Baked Goods Archives - Debra's Natural Gourmet

Damascus Cobbler

January 1, 2020

*This is the “before” picture. This mammoth 5+ pound cobbler is almost ready to load in the oven.*

This is not a traditional Persian recipe, although it borrows some flavor cues from the region. It’s a cobbler. And who doesn’t love cobbler? Sweet, simple, mostly fruit. And if you’re a novice baker (like I am), hard to screw up.

Here, we take everything great about the traditional apple cobbler – the sweet, the tart, the spice – and then build on and amplify those flavors. We trade out simple white sugar for complex dark jaggery. We punch up traditional cinnamon with bright orange blossom water and peppery Grains of Paradise. We deepen the whole affair with just enough – but not too much! – pomegranate molasses and blackstrap molasses. If we get our proportions just right, we intensify, but not overpower. You still taste the apples.

And that’s the filling. The crust is perfect. Dates to add more than sweetness. Nuts to replace some of the flour cut starch while adding richness.

This recipe serves a lot! It will easily feed 12 hungry people. I figure, if you’re going to make it, you might as well really make it. It’s good enough for dessert right out of the oven (with vanilla ice cream, please!) and healthy enough for breakfast the rest of the week (on its own, or with yogurt).

Makes enough for 12 Preheat oven to 350

FILLING	TOPPING
5 pounds good apples (see below)	1¼ C chopped dates (try our ready-to-use)
¼ C dark jaggery or coconut sugar	1¼ C butter and/or coconut oil
¼ C blackstrap molasses	1¼ C rolled oats
1/8 C pomegranate molasses	1¼ C flour (I use whole wheat pastry)**
2 Tbsp Ceylon cinnamon	1¼ C chopped and/or sliced nuts
1 tsp nutmeg	⅓ C dark jaggery or coconut sugar
1 tsp grains of paradise	1 tsp good salt
1 tsp dry ginger	2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
1 Tbsp orange blossom water	Optional: ½ C chopped dried apricots

Start with large baking vessel like a lasagna pan or dutch oven, or two smaller ones. Then, select your apples. I like heirloom russets when I can get them — these are the ones with the rough skins. When I can’t, I ask someone in our produce department what’s good.
Core and chop the apples. You can chop them into wedges, or chunks. You don’t have to peel them. (It’s easier not to peel, and you also gain the nutrition in the peels).
Grind Grains of Paradise in a mortar and pestle, pepper or spice grinder.
Mix all the filling ingredients together in a large baking dish and stir well. Add a few fat pinches of flour to hold everything together.
Melt the fats. Mix all the crust ingredients together with the melted fats.
Distribute the crust over the filling. It’s better if you crumble crust over filling with your hands.
Bake at 350 for an hour. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

*I suppose I should explain the name. To be clear, this is not a traditional Persian recipe. Sure, it uses Persian ingredients, but also oats, cinnamon, blackstrap molasses, and… apples. No, mostly it’s called “Damascus Cobbler” because it sounds kind of catchy. ** While I use whole wheat pastry flour, I know Debra would use einkorn. You can use whatever flour you want.

Baked Goods Breakfast Dessert What's Cooking

Best. Pecan. Pie. Ever.

November 1, 2019

This pecan pie recipe appears in our first cookbook, If Kallimos Had a Chef. We continue to make it in our kitchen because we love it! Like the New England farm cooks of old, we use pure maple syrup for flavor. I thicken the syrup a bit by adding barley malt, and carob or cocoa powder, which also makes the flavors more complex. Our kitchen uses brown rice syrup instead of barley malt, so their filling is gluten-free. Both versions yield a rich-tasting pie that is yummy.

Serves 6-8 Bake at 350 degrees

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust*	1½ C pecan halves
1 C pure dark maple syrup	½ C barley malt or brown rice syrup
2 Tbsp carob or cocoa powder	4 eggs, beaten
¼ tsp good salt	½ tsp nutmeg

Place pie plate (with crust inside!) on cookie sheet.

Using an electric mixer, food processor or a wooden spoon, beat together all ingredients, except pecans. When mixed, stir in pecans and pour pie filling into crust. Put cookie sheet with filled pie crust into the preheated oven. Bake about an hour, or until pie is slightly firm to touch and nicely browned. Yes, the pecans rise to top of pie as it bakes. Isn’t that fun? Allow pie to cool on a rack.

*We sell ready-made pie crusts, both whole wheat and gluten-free. For folks like me who don’t have the patience to make crusts!

Baked Goods Dessert What's Cooking

Organic Summer Cobbler

August 1, 2019

First, I made a buckle, which is like a cake with berries folded in, and lots and lots of fat. Then I said, “Whoa, girl! There must be a better way.” Cobbler! A cobbler differs from a buckle because the fruit goes in the baking dish and a scant crumble topping goes on top. A cobbler bakes for a shorter period, is less work, and contains fewer calories, which gives one permission to dollop ice cream or whipped cream on top.

In summer, I eat right out of the garden, barely turning on the oven. Therefore, I give myself permission to bake a cobbler when friends come over. And it makes a great breakfast with yogurt, too. To add protein to my cobblers, I mix nut flour (any ground nut or ground seeds) with the flour (einkorn is my favorite because it’s a hardy, ancient grain from the wheat family, but you choose another if you need to be gluten-free.). Use any organic fruit you like. Nectarines are my preference because the skin isn’t fuzzy and I don’t peel them, and I chose blueberries because I like dark blue as color contrast.

Serves 6-8 | bake at 375 degrees | use a 9×13 pan

Filling	Topping
3 C organic berries (blueberries are my favorite)	1 C almond flour
6 C sliced nectarines (¼-inch thick)	1 C einkorn flour
1 tsp cinnamon powder	½ C coconut sugar
¼ C maple syrup	½ tsp good salt like Celtic, Himalayan
¼ tsp almond extract	½ C grass-fed butter or coconut oil
additional grass-fed butter or coconut oil for greasing

Preheat oven to 375. Grease your pan. In a bowl, toss fruit with cinnamon, maple syrup and almond extract. My mother, Beatrice, always said that a few drops of almond extract bring out the flavor of stone fruit like peaches and nectarines. Toss everything together gently. Place fruit in baking dish and smoosh it slightly with your hand or fist so it’s level in your pan.

Using the steel blade of the food processor, pulse (one second pulses) the topping 4-6 times. Scrape down work bowl. Give another 2 or 3 one-second pulses. You want your crumble topping crumbly. Don’t over-pulse. Using your hands, distribute crumble topping over fruit.

Bake cobbler about 20-30 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling and topping is just beginning to brown. Serve hot, room temp or cold. Serve as is or with a scoop of ice cream or dollops of whipped cream. Or with yogurt for breakfast!

Baked Goods Breakfast Dessert What's Cooking

Tahini Keenies

December 1, 2018

Cookies are so “in” around the holidays! So this holiday, permit me to return to my childhood, and this beloved cookie my mother used to make that makes the kitchen and the whole home smell like heaven.

And not just holidays. My mother would let us eat Tahini Keenies for breakfast with a glass of milk (raw milk was what she served us),or a mug of green or herbal tea because she said they nourished us. Good cookies, with good, hearty ingredients do that!

Tahini (or sesame butter) is rich in protein, calcium, magnesium, and healthy fats. Oats are a low-glycemic source of soluble fiber. Walnuts are a veritable superfood. Raw honey is packed with phytonutrients. Date syrup is a rich source of minerals.

Tahini Keenies lend themselves to many variations. Don’t like walnuts? Try another nut or a seed. Want to replace walnuts with raisins, or chopped dried apricots? Of course you can, though the nuts add protein and good fat. Want to use chocolate chips instead of walnuts? Yeah. That’s a kid’s fave.

And here I made them with silan date syrup instead of honey. (The word “silan” means syrup.) You can see three kinds in the photo above – the ones with the walnuts, with date syrup (they’re darker) and a chocolate chip variety.

Use organic ingredients because pesticides and herbicides don’t make us healthier.

Makes about 36 mini cookies Bake at 350 degrees

6 Tbsp whole tahini	¾ C walnuts (or other nuts, raisins, chocolate chips, etc).
½ C raw honey or silan date suyrup	1½ C rolled oats
½ tsp cinnamon	pinch good salt

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two large cookie sheets. Vigorously mix tahini and honey (or date syrup instead of honey) in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon.

Chop walnuts, if using. Otherwise add your nut or seed or raisin or chocolate chips to mixing bowl with cinnamon, rolled oats and pinch of good salt (like Celtic or Himalayan). Thoroughly mix everything. Drop batter by tablespoon onto the cookie sheets. Don’t worry about flattening; these cookies seem to spread just a little and shape themselves. The photo shows that. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Serve or store in airtight container.

Baked Goods Dessert What's Cooking

Chia Sweet Potato Muffins

July 1, 2008

We can’t keep Chia in stock. Chia has been on Oprah. The Chia of Chia pets, you ask? Well, yes! Chia, a member of the mint family (it’s also gluten-free), grows from the Mojave Desert to Argentina. The Aztecs relied on Chia, and Native Americans of the Southwest and California Coast cooked Chia seeds with water to make gruel, or ground the seeds into flour for baking. Soaked in water, Chia gels up, and was used for poultices. Chia seeds mixed in water kept a man going on a forced march for 24 hours because it was (and still is!) so nutritious.

Chia seeds soaked in water or fruit juice are often consumed in Mexico as chia fresca. And Chia is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids a lot richer than flax seeds it seems. The gel that forms when Chia seeds are mixed with water, slows the conversion of carbs to simple sugars (good for diabetics!) and makes us feel full faster (so we don’t have the urge to grab a Snickers bar).

What are some of Chia’s other attributes? Antioxidant powerhouse. (Lenore of Omega3 Chia wrote me that the Sprout Man soaked 2 Tbsp Chia seeds in ½ cup water in a jar for about 15 minutes, then drained the water that remained, let the seeds germinate for 12-24 hours, ran tests to see if nutrition values changed, and found antioxidant values tripled. Literature says Chia seeds are great in any detox program.

Dr. Oz’s Chia Muffins

Oprah loved this Chia muffin recipe, which Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen, authors of “You: Staying Young, The Owners’ Manual for Extending Your Warranty” brought on her show. Dr. Oz told Oprah that one muffin has more magnesium than 10 heads of broccoli and as much calcium as a couple cups of milk.

Makes 12 large muffins. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

6 Tbsp chia seeds, ground	2 free-range eggs
1 ½ C whole wheat or whole grain flour	¼ C extra-virgin olive oil, EVOO
2 tsp cinnamon	1 C maple syrup or ½ C agave
½ tsp nutmeg	1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking soda	½ C chopped nuts, optional
½ tsp sea salt	pinch salt
2 C organic pumpkin or sweet potato puree

Mix dry ingredients together in bowl. In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Spoon into greased muffin tins. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Store completely cooled muffins in freezer.

Where is Chia in our store? [2018: obviously, this has changed just a bit!] In our bulk section, in bags from Shiloh Farms. In our supplement department, under the name “Salba”, “Omega3Chia”, “Anutra”, and Chia by Garden of Life. The company Dr. Oz endorses is Benexia Omega-3Chia, which makes the claim only they are food-grade. How could this be true? Are the Chias in our supplement department more nutrient-rich? Better? Is the higher price worth it? Each company we called had a different story, and we simply don’t know.

Baked Goods What's Cooking

Sesame Corn Crisps with Hemp

April 1, 2008

Recently, I started making my mother’s corn crisps again. This recipe, which appears in our first cookbook now called If Kallimos Had a Chef, is even more fun and delicious with the addition of hemp. Why hemp seeds? Because they are a nutritional powerhouse with easy-to-digest protein and lots of fiber. Hemp is also an excellent source of essential fatty acids, phytosterols, carotenes, vitamin E and vitamin C, and chlorophyll (helps prevent bad breath). But so we don’t fall into the trap of defining food by nutritional attributes instead of taste and pleasure, how does hemp taste? Like sunflower seeds. Nice nutty flavor. Delicious.

If you’ve read Michael Pollans’s book, In Defense of Food, you’ll appreciate that he reinforces what we’ve all known and been saying for years, that food is more than its biochemical and nutrient parts food is pleasure, community, sitting around a table with family and friends. But back to hemp, this hemp we eat is not the hemp (marijuana) some people smoke, This hemp is easy to grow, good for the planet, and it’s interesting that our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were written on hemp paper!

Not to be out-shone, sesame seeds have a rich-tasting crunch, contain fibers called lignans, which are good at lowering cholesterol, and contain calcium that our body can utilize quickly and easily. Another power house little seed. Just make sure to use unhulled brown or black sesame seeds because that’s where the nutrients are.

Store both seeds in the freezer.

Serves 4-6 Bake at 400 degrees

1 cup organic cornmeal	1 tsp Celtic sea salt
½ cup organic shelled hemp seeds	3 tbsp EVOO or coconut oil
½ cup organic brown sesame seeds	1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a large cookie sheet (I use a mixture of half liquid lecithin and half vegetable oil).

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir with a large spoon and using the same soup spoon, put dollops of cracker batter onto cookie sheet. Flatten crackers using your spoon or fingers quickly into 2-3” rounds. Don’t worry about making perfect or symmetrical. The rough hewn look is fine and homey.

Put cookie sheet into oven and bake about 20 minutes. Remove tray from oven, let cool and eat with a simple lentil soup or guacamole. You might want yours just plain. Best eaten the day they are made.