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil or softened butter
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
  • zest of one orange, plus the juice of half the orange

Directions:

  1. In a large bowl, blend together the flour, salt, and baking soda.
  2. In another bowl, beat together the coconut oil or butter, honey, and eggs.
  3. Mix the egg mixture into the flour mixture.  Stir in the cranberries, orange zest, and orange juice.
  4. On a Silpat mat or parchment paper, make six mounds of dough.
  5. Bake for about 15 minutes at 350*F.

Explore, experiment, enjoy! — Dana


To view even more of Dana’s unique recipe, you can visit her at Frugal Girlmet!

At Home With GCH: Cinnamon Bun Cake

I don’t know about you, but I love the smell of cinnamon ANYTHING wafting through my house! So when I found a recipe for a cinnamon roll cake, I knew I had to take it and make it my own!  I hope you enjoy this recipe for Cinnamon Bun Cake as much as my family and I did!

 

Cinnamon Bun Cake

Cake:

3 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

4 teaspoon baking powder

1.5 cups milk

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

.5 cup butter (1 stick), melted

Topping:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoons cinnamon

Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar

5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking pan with cooking spray, or grease and flour it. Set aside.

For Cake: In your mixer, add the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, milk, eggs, and vanilla. When it is combined completely, slowly stir in the melted butter. Pour into the prepared pan.

For Topping: In a large bowl mix the butter, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon together until well combined and creamy. Drop spoonfuls over the batter and use a knife to marble/swirl through the cake.

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Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

 

FOR GLAZE: In a small bowl, mix the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla together with a whisk. Drizzle evenly over the cake. The glaze can be drizzled when the cake is warm or cooled.  I prefer it when it is cool, but it will work either way.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Enjoy!!

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GCH: What’s on Your Plate? – Old-Fashioned Scandinavian Spritz

spritz-GCH

No Christmas in our home is complete without Scandinavian Spritz (Sprits.) I’m of Norwegian and Swedish descent, and grew up in a family that was mighty proud of its heritage. As a child, we always had two kinds of Scandinavian cookies at Christmas time – spritz and fattigman – but I’ve learned a lot in my adult years about a “proper” Norwegian Christmas, and to do it right, the hostess must offer the “syv slag kaker til Jul,” the seven cookies of Christmas. Yes, seven! Fortunately, Norwegian housewives know how to take a few basic ingredients and turn them into something delicious, and spritz are no exception. They’re also one of the easiest to make, and don’t require any special tools (like some of the other Norwegian cookies) other than a cookie press.

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks salted butter, softened
  • 2/3 c. sugar
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp. pure almond extract
  • 2 1/2 c. unbleached flour
  • food coloring

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a mixing bowl, cream softened butter and sugar.
  3. In a separate small bowl, whisk the 3 egg yolks.
  4. Mix the vanilla and almond extracts into the egg yolks.
  5. Add the yolk mixture into the bowl with the butter and sugar, and mix well.
  6. Add flour, one cup at a time, into the mixing bowl. Combine well.
  7. Divide dough into smaller bowls. (I wanted to make three different colors of cookies this time, so I divided the dough equally into three separate bowls.)
  8. Add a few drops of food coloring into each bowl to make colored dough. Mix well.
  9. Using one color at a time, put dough into a cookie press and press cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet in the shapes of your choice. (*Tip: I have found that a chilled cookie sheet works best, so I stick mine in the freezer for 5 minutes before pressing the cookies.)
  10. When your cookie sheet is full, bake in oven for approx. 8 minutes, until the cookie is just slightly golden. The cookie will be very soft the touch, but will firm up just a bit while cooling.
  11. Remove cookie sheet from oven, and allow cookies to cool for a couple minutes.
  12. Using a spatula, carefully remove cookies and place on a cooling rack.

*I used a little bit of leftover dough to make the candy canes in the picture, just to see if it would work. If you do make a few cutouts with this dough, you will need to be very careful, as it’s a very soft dough. Using the cookie press is much better, and is the traditional way.

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I’ll be sharing one more of the syv slag kaker til Jul this month, so be sure to check back!

Praise God! Let’s eat!

Shandy

Be sure to visit Shandy’s personal blog Aprons ‘n Pearls for recipes, crafts, homekeeping tips & more!

GCH:What’s on your Plate? — Old Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie

I get all giddy when the weather starts to turn cooler. My favorite seasons are fall and winter, so I am totally in my element from September to April! I am a huge sucker for comfort food. Roasts, casseroles and other heartier foods is definitely what I prefer. One of my favorite, and a favorite of my family, is chicken pot pie.

The flaky crust and hot,creamy filling loaded with veggies is always a welcome addition to our table. Laden with calories, but good for the soul!  This recipe is very forgiving.You can add any veggies you have on hand. I usually add carrots, peas, green beans, potatoes, broccoli, and onions.  Anything goes. The filling is creamy,thick and perfect to nestle the veggies in . Can easily be doubled. I made 12 of these one year to feed our church congregation. So yummy!

Old Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie by Liz Lanza

OLD FASHIONED CHICKEN POT PIE

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon butter

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup diced onion

2/3 cup sliced or diced carrots

1 teaspoon salt (or more, depending on taste)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

2/3 cup frozen peas

2/3 cup frozen corn

2/3 cup diced potato

2/3 cups milk

1/2 cup flour

2 cups cubed cooked chicken

1 refrigerated pie crust (from a pack of 2)

Directions:
1. In saucepan on stove top, combine butter, garlic, onion, carrots,potatoes, salt, pepper, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and simmer until carrots and potatoes are tender

2. When carrots and potatoes are tender, add peas and corn and simmer for about 5 more minutes. Whisk together the flour and milk. Add to boiling mixture and return to a boil, stirring constantly; boil for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Add chicken and stir.

4. Pour filling into a pie dish.

5. Roll out the pie crust and place over the chicken mixture,sealing the edges.Cut slits in the middle for ventilation.

6. Bake at 425 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is hot and bubbly.

 

Happy Eating,

Liz

GCH: What’s on Your Plate? – Pumpkin Bread

Today I thought I’d share my Grandma Jessee’s recipe for Pumpkin Bread.  My grandma was born in 1902 and died in 1994, which made her 92 years old.  She was the sweetest, God-fearing woman you’d ever want to meet.  For most of my childhood, she lived right next door to us so I’d go over there and hang out with her and help her cook, or watch her “stories” with her.  She always made this recipe around Thanksgiving, so whenever I think of fall recipes, this is my default.  I’ve made a couple of changes to her original recipe to modernize it, such as the Pam Baking Spray and using Self-Rising flour, but the taste is identical.

My Grandma Jessee

Now if you’re like me and have picky eaters in your house or family members with nut allergies, you can choose to omit the raisins and/or pecans.  I made several loafs yesterday – one with raisins and pecans, one with raisins only, one with pecans only, and one without either raisins or pecans.  It’s delicious either way!  I hope you and your family will enjoy this recipe!  Please leave a comment if you make it and let me know how it turned out for you!

PS – a tip for you about eggs… my mother always taught me to crack my eggs into a separate bowl instead of into the bowl with the other ingredients.  This is for two reasons – if you get any shell in there, you can pick it out and also, if you happened to get a bad egg, you won’t ruin your entire mixture by cracking it directly into the bowl! 🙂

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar

2 cups pumpkin

4 eggs

1 tsp nutmeg

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

1 cup oil

2/3 cup water

3 1/3 cup self-rising flour

1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped pecans

 

You’ll also need:

Very large bowl

Pam Baking spray

Measuring Cups

Measuring Spoons

Spatula

2 – 9x5x3 loaf pans

Mixer

 

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except raisins and nuts, mix well.  Then fold in raisins and nuts.  Spray 2 – 9x5x3 loaf pans with baking spray.  Divide batter and pour into each pan.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

ENJOY!! 🙂

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You can visit Shauna at her personal blog for more recipes, crafting, and other fun stuff!  http://www.workhomeplay.net