FOOD FRIDAY - Bake for Good with King Arthur Flour

from Kris B.

And so it is fall...long jeans and sweaters are starting to fill the racks in the department stores, the produce stands around town are dominated by big bins of orange pumpkins, and as I enter the grocery store, I am now being greeted by the overwhelming smell of cinnamon coming from the bags of cinnamon infused pine cones in the floral department.  That is not a complaint; I live the smell of cinnamon!  I think that is why I was drawn to this week's recipe for whole wheat cinnamon scones from King Arthur Flour.  Though everything around me says fall, there is a little part of me that is still missing the afternoon scones that I had for the two weeks that I was in England over the summer.  Perhaps making this recipe was a way for me to bid summer a final farewell and fully embrace the beauty of fall.  That really shouldn't be too difficult since fall is my favorite season.  I love everything about it - the weather, the clothing, and the food!

Throughout the month of October, Tracey and I are going to be sharing recipes from King Arthur Flour.  We are doing this to help support King Arthur's Bake for Good Month.  This initiative asks bakers to pledge to bake and share their creations.  For every pledge received, King Arthur will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, an organization that helps local food banks across the United States.  They will also send those of us who pledge  on the King Arthur website a 75 cent coupon good on King Arthur flour.  One of the things that you are asked on the "pledge" form is, who will you feed?  I often take my baked goods to school and share them with my students.  I know that many of them don't take the time or have the resources to eat well.  They are always hungry and most appreciative of a fresh blueberry muffin, peanut butter cookie, coffee cake, or whatever else I happen to come up with.  I have learned that I also need to make enough for my colleagues.  Once word gets around that there are treats in my classroom, everyone stops by for a mid-morning snack.  This scone recipe only makes twelve scones so I'm going to have to make multiple batches to get everyone fed!

After getting excited about making the cinnamon scones, I ran in to a bit of a problem.  The recipe calls for cinnamon chips and I could not find any locally.  I went to four different stores in my area, one of which I have to be very desperate to enter.  No cinnamon chips to be found anywhere.  I looked online and discovered that Hershey's makes them as does King Arthur.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to wait for them to be delivered.  So, I had to punt.  I used salted caramel chips instead of cinnamon.  Caramel is a fall flavor too, right?  Think caramel apples.  In my defense, the recipe states that you can substitute any chips of your choice.  The caramel chips taste just fine, but I have ordered the cinnamon chips and will makes this recipe again so that I get the full effect of the cinnamon.  I want my scones to have that same aroma of cinnamon that I get from the pine cones at the grocery store.

Here is the recipe for King Arthur Flour's Whole Wheat Cinnamon Scones.

We enjoyed our scones plain.  No butter.  No nothing.  But, I'm sure with a little cinnamon butter, or if you're feeling a bit decadent, brown sugar cinnamon butter, they would be supper delicious!

On a photography note...watch your own shadow when you are photographing, particularly up close.  Lol!  My schedule has been such that I don't have much natural light time for photos.  Artificial light and foam core boards have been my saving grace.  This means I can bake and shoot photos into the wee hours of the night.  I must say that this is not the ideal way to do things, but in a pinch it works! Lol!

Happy baking, eating, and photographing!!!!



from Tracey G

As Kris said, we decided to bake all King Arthur Flour recipes this month in honor of and to help promote their Bake For Good campaign - which we both think is a pretty great idea! I love to bake - and even though I do occasionally like to eat the items as well, I more enjoy sharing! I think it's a fun thing to do, which is why I usually make myself crazy during the holiday season - I love to bake and share so I generally have a "to bake" list that's much too long, and end up scratching off a few items to save my sanity, erm, I should say what's left of my sanity! ;-)

I am always interested in working with modified diets for many reasons. My mom, during the last few years of her life, was on a Kidney/Renal diet AND a Heart Healthy diet - and believe me, lol, balancing the two was not easy! I made bread like it was going out of style, 4 homemade loaves a week that would get frozen because my mom loved taking sandwiches to dialysis since her set time was around lunch time every day. Commercially prepared bread is crazy high in sodium and if I remember correctly was the number one food item listed on the list of foods to stay away from when we were getting information from the doctors on her various dietary restrictions! 

I myself have worked with a restricted diet, I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis back in November of 2004, and I immediately learned to use the IC Diet to manage my symptoms along with the medications, but I said it then - and I still say it now, the diet was my one of my biggest tools for managing my symptoms. It was just as important as my medications! Even though, now a days, I've been in remission for the most part, if I have a troublesome day, I immediately revert to the diet - which is a low acid diet. So, as you can see I've had my fair share with special diets, and one that I find I'd like to learn a few things about and how to adapt to is gluten-free. I'm always on the lookout for a gluten-free baking mix to try and now recently, I've been wanting  to try my hand at from-scratch gluten-free baking.

When Kris gifted me with my Spring 2016 issue of Sift magazine, put out by King Arthur Flour, this recipe for gluten-free lemon bars caught my attention. I ordered the King Arthur Almond Flour right away, but then the weather never cooperated for baking! It was always WAY too hot, and I wasn't about to add to the heat by firing up the oven, lol. So, when Kris suggested we bake all King Arthur recipes this month, I knew immediately which one I was going to make first!

The recipe is delicious and easy. Harry and Jeremy have both put their stamp of approval on it, and no one was the wiser that it was made with an almond flour crust. And honestly, what's not to love about almonds anyway, so it can only be good! LOL Unless you don't like almonds, but even then you don't taste "almond" so I say try it anyway I don't think you'll be disappointed! 

This was also the first time I weighed out all my ingredients as they were added. All except the liquids and eggs of course. I recently got a handy kitchen scale, so I decided I was going to give it a shot. I did notice though, that the online version of the recipe doesn't have the weights listed, so I will type out the ingredient list as well as link to the recipe online instead of just linking! I read through some of the first few comments listed on the recipe's webpage, and I didn't have any of the issues the commenter's seemed to have had - so in my opinion and experience it was perfect as it was! And using my handy little ruler I keep for baking/cooking, I got exactly 16 2"x 2" squares out of my pan!

Gluten-Free Lemon Squares with Almond Flour Crust

Courtesy of King Arthur Flour, can be found here: Gluten-Free Lemon Squares with Almond Flour Crust

Makes 16 Squares

Crust

2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) King Arthur Almond Flour

6 tablespoons (2 5/8 ounces) sugar

3 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) gluten-free cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold butter, diced

Filling

2 large eggs

1 cup (7 ounces) sugar

1/3 cup (2 5/8 ounces) lemon juice

2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) gluten-free cornstarch

pinch of salt

confectioners' sugar for dusting, optional

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8" square pan or 9" round pan.

To make the crust:

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl, whisking to blend. Add the cold butter, working it in with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture is evenly combined and crumbly.

Dump the mixture into the prepared pan, shake to distribute, and press the crust into the bottom and about 1/2" up the sides of the pan.

Bake the crust until it's light golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. While the crust is baking, whisk together the filling ingredients.

Remove the pan from the oven and pour the filling over the hot crust. Return the squares to the oven and bake for 14-18 minutes, until the filling appears set.

Remove the squares from the oven, and cool in the pan before cutting into 2" pieces. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving, if desired.

Nutrition information: (1 square, 48g): 199 calories, 3g protein, 22g carbohydrates, 4g fat, 2g fiber, 4g saturated fat, 35mg cholesterol, 64mg sodium, 18g sugars, 2mg vitamin C, 1mg iron, 36mg calcium