Grape jelly

To make homemade grape jelly, one has to start with good quality grapes. Our grapevine gave us lots of beautiful concord grapes this year. Although a bit too sour to eat plain, they have a deep rich grape-y taste. We've allowed the grapes to fully mature on the vine and soak up as much as sun as possible to develop that wonderful flavor. We've also refrained from spraying the vine with pesticides and insecticides.


We harvested the grapes from the vine and removed them from their stems. After thoroughly washing the grapes, they were now ready to be processed. The plan: Homemade Concord Grape Jelly. It's the best. I just love the sweet and tart flavor combo.


We make our all natural grape jelly with concord grapes, sugar, water, and fruit pectin. Each pint of grape jelly contains a pound of concord grapes. There is real grapes in here!!! :o)


Unfortunately, there one disadvantage to this grape jelly. Once you taste it and experience the intense grape-y flavor, it's hard to go back to store bought jelly. With that said... Got sandwich bread?

Apricot Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

I was in the mood for something “healthy” to snack on so I decided to make these oatmeal muffins. The last time I made these muffins, I used dried apricots and almonds. This time around I substituted sweetened dried cranberries for the almonds to make the muffin fruitier. The original recipe uses the oats as-is which is what I did when I first made them. I wanted to try something new and decided to grind them finely, to give the muffin a less coarse texture.

These muffins are not overly sweet (which I enjoy). They are wholesome and delicious. Wrap the muffins in a couple layers of plastic wrap and freeze them, to enjoy them later. Just take however many you need from the freezer, pop them in the microwave for a few seconds and you’ll have a great, fresh muffin.

Apricot Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

Recipe adapted from Blue Ribbon Baking by Marjorie Johnson

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 cup old-fashioned oats, ground (I used a spice grinder)

1 cup buttermilk

½ cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

½ cup dried apricots, chopped (cut into small pieces with scissors)

½ cup sweetened dried cranberries

2 tsp turbinado sugar (natural raw sugar) for decoration, optional

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• Line a 12-muffin pan with paper cups.
• In a medium bowl, combine ground oats and buttermilk. Let sit while getting other ingredients ready.
• Combine the apricots and cranberries in a bowl and cover with hot water to plump them up. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
• Add brown sugar and egg to the oats and buttermilk mixture. Whisk until smooth.
• Drain the apricots and cranberries. Add to batter and stir to combine.
• Add flour mixture to the batter and stir to combine for about 10 seconds. Do not over mix.
• Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin cup about ¾ full.
• Sprinkle a little turbinado sugar on each muffin.
• Bake for 19-24 minutes or until a skewer inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.

Yields: 12 muffins.

Happy Baking!

Apple Almond Cake

When I read about the recipe for the Apple Almond Cake on Dragon's Kitchen, I couldn’t wait to try it. Never before have I had a dessert that combined apples and almonds so this was my chance to make it (and eat it). I have to thank Deeba of Passionate About Baking for posting her version of this cake on her site which I visit frequently otherwise I wouldn’t have found it.

I’ve tweaked Dragon’s recipe a little bit. Instead of yogurt, I used sour cream and I added a little bit of heavy cream. I also prefer to use almond oil instead of almond extract. Because almond oil is much stronger than almond extract, I usually substitute 25% of the extract with oil. With only one medium apple and one small apple sitting on my kitchen counter, I had to cut the recipe in half and bake it in a 6” springform pan. This worked out very well. The cake came out very moist. I would classify its texture as somewhere between a soft fluffy cake and a dense pound cake. The almond-cinnamon-sugar topping was truly the icing on this cake.

Apple Almond Cake

Recipe adapted from Dragon’s Kitchen

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp salted butter, room temperature (don’t add salt to recipe)

3/8 cup sugar

1 egg

1/8 tsp almond oil

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ cup sour cream

1/8 cup heavy cream

1 medium apple + 1 small apple, peeled, sliced thinly

1/8 cup sliced (unblanched) almonds

1½ Tbsp sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 6” springform pan.
• Cream butter and sugar until pale colored and fluffy.
• Add the egg and the almond oil. Mix until fully incorporated.
• Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl.
• Add the flour mixture in two steps. Add sour cream and heavy cream after adding the first half of the flour mixture.
• Pour batter into prepared pan and arrange the apple slices on top.
• For the topping: combine almonds, sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle the topping over apples.
• Bake for 50-55 minutes or until cake tester inserted in middle of cake comes out clean.

Yields: 8 servings.

Happy Baking!