I don't know about you, but I always seem to miss Pi Day (03/14!). In the almost three years since I started this blog, I have never remembered to make a pie for the big day! Maybe it's because I'm no good at math? That's one theory. I had no real trouble until seventh grade, when geometry reared its ugly head. It was just too abstract for my liking, I guess, and things went down hill from there.


No wonder I took cover in books (pun intended) and eventually became an English major, who worked--predictably--in a college bookstore. Then I dabbled as a high school English teacher until I realized that wasn't where my heart lay, and then spent almost twenty years working in editorial departments for a publishing company. So, no math for me. Well, at least not the real scary kind.


This year, though, I felt I should give Pi Day its due with a nice--what else!--pie, and it just so happened that I was already planning to make a bumbleberry pie when the special occasion conveniently rolled around. Thus we have today's treat--a bubbly, juicy, gorgeously fruit-packed dessert for all of you math lovers (and math haters) out there!


About this recipe . . . 

The crust recipe--a really good one and very reliable--came from Ken Haedrich's massive chunk of a book (over 600 pages), which is aptly titled Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie. I have no doubt this volume is getting a heavy workout today in kitchens across the country.


The filling was pretty basic, so didn't require a formal recipe. I just cobbled it together based on my own past experience: thawed frozen Montmorency (sour) cherries (from northern Michigan, of course!), fresh blueberries, a few fresh blackberries, and one small, sweet, peeled Honeycrisp apple, chopped into small pieces. All of  it mixed with sugar, cornstarch, a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a splash of lemon juice. That's it! Too easy.


So what's a bumbleberry anyway, speaking of abstraction? There's no such thing! It just refers to a fruit-filling involving any assortment of berries, as well as apple and/or rhubarb.  What a great name for a pie! Bumble bees come from north and south to hover around these pies, as you can see (that little design I put on the top is supposed to be a bee . . . can you tell?).


Bumbleberry Pie
(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

For the crust: 

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 and 1/4 tsp.  salt (I used coarse kosher.)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, cold, cut into small chunks
4 oz. very cold water

In the large bowl of a food processor, dump the flour, sugar, and salt. Pulse it a few times to mix it up. (You could certainly also make this dough by hand, using a pastry blender.)

Add in all of the butter pieces and pulse several times. Open the lid and use a fork to unclump the contents. Add in all the shortening and pulse several times. Open the lid again and unclump/fluff the contents with your fork. Now, drizzle 4 Tbsp. of the cold water all over the top. Pulse about six times. Drizzle in 4 more Tbsp. of the cold water and pulse again about six times. It should look crumbly, with chunks here and there the size of large peas. Gather a small bit in your fingers and squeeze it together. Does it hold together easily? If so, good. If not, drizzle a tiny bit more water and pulse again. When it's the proper texture (it should be not too sticky--too much water wrecks pie crust--and not too dry), dump it all out into a large bowl. With your hands, gather it all together into a big ball. Cut the ball in half almost evenly (the slightly larger part will be for the bottom crust), and shape each half into a disk about an inch high. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill it for at least an hour, preferably longer (up to about 24 hours max) and, if you want to be on the safe side, mark them with the date/time you made them, and note which one is slightly larger (I write "top" and "bottom").

When you're ready to roll out your pie crust, take the disks out of the fridge and let them warm slightly for about twenty minutes or so. Flour your work surface, your rolling pin, and the dough disk you're about to roll out. Very lightly grease your pie plate with vegetable shortening. Roll the dough out so it's a couple of inches larger than the circumference of your pie plate. Transfer the rolled dough to the plate (I find it easiest to roll the crust loosely right onto my rolling pin and then unroll it directly onto the plate, but use whatever method works for you). If you'll be baking within half an hour or so, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If it'll be more like an hour until you bake, refrigerate the  dough-lined pie plate.

To prepare the filling: 

4 cups frozen sour cherries, thawed and drained (I used Montmorency cherries.)
1 and 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
3/4 cup fresh blackberries
1 sweet apple, peeled and chopped into very small pieces (I used a very firm, medium-size, Honeycrisp.)
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

In a large bowl, place sour cherries, blueberries, blackberries, and apple pieces. Drizzle with lemon juice and toss gently to combine. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Scatter this over the fruit and stir gently to distribute it evenly. Set aside for about ten minutes.

When your oven is heated, and your pie is ready to be filled with fruit, pour all of the bumbleberry mixture into the shell. Dot the top with little pieces of unsalted butter. Roll out the top crust and place it over the fruit, sealing the edges firmly as you prefer (with your fingers, with the tines of a fork, etc.). Carefully cut a few steam vents/slits in the top. Brush the top of the crust lightly with milk (don't brush the edges of the pie; they're the first to darken) and sprinkle liberally with sanding sugar. Place the pie in the oven atop a baking sheet, or atop a piece of foil you've sprayed with vegetable spray (so it won't stick to your plate) to catch spills. Bake at 400 for about 25; check the pie and turn it around. If it's browning too fast, cover the top lightly with foil. Continue baking until the pie is golden, at least 15 to 20 more minutes. Lower the temperature to 375 if at any point you're worried about it burning.

Let the pie cool completely (or almost) before slicing.


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I bake really often, which I'm sure comes as no surprise. But the fact is, I only blog about a fraction of the stuff I bake. That's because not everything I bake at home is a brand new recipe for me (there are always the old favorites that my family requests over and over), and not every new recipe I try turns out to be pleasing enough to even bother sharing. On top of that, I do a lot of fiddling around and experimenting with recipes--often to their advantage and sometimes to their detriment--so what emerges from my oven can be unpredictable. I'm always happy as a clam when something turns out surprisingly well, and I'm positively on cloud nine if anyone expresses unbridled enthusiasm for what I've come up with.


It's not hard to please people with a gorgeous cake or a gooey cookie, but it's always a surprise to me when a wholesome loaf of bread elicits that same ardent fervor from my taste-testers. That's what happened with this yeast bread. Highlighting oats, a little flax meal, walnuts, and sweet dried cherries (from the orchards of northern Michigan, of course), this loaf has a buttery warmth that's hard to resist. This past weekend, the hubby actually said to me, "You have GOT to make this bread again. I love it." Those were pretty strong words, coming from him. He's always open to trying any new food but, ultimately, he's a man of fairly discriminating taste. Only time will tell, but I suspect I'll eventually be adding this recipe to our growing list of favorites. I think it's a keeper!



About this recipe . . . 

Adapted from a King Arthur Flour oatmeal bread recipe, I tweaked this loaf to include a small amount of chopped dried cherries, chopped walnuts, and flax, and I made a few measurement alterations to some of the other ingredients while customizing some of the steps. Both walnuts and cherries, if you ask me, are among the most flavorful ingredients you can add into yeast bread; walnuts lend that buttery aspect, while cherries pack a tangy gusto that other dried fruits just can't muster. It's a great combo.

This recipe is very simple, and not too time consuming. The bread is delicious even eaten plain, but it's at its absolute best when toasted and buttered. I hope you like it as much as we did.


Hearty Oatmeal Bread with Walnuts and Sweet Dried Cherries
(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Makes one standard size loaf (about 9"x5").

3 and 3/4 cups unbleached bread flour (divided use)
1 cup old fashioned oats, pulsed (on and off) in a food processor for 30 seconds
2 Tbsp. flax meal (Easy to find in health food stores, and some grocery stores. If you don't have it, or prefer not to buy it, I think you could substitute an equal amount of whole wheat flour, ground oats, or bread flour.)
3 Tbsp. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 and 1/4 tsp. coarse kosher salt
2 and 1/4 tsp. instant yeast (I use SAF brand instant yeast; they sell it in health food stores, from King Arthur Flour, and I've seen it at Whole Foods. You don't have to proof instant yeast and it's very reliable.) 
3/4 cup warm milk
1/2 cup warm water

3 Tbsp. soft unsalted butter
1/2 cup well-chopped walnuts
1/2 cup well-chopped dried cherries, loosely packed

1/4 cup melted unsalted butter, to brush on the top of the unbaked and just-baked loaf

In a large mixer bowl, by hand, whisk together 3 cups of the flour (reserving 3/4 cup), the ground oats, flax meal, sugar, salt, yeast, nuts, and cherries. Put the bowl on the mixer and, using the flat beater on the lowest speed, add in the milk, water, and butter. Mix for a minute or two to combine, until the dough looks shaggy.   

Turn the mixer off, clean the dough off of the flat beater, and switch to the dough hook. Mix on the lowest speed using the hook for 2 minutes. 



Dump the shaggy dough onto a well-floured surface (use your leftover 3/4 cup flour). It should be pretty moist; if it's not very moist, use less flour on your work surface. 



Knead the dough by hand for about 4 minutes, until it feels relatively smooth and elastic. 

Put the dough into a greased (or sprayed with vegetable spray) bowl. 



Cover it with a greased/sprayed piece of plastic wrap, then cover the top of that with a dish towel. Place the bowl in a warm spot and let it rise until almost doubled (as in the photo below); this may take about 60 to 75 minutes.



Meanwhile, grease one 9"x5" standard-size loaf pan. Take the risen dough from its bowl, and deflate it on your work surface by pressing on it with your palms/knuckles. Use as little flour as you can get away with at this point (just enough to keep it from sticking; excess flour added at this point does more harm than good). Pick the dough up and gently round it, tugging downward on the sides; you want to create a bit of tension on its surface. Cover the dough again with the greased plastic wrap, and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes. 



Uncover it and form it into a loaf shape, being very careful to tightly pinch any seams closed. 



Put it in the greased pan, seam side down. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cover the pan with the greased plastic again, then cover that with the dishtowel, and let the dough proof (have its final rise) in a warm spot for about 45-60 minutes. The proofed dough should have risen above the sides of the pan, as in the photo below. 



Shallowly slash/score the top of the loaf with a baker's lame, a sharp razor blade, or an extremely sharp knife; don't slash deeply (doing this helps the loaf to expand neatly without bursting haphazardly in the oven). Brush the top of the loaf liberally with half of melted unsalted butter, and reserve the rest.



Just before you put the bread in the hot oven, spritz water into the middle of the  oven from a spray-mist bottle (a few good squirts), and/or while the oven is warming up put a shallow pan of very hot water on the bottom shelf of the oven (bread likes to bake in a slightly steamy atmosphere).

Bake the bread for about 30-35 minutes, or until its interior registers 190-195 degrees on an instant-read thermometer (if you want to test it, tip the baked loaf out of the pan and insert the thermometer into the bottom). Don't peek in the oven until the bread's been baking for at least 15-20 minutes. If the bread seems to be browning too fast, cover it loosely with foil. When the bread is done, remove it from the pan to a cooling rack. Brush the top once more, while the bread is still hot, with the remaining melted butter.

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My younger son, Nathan, has a ukulele. He procured it with his own money just after Christmas, and he's been teaching himself to play. The instrument's maker is a company called Lanikai, and their slogan is, "Lanikai . . . Makes Me Happy!" (Click that if you want to hear their perky little ditty.) That motto sums up how I feel about homemade muffins--they make me happy. From their simplicity to their diminutive size, I like them. They're so approachable, and unpretentious in the extreme. In the same way that anyone can learn to play the ukulele, anyone can produce a fine muffin.



I'm developing a similar fondness for that ukulele. It's not loud or showy, and I'll bet it weighs in at a whopping 12 ounces, if that. It's subdued tinkling reminds me of wind chimes. Maybe my affection stems, in part, from the fact that my kid seems so enamored with it. He'll pick it up in a quiet room and gently pluck away, quite unselfconsciously, in a manner that's not typical for him. The ukulele's peaceful appeal is completely unlike that of any electronic device that competes for his teenage attention. I find it reassuring that Nathan appreciates that. Lanikai picked a very appropriate slogan, it seems to me, and I can just imagine how happy I'd be if I nibbled a nice muffin while listening to Nathan pluck away on that thing. Pretty darn happy, probably.    :)


About this recipe . . . 

This recipe adaptation brings together ingredients I am perennially crazy about--brown sugar, buttermilk, Marcona almonds (softer and sweeter than regular almonds), dried cherries, and plump, dried apricots. It's an adaptation, I suppose, of several muffin recipes that have wandered into my life over the past year or two, but I think it harkens back most directly to this recipe that I adapted from a Peter Reinhart muffin last summer.


This new muffin's differences include a focus on almonds (including the nuts themselves, along with almond extract, and a small amount of almond meal in place of some of the flour); the addition of sweet, dried, Michigan cherries, and dried apricots; and, some whole wheat flour standing in for a portion of the white flour. These bake up nicely and, when broken open, reveal a tender crumb that's soft without being cakey. The moisture from the buttermilk and brown sugar really give these a longevity that most muffins can't boast. Not too bland, nor too sweet, they're just right. I love them.



Brown Sugar Buttermilk Muffins with Marcona Almonds, Dried Cherries, and Dried Apricots

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Yield: 18 regular size muffins (or, at least 9 jumbos or 36 minis)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Use baking spray liberally on 18 regular size muffin cups, or use paper liners. (Actually, if I were you, I'd use some baking spray even if I were using liners at the same time. Overkill? Maybe. But why take the chance? I spray the stuff on the top of the pan too, before filling the cups with batter, so any overflowing batter doesn't have a chance to glue the muffins to the pan's surface. Let's just say I've learned my muffin lesson in the past.)

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
1/2 whole wheat flour
1/2 almond meal (This means finely ground almonds. I buy this stuff, inexpensively, at Trader Joe's or make it myself in the food processor from whole or blanched almonds. Just don't over grind the almonds accidentally into paste!)
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt (I used coarse kosher salt; if you use regular salt, you might want to decrease this measurement slightly.) 
1 small pinch of ground nutmeg (I like to use fresh and grate it myself. Much nicer smell and fuller flavor. I buy whole nutmeg from Penzey's, and I use a tiny little hand-grater that I found at Bed Bath and Beyond.)

1 and 1/4 cup buttermilk (I'd suggest you keep a couple of extra tablespoons on hand to mix in just case the batter seems unusually thick to you.)
2/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs, large
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract 

1/2 to 3/4 cup dried cherries, roughly chopped 
1/2 cup Marcona almonds, roughly chopped (I buy these at Trader Joe's, too. They come in small plastic containers, salted and roasted, and packed in a small amount of oil. They're extremely tasty, but not cheap.)
1/4 moist, plump, dried apricots, roughly chopped (The softer and moister the better. Super leathery apricots are not so good in a muffin.)


In a large bowl, evenly combine all of the nine dry ingredients (not including the fruit and nuts) with a whisk. 

In a small bowl, mix together all of the chopped fruits and nuts. Remove about 1/4 cup of this mixture and set it aside; you'll use this to sprinkle on the top of the unbaked muffins. 



In a medium size bowl, whisk the eggs lightly, then add in the buttermilk, oil, and extracts. Whisk until well combined.




Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour all of the liquid into it. Stir just until no big streaks of dry ingredients are evident. Use care not to over mix. 



Sprinkle in the fruit and nuts and stir gently just to distribute them fairly evenly. 


Using a portion scoop, if possible, put the batter into the muffin cups. My regular size cups were pretty full, as the photos show. Sprinkle a pinch of the fruit and nut mix that you set aside onto the top of each one. 




Bake the muffins in the center of the oven for about 15 -20 minutes, or until nicely golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (If you tend to have trouble with your muffin bottoms burning, set the muffin pan on top of a cookie sheet when you put it in the oven.) Let the muffins cool in their pan, on a rack, for no more than a few minutes, then carefully remove them from the pan to cool the rest of the way on the rack. 

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There's a lot of enthusiastic chatter in the food-blog world lately about cherries. After all, they're in season right now; have you noticed? Because if you haven't, you'd better take heed--those little beauties won't be around long.  I'm talkin' fresh sweet cherries. You know, the kind that grow on real trees.



Gosh, I love 'em. You too? Yeah, I can see that you do. Besides eating cherries, I  also love picking them, in part because the trees themselves are so exceptionally pretty. They're kind of small and their diminutive nature seems to invite one to come closer.



They endear themselves by being so approachable, and cater even to little kids in this respect. Could they be any more charming if they tried? I think not.


A few days ago, my family and I went picking in a northwestern Michigan orchard, while visiting my in-laws' cottage on Torch Lake. A huge inland lake, it's in one of the most beautiful areas in the state.





It's also in the middle of cherry country, which spreads out for miles around. I'm always kind of thrilled whenever our visits up north coincide with cherry season and, this summer, fortunately for us, the crop ripened a little earlier than usual. It made the picking almost too easy.



Lush branches, heavily laden, leaned down to accommodate even the most minimal effort. In some spots, the cherries clustered into big shiny bunches, mimicking grapes. Standing beneath the branches and gazing up, with a hazy sun poking through the almond-shaped leaves, was a delightful thing.


If you ever get the chance to pick them, you should jump at the chance. There's nothing in the world like the taste of a really fresh cherry just plucked from the tree, wiped clean, and popped into your mouth.

 Of course, after picking the cherries, I longed to bake with them sooner rather than later, but because of the alarming heat wave sweeping this part of the country, I couldn't contemplate it seriously until we got back home into air conditioning. So, I tucked a few pounds of the cherries, unwashed, into the fruit drawer of the fridge where they were likely to be undisturbed, and on the day we left they were carefully packed into a cooler with ice for the journey home. They arrived here in very good shape, thankfully.



Now, though I know it's not original in the least, I decided I had to use some of the cherries to make muffins yet again. (Yes, I know. It seems I'm on a major muffin binge this year. Can't help myself, I guess.) Specifically, I needed to bake these muffins.


About this recipe . . .

A splendid vehicle for the combo of sweet black cherries and the lighter, milder Queen Anne cherries. these jumbo muffins are substantial and flavorful. Who knew that brown sugar and buttermilk could complement fresh sweet cherries so completely?


Adapted from Peter Reinhart's book, Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers, I adjusted the spices (added in a pinch of cinnamon and of nutmeg) and the flavorings (instead of using all vanilla extract, I used half as much vanilla as indicated, and added in a small amount of almond extract).  Instead of using dried fruit in these muffins I used only fresh fruit, and I chose canola oil instead of melted butter. I left the base of the muffin essentially alone because, I figured, why tamper too much with perfection? (I was about to substitute in some whole wheat flour, but held back at the last minute.) And, predictably, I reworked/reworded the instructions a bit to reflect exactly what I did.



I've mentioned Peter Reinhart before, in a post on challah bread, and I have to reiterate here that I think his recipes are exceptionally reliable, and the books of his that I've spent any time with are remarkably well worth reading. (This may make me sound like a groupie or something, but I must admit I feel profoundly lucky as a baker to have easy access to his knowledge, experience, and overall philosophy through his writing. This guy knows what's what, and he clearly loves sharing what he's learned. Valuable stuff.)



These muffins are jumbos because the recipe seemed to merit that kind of heft. But large or small, I think you'll like them. From this recipe I got nine jumbos, but if you don't want the huge guys, I assume you could easily get 18 modest regular-size muffins out of this batter. 

  
Jumbo Sweet Cherry Muffins

(For a printable version of this recipe, click here!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pans with paper liners and spray the inside of the liners with baking spray. This recipe will make 9 jumbo muffins, 12 generous regular size, or 18 smallish regulars.

3 and 1/2 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt (I actually used 1 scant tsp. kosher salt)
2/3 cup canola oil
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar, tightly packed (I used light brown)
2 large eggs
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 pinch ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 and 1/4 cups buttermilk (I used regular buttermilk, not low fat)
 2 cups of pitted, coarsely chopped, sweet cherries (I used half black cherries and half Queen Anne)
coarse, or granulated, sugar (optional)

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a medium size bowl. Add the brown sugar and whisk it in thoroughly.

In a large bowl, mix together the oil, eggs, vanilla extract, almond extract, and buttermilk. (I did this by hand, and my muffins turned out great, but Reinhart instructs doing this part in your mixer. You decide!)

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until the dry ingredients are absorbed.

With a portion scoop, fill the muffin cups about halfway full. Using your hands, sprinkle on that a couple tablespoons worth of the chopped fruit and gently pat it down into the batter. Scoop another glob of batter atop that. Sprinkle the remainder of the fruit over that. If any batter remains in the bowl, dab it equally over the top of the muffins. It's fine if some of the fruit is exposed and not buried in batter.

Sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar or granulated sugar if you like.

Place the muffin pan on top of a baking sheet, and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 375 and bake for 10 minutes more. Check the muffins to see if they're browning too quickly; if they are, cover them lightly with foil. Bake the muffins until golden brown, and until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Mine took barely 30 minutes to bake. I also checked them with a toothpick inserted in the center to ensure they were fully done.

Let them cool in the pan, on a rack, for a few minutes before attempting to remove to the rack to finish cooling.


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Summer--so they say--is briskly approaching, though I must say you'd never know it in south-eastern Michigan this week (please excuse me a minute while I stow away my soggy umbrella and put on a warm sweater). I'm giving this very rainy month of May the benefit of the doubt, though. It seems the least I can do. There are signs everywhere--unmistakable signs--that summer wants to arrive.


What kind of signs, you ask? Well, currently my favorite sign is a devoted mother robin. She built her nest in an ill-advised and completely unguarded location in a slim terracotta flower-pot, which hangs on the wooden fence that borders our driveway. After much quiet sitting on two lovely sky-blue eggs, her babies hatched a few days ago. This morning as I type, the chilly raindrops hammer her with no mercy, yet she remains huddled and completely still over her little birds. It seems she has the faith that she was born with, knowing without a doubt that warm weather is not far away. She's calm and hopeful. I choose to trust her instincts.


So, proceeding on the optimistic assumption that the days of hot sidewalks and lemonade stands aren't too distant, I've made a bright pink, tart-cherry, frozen yogurt. Yes, folks, 'tis the season to dust off your ice-cream maker and begin pondering the gorgeous possibilities for homemade summertime ice creams, sorbets, and fro-yos.


In scouting for the right recipe, I encountered several designed for use with fresh sour cherries; David Lebovitz, for example, has an easy formula in his valuable book, The Perfect Sccop. But I wanted one that called specifically for frozen cherries alone. Early in April, you may recall I mentioned having stumbled upon an extraordinary sale on frozen tart (aka sour-sour-sour!) Michigan cherries. I bought three large bags, used one of them to bake my son Charlie's 17th birthday cherry-lattice pie (which, by the way, was darn good), and stashed the rest in the freezer. Naturally, I wanted to use some of them again.


So, this week, I incorporated them into a cool, fresh, and appealing treat. The frozen yogurt recipe, which I've adapted here, was inspired by a recent post in a beautiful food blog called The Whole Kitchen.

My recipe differs from The Whole Kitchen's in that I used all frozen sour cherries, versus part sour and part sweet; I used superfine sugar instead of making a simple syrup; and I used Chambord raspberry liqueur instead of tequila as the minimal alcohol component. I also adjusted the ingredient proportions a tiny bit. The use of Greek style yogurt, which The Whole Kitchen recommends,  lends an especially pleasant creaminess that wouldn't be so evident with the use of a regular, lower-fat yogurt.

Speaking of cookies . . . 

And what goes better with a small scoop of something sweet and frosty than a charming cookie? Crunchy and wheaty without being overpowering, these lean happily toward the healthier end of the cookie spectrum.


I must admit that I love hard cookies that require a lot of chewing, something I may have divulged to you previously. I'm like a canine with a milk-bone dog biscuit that way. Can't help myself. The longer you bake these, the longer it takes to gnaw on them. (Not into gnawing? Want your cookies softer? Just take them out of the oven before they get too golden, and consider making them a little thicker to start with.)


The  recipe is one that I adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, a substantial and satisfying volume that I've mentioned before (most recently here, just a couple of weeks ago). I changed it up slightly by substituting a small amount of honey for some of the sugar, and instead of using all  whole wheat flour, which makes for a heavy duty cookie that doesn't always have broad appeal, I used about 60 percent whole wheat with white flour for the balance.


These cookies are rolled out and cut with cookie cutters, but the dough--which must be briefly chilled and is kind of sticky--is very forgiving and can accommodate a good bit of flour to make the rolling and cutting process pain-free.

Happy slurping and crunching! (And bring on summer, please!)

Tart-Cherry Frozen Yogurt

(For a printable version of this recipe, and the cookie recipe below, click here!)

1 cup fully frozen sour cherries
2 and 1/2 cups frozen sour cherries that have been mostly thawed
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups Greek style yogurt (I used Trader Joe's brand)
2 Tbsp. Chambord raspberry liqueur (or a comparable liqueur like kirsch, for eg.)
Fresh lemon juice to taste (I used at least 2 tsp., maybe more)

In the bowl of a food processor, puree all of the cherries along with the sugar; pulse a few times until well combined.




Add in the yogurt and pulse to combine. Then add in the liqueur and pulse to combine, and add the lemon juice to taste.



Pour the mixture into a container and cover it tightly. Chill it for several hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Prepare the frozen yogurt in your ice cream maker according to its specific directions. (In my ice cream maker, which is the Kitchen Aid attachment to my mixer, I slowly churned the chilled mixture for 30 minutes. Then I poured it into a glass container, covered it tightly with plastic wrap, and put that in the coldest part of my freezer for at least 24 hours to firm up. The yogurt was nicely scoopable and not too hard when I took it out of the freezer the next day.)




Crunchy Honey Wheat Cookies 

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. honey
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup All-Purpose white flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the butter, sugar, honey, and salt, then add in the orange juice, vanilla extract, wheat flour, white flour, and baking powder.  Beat until well mixed.

Flatten the dough into 2 equal disks, wrap them in plastic wrap, and chill them in the fridge for 30 minutes or more.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper.

Taking one disk of dough from the fridge at a time, roll the dough out on a floured surface into a circle about 14" in diameter. Use cookie cutters to cut out any shapes you like. It's okay to roll and re-roll the dough scraps. Repeat with the second disk of dough, or freeze it dough for use another time.

Place the pieces on the cookie sheet; they can be fairly close together as they spread very little. Bake them for about 12 to 15 minutes or so, checking them early on. Reverse the tray from front to back in the oven after about 7 minutes for even baking. If you'd like crispier cookies, bake them longer, until they're quite golden. Let them cool on a rack.



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